An Equestria Girls Christmas Carol

by Draconaquest

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

SUNSET SHIMMER

---

Of all of us, I think I had the hardest job. After all, I had to help a guy who had thrown a Christmas Wreath at my face. Fortunately, he wasn't going to realize it was me. I was wearing stilts to make me seem about six foot seven. I was clothed in a black cloak with a hood, and I was wearing a black fencing mask to hide my face. The other thing is that I shouldn't speak. It's a good thing that we didn't choose Pinkie Pie as the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Upon approaching Scrooge he asked me, "I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?"

I nodded.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"

I nodded again.

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any specter I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"

I showed Scrooge to a street, and then we saw a few men standing chatting with each other. I pointed to them.

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin," I don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. "I thought he'd never die."

"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.

"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know."

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same speaker; "for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?"

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must be fed, if I make one."

Another laugh.

"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," said the first speaker," for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye."

I walked down and pointed down an alley. There Old Joe, a hideous gangster and a few of his accomplices talked.

"What odds then. What odds, Mrs. Dilber." said the woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did."

"That's true, indeed," said the laundress. "No man more so."

"Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman; who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?"

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. "We should hope not."

"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose."

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.

"If he wanted to keep them after he was dead, a wicked old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself."

"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the woman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe."

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come.

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?"

Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock off twenty dollars."

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman.

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains?"

"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains."

"You don't mean to say you took them down, rings and all, with him lying there?" said Joe.

"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"

"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe," and you'll certainly do it."

"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now."

"His blankets?" asked Joe.

"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He isn't likely to take cold without them, I dare say."

"I hope he didn't die of any thing catching. Eh?" said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah. you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me."

"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.

"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied the woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in that one."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you see. He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead. Ha, ha, ha!"

"Spirit," said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. But, show me something I know, if you please."

I led Scrooge to Applejacks house, and I hoped that Applejack was as good as an actor as I thought. We entered her home to find it silent. Granny Smith was sitting in her rocking chair, and Big Mac was fixing the stove. Braeburn must have gone home, as he was nowhere in eyeshot. There was a chair in the corner, carefully preserved. "Not Applebloom." Scrooge said. We sat on the stairs and waited for someone to speak.

Applejack entered the house simply saying, "Hi y'all." She hugged Granny Smith and Big Mac.

"Did it go well?" Granny asked.

"Oh, you should have been there Granny." Applejack said. "It's a place on the hill, overlooking the orchard." She started to break into tears. "She...she always loved the orchard. The smell of the apples. The taste of them. I...I named part of the orchard after her, the north west part. It has the most apples growing there. I...I...I need some time alone."

Applejack slowly walked to the stairs and walked up them, but stopped right in front of Scrooge. I could see her eyes, bloodshot, and filled with tears. I could only imagine what it must be like for Scrooge, as he looked directly into her face, into her eyes. Scrooge moved out of the way as she began walking up the stairs again. For a second, I thought I saw part of her actually pass through Scrooge, but I knew it wasn't possible.

"Spirit," Scrooge began, "Tell me, who was that man who's death brought so many other people joy?"

I guided Scrooge to a graveyard, and pointed to a tombstone. He began to walk toward it when he stopped and turned around. "Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?"

I just pointed at the stone.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."

I still pointed at the stone.

Scrooge crept toward it, and then wiped the snow off of it and then recoiled in horror as he caught a glimpse of what the stone said.EBENEZER SCROOGE

"Hear me, Spirit!" Scrooge pleaded. "I'm not the man that I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?"

My hand started shaking a little.

"Spirit, tell me that this won't be a living tombstone!" Scrooge said. "Tell me that what is written on this grave won't live on! Spirit, please speak to me!" Suddenly, Scrooge passed out onto the ground. Behind him was Rainbow Dash, holding a needle.

I removed my mask and lowered my hood. "Why did you do that?"

"We need Scrooge to think that he's actually been haunted by ghosts, not four teenage girls." Rainbow explained.

"Good point."

"Anyway, I'll get Rarity to help me, you get out of those robes, and meet us at Scrooge's at 7:00."

"Why seven?"

"Because to that's when this sedative wears off."

So, I left and tried to get a little bit of sleep, and prayed that the next morning would be a good one.