Frank had earned himself a break after a fall semester of senior year that had proved remarkably taxing, both mentally and morally. His college applications were all submitted, from what he could gather not everyone at Heller hated him, and there was no indication that anything was going to go wrong in the following year. It wasn't easy to forget that just a few blocks away, there stood Heller looming proudly above the rest of the neighborhood, but Frank tried his best.

He and his parents had prepared a delightful dinner for Christmas Eve, roast lamb with mint sauce and English trifle for dessert, and Frank took the opportunity to stuff himself and politely avoid any dinner conversation that insinuated there was something about school he wasn't telling them. They played cards for a bit afterward, and in their food comas they all went to bed early.

Frank was awoken by a knocking at his door, and before he could rouse himself to check who it was, a pallid apparition of Tom phased through the door, not stopping long enough for Frank to process the implausible physics. This apparition stood tall above Frank, who by this point had opened his eyes fully and sat upright, and announced in a sonorous voice, "I am the ghost of Christmas Past!"

"OK, I get it, Christmas Carol. That trifle really hit me hard. What is it, O wise one, you have to show me tonight?"

"Come with me, Franklin," Tom said.

"Just Frank is fine, if I'm being honest."

"Come, Frank!" Tom shouted, a gale of icy wind blasting Frank.

"Fine, fine! I'll come," Frank said, and he took Tom's offered hand, and before Frank knew it he and Tom were walking down the stairs of the Lake Tahoe house to look over what appeared to be Tom and his parents. The fireplace was lit—unthinkable in summer—and Bing Crosby played softly. Tom appeared young, not older than ten or eleven, and the three of them were opening their presents.

"This was the last Christmas we had as a family, before my mother left us. Look at how happy we were! I knew nothing but happiness back then: I hadn't yet learned the meaning of betrayal, of suffering. What I would give to be a child again, who had no particular ambition in life but collecting all the Pokemon."

"It is a nice image, Tom, but why are you showing me this?"

"When was the last time, Frank, you experienced pure happiness? When was the last time you lived freely without a care in the world?"

"A few hours ago, only, I was having dinner with my family. They mean everything to me. If that wasn't pure happiness, I don't know what is."

"And tell me, Frank, what was on the back of your mind through dinner? What did you do immediately after you left, before you went to bed?"

"Why, I had emails and club presentations to write, and Juliet had texted me earlier asking for my advice on something, and then at some point my dad was asking me what this thing about a 'caste system' he had heard about from one of his friends was, which got me really angry because I dislike that wording, and—"

"Enough!" Tom shouted again, chilling Frank to the bone. "Your mind isn't empty like mine was then. Your body may be at home, but your mind is at Heller. Let's walk down to them—they can't see or hear us. Take a look, Frank: what do you see?"

"A young Tom, wearing a Santa hat."

"Wrong: you see someone who's never had to ponder a tough question, but doesn't care. He doesn't seek out challenge, and he's content with what he has. You see someone who's never restless, and who would never lie to his parents or engage in mental gymnastics to convince them of lies. Why do you do this, Frank? Why do you choose to be someone so tormented by your thoughts?"

"I am not tormented!"

"You are having a dream where you are Scrooge and one of your classmates is taking you into his childhood. Tell me that's not being tormented."

"So what am I to do about it? You're right: this is who I am now. I can't enjoy the simplicity of a family moment without there being something or somebody dragging me away. It is sad, I agree."

"That is a decision you will have to make for yourself. Let us go now. You've learned what you had to learn."

Frank stood a moment among them, seemingly lost in thought. "Can we stay for a few minutes? The room is warm and they're playing 'White Christmas.'"

"Leave! You have not earned this!" Tom moaned, towering above Frank.

"Bah, humbug! Next time. There's always a next time," Frank mused, and together they walked back up the steps.

Frank was awoken again by knocking on his door, and he sat bolt-upright, hoping this time it was a flesh-and-blood visitor and not another apparition. His hopes were dashed when Ernest phased through the door, floating a few inches above the carpet with a ghastly pallor. This made Frank's heart drop: a real ghost!

"I am the ghost of Christmas present!" Ernest announced in a quieter voice than Tom had, and without any hesitation Frank pulled himself out of bed.

