Free The Last of the Spirits by Chris Priestley

Lizzie Hunter!’ said Sam. ‘Ring any bells?’
    Marley’s ghost stared, wide-eyed.
    ‘That’s right!’ said Sam. ‘You killed our parents as sure as if you’d shot them.’
    ‘I was the bullet, not the trigger,’ said Marley’s ghost. ‘Your father –’
    ‘Don’t even talk about him!’ yelled Sam. ‘You haven’t got the right!’
    ‘Listen –’
    ‘Come on, Liz. Don’t be scared. He can’t hurt us. He can’t do nothing. Can you?’
    Marley’s ghost furrowed his brow and looked as forlorn as a tragic mask from the theatre, his great mouth gaping.
    ‘Come on,’ said Sam, and he pulled Lizzie forward, and they both stepped through the body of the ghost. It felt like stepping through a cold damp corridor filled with ice-coated cobwebs.
    They emerged on the other side shivering, not just in their bodies but in their very souls. Neither Sam nor Lizzie felt inclined to look back, even when the ghost called after them, shaking his chains.
    ‘You’ve seen the last of Sam and Lizzie Hunter!’ shouted Sam over his shoulder, without looking round.
    Sam laughed, so happy to be free of it all, and Lizzie laughed along with him. They hugged each other as they walked away, ready to take on the familiar demons of the London night.
    ‘Sam,’ said Lizzie as they passed beneath the shelter of an arcade, ‘do you think that boy will live? That Tiny Tim?’
    Normally such a question would have prompted a long lecture from Sam about the perils of caring for others when no one cared for them, but perhaps the magic of the Ghost of Christmas Present still lingered, because on this occasion Sam merely replied, ‘I hope so, Liz. I really do.’

With each step they took away from Scrooge’s house, the more the night became simply just another cold and foggy Christmas Eve. Though it was a night that had set out to choke them with its icy fingers, it seemed to hold only ordinary fears.
    Sam was cold but still his step was light. He felt as though the noose had been taken from his neck and that he had leapt from the scaffold into a new life. He had seen his fate and changed it. He had seen his own death and walked away.
    London seemed like an old friend to Sam now, instead of a bitter enemy, and those who had known the fierce boy of the day before would have been startled by the smile he wore on his grimy face.
    The children found shelter in the porch of the very church whose bells had signalled the spirits of the night, and were roused in the morning by the deacon, who wished them a merry Christmas by way of a kick and a curse. The good people of the parish didn’t want to see homeless urchins on feast days. It was bad for the digestion.
    Sam and Lizzie walked, blinking, into a bright Christmas morning of dazzling clarity. Sam felt hunger begin to claw at his stomach.
    ‘What are we going to do now?’ said Lizzie.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Sam. ‘We’ll think of something.’
    Lizzie raised her eyebrows at that ‘we’ll’. This change in her brother was going to take some getting used to.
    A baker whistled to them and gave them a loaf of bread, wishing them a merry Christmas. Lizzie laughed as Sam shook the man’s hand and thanked him, and the man laughed along with her. Sam didn’t seem to mind.
    ‘Merry Christmas, Liz,’ said Sam as they walked away, eating the bread.
    Lizzie stopped and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
    ‘Merry Christmas, Sam.’
    They looked at each other, and all that they had lived and known seemed to pass between them in a fleeting moment. Lizzie was the first to break the silence.
    ‘I can’t stop thinking about what we saw,’ she said.
    ‘I know,’ he replied.
    ‘But I’m still glad we saw her, Sam. I’m glad we saw her talk and saw the old house and the river. I know you don’t –’
    ‘No, Liz,’ he said, clasping both her shoulders and looking into her eyes. ‘I’m glad too. Honest I am.’
    Behind them, a butcher had opened his door to an excited, red-faced boy,