Member-only story
Fiction
Cornelius Clark and the Hungry Ghosts of Christmas
Cornelius has travelled between worlds
Cornelius Clark is a hungry ghost who resides in several worlds. In midwinter, at Christmas time, Cornelius is drawn home to earth; to be precise, Hyde Park in London. Why? Well simply because, as a young boy, Cornelius lived in a large Town House overlooking the Park. His father was Sir Archibald York’s manservant, and the Clarks lived in the servant’s quarters in the basement from 1800 to 1816 — the years of Cornelius’s childhood. Happy years. Years in which he felt at home; before the then unknow disease of Tuberculosis brought his young life to a premature end.
In his childhood, it always seemed to snow at Christmas. Cornelius would play with his brothers and sisters and all the local children. They would have vast snowball fights and build giant snowmen.
Once they built a snow couple getting married. It was Julia’s idea.
Julia was Lord Carrington’s daughter. Everyone, or rather mostly everyone, loved Julia. The boys called her the Snow Queen. Partly because she was so beautiful that the name seemed to fit her, and partly because her father was rumored to have connections to the Royal family. She was certainly posh enough. (A little too posh everyone privately thought, everyone…