"What do you have to show me this time, Ernest? I never thought I'd see you again, and especially not in this condition. You've looked better."

"Let's visit my house. It's been a while and I want to see how my parents are doing." This offer seemed fair to Frank, who took Ernest's hand and followed him out the window, where they flew across the city. It was a clear night, and Frank could see scattered Christmas lights illuminating the houses below. As much as he tried, he could not pick out any particular landmarks: everything was too dark, too blurry. A few minutes later, they landed outside Ernest's home and walked inside.

"My sister is asleep by now, but my parents should still be awake. We always celebrated Christmas, but we never took it too seriously. Still, it's a joyful holiday. This will be my first Christmas without them. Isn't that sad?" Ernest said mournfully.

"I can only imagine. I'm sorry for their loss. Is this altar for you?" Frank asked, pointing to a traditional Chinese altar with dimly lit incense.

"Long story short, yes. It's one sort of tragedy to mourn a dead parent. But to mourn a dead son—someone with his whole life ahead of him? You cannot move past that. Not ever. It's the sort of wound that scars. I want to know, Frank: are you sorry?"

"Sorry? Sorry for your death? It's very tragic—I am pained by it—but I had no part in it. I was told it was a heart attack. I did not assassinate you, Ernest, if that's what you're getting at."

"You may have not held the weapon that killed me, Frank, but you played a role in it. The coroner said it was broken-heart syndrome. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. I had so much stress that kept in my heart that it grew a few sizes too large, all bottled up in there, that at some point it was too much to bear. I may have been too cowardly to confront you about it, Frank, but I wanted to. And that only added to my burden."

Frank did not immediately respond. He walked over to the family room, where Ernest's parents were watching a Chinese historical drama. The faint smell of incense pervaded the air still. His parents did not seem happy, judging by their resting facial expressions, but they did not seem sad either. They must have been habituated to the smell of incense, the ritual of its lighting having lost its emotional impact through repetition. They undoubtedly missed Ernest—what parents would not miss their children? But clearly it was not hitting them as hard as it was Frank, sensing the distinct absence. The void.

Frank kept walking, not even waiting for Ernest to catch up and launch into another spiel. He had never been to Ernest's house before, but it did not take him long to find Ernest's bedroom. The bed was made and his papers were still on the desk; if not for the fact that there were no Ernest sleeping in the bed, it could have been just as if he were alive.

"Do you see what I've missed because of you, because of everyone at Heller? I had a life ahead of me—a good life. Now, nothing. Tell me, Frank: what's Heller like today? This isn't a trick question: I have avoided the place of my death for a full year now. Has there been progress? Redemption?"

"Well, Ernest, I have good news and bad news. I don't think this is the right time. Perhaps there's never going to be a good time. But I want to collect my words first and think about how I want to tell you this—I promise I will, someday."

"Your restraint is remarkable, and truly out-of-character. Perhaps it is what you said, that the future is what we make today, and that the past is prologue. And here I was, expecting you to launch into some long-winded speech oversaturated with metaphor to try and convince me that your new efforts to recreate 1984 or Brave New World or some other dystopia were really for the greater good."

"Well, about that..."

"I don't want to hear it, Frank. No more fun and games. I think you've learned something about the costs of what you've done, costs that can't be worked out on a balance sheet or swept away in a corner. Just because you don't see my parents, or my sister, daily does not mean that they don't exist—that the trauma is irrelevant just because it's festering unseen. Even for those alive at Heller, what darkness might lurk in their hearts? Madeline was one of my closest friends at Heller—have you ever talked to her?"

"Once or twice, but I got the impression she never liked me much."

"Just because you're the de facto ruler of the roost at Heller doesn't mean you have the people's hearts. It's a victory on paper only. We will meet again, Frank, even if the conversation is more one-sided. Let's take you back home."

Frank woke up again to knocking and knew immediately what was to come.

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary..." Frank began, and in walked a clearly adult version of himself who appeared about fifty or sixty. There were some specks of silver, but he maintained a youthful vigor even in his age—his face showed no signs of internalized guilt, or any ghostly pallor that made the paranormal aspect of his appearance explicit.

"'Tis a visitor, tapping at your bedroom door, only this and nothing more. Mr. Barnes, for clarity's sake—it's a pleasure to meet my younger self. Ah, this place brings back memories!" Mr. Barnes began, offering his hand for Frank to shake. Frank took this offered hand, which Mr. Barnes shook vigorously.

"The pleasure is all mine. Where are we headed tonight?"

"Our condo down in Palo Alto. Traffic should be light at this time of night. My car's parked out front."

"No magical teleportation or flying through the sky?"

"I'm a time-traveler, not a ghost. So we're stuck doing this the old-fashioned way."

Mr. Barnes drove a gray BMW that looked like it had just gone through the car wash; it looked like it could have been fresh from the dealership, if not for the dust on the back seats and the empty coffee cup in the front. Frank looked around inside for any details at all that could let him infer anything about the elder Mr. Barnes's personality, but beyond his polo shirt and slacks, noticed nothing beyond a continuing love for business casual.

"So when you say 'our' condo, whose place are we headed to?" Frank asked, already having some idea of the answer.

"Yep, it's her. Thought you'd be done with her by now, right? Well, as it turns out, sometimes the past isn't prologue: it's a present, bittersweet truth."

"So how are we visiting your place if in the present, that apartment is occupied by someone else?"

"Time travel, I'm telling you. These streets may look the same to you as they always have, but we're advancing forward in both space and time. This future, at least the timeline I'm from, looks remarkably similar to your present—perhaps it's better that way."

"How poetic." Frank and Mr. Barnes continued in silence to the condo, Frank too consumed by the metaphysical implications of his journey and too tired by the lessons he'd already learned to engage in small talk. Mr. Barnes hummed showtunes as he drove, showing no signs of being perturbed or intrigued by his unusual passenger.

Mr. Barnes's condo looked modern and well-furnished, and it was clear that they did not lack material comforts. A Steinway baby grand rested in the corner by the miniature Christmas tree, next to a shelf of piano books, and there were twin Pelotons nearby—Frank was surprised they were still fashionable. But the main star of the show was in the study, and Mr. Barnes gestured dramatically for quiet.

"We are invisible to her, don't worry. Isn't she still so beautiful? I think she could have been a model."

"Juliet would be flattered if I said that to her today. It's nice to see that your marriage is so happy—some would say that a term like 'star-crossed lovers' is appropriate. I mean, people joke now that we'd make a good couple, but I never realized it was destiny. I guess I learned to love her."

"We learned to love each other. But understand that this is just one future timeline. A different Mr. Barnes, one from a sadder place, might have come to show you something else. But if you ask me, it's hard to do any better than this."

"Well, how did we get to this timeline? You say this is a happy one: I've always been a sucker for happy endings. Is this the sort of deal where I need to kill baby Hitler?"

Mr. Barnes chuckled again.

"Just keep doing what you're doing and things will work themselves out just fine. You know, I can't even say for certain that there are multiple timelines. Perhaps no matter what we do, we end up here—would that really be a bad thing though?"

"I can't say. Is there anything else you wanted to show me?"

"Let's go to my bedroom to see something. It's almost morning." Mr. Barnes led Frank to their bedroom, and the rapidly rising sun and setting stars outside were somehow the least implausible elements of the moment. Somehow Mr. Barnes and Juliet were sleeping in their bed, all as the other Mr. Barnes and Frank watched from the door.

"It's almost 6. Just wait for it," Mr. Barnes said, and Frank did what he was told. At 6 on the dot, the alarm clock rang from the desk, playing the "I Got You Babe" alarm from Groundhog Day.

"Clever," Frank said.

"We've had that alarm for years now. Brings a tear to my eye every time. We'd best give them their privacy now, but I hope you learned something."

"You've told me pretty much nothing after we spent such a long time getting here. Where's the sage advice? Where's the wisdom about the future? Is the only reason I'm here letting you gloat about how awesome your life is?"

"If I told you anything of deep import, you wouldn't have to learn it for yourself. And that's the real moral of the story. You've already had to do a lot of introspection and make a lot of tough decisions to get to where you are today, and you have a lot more ahead of you. Rumor has it I'm not the first visitor you've had today, but I'm your last. You guessed it: I'm the ghost of Christmas future."

"But that doesn't answer anything!" Frank shouted.

"That's the truest answer of all. Here's looking at you, kid," Mr. Barnes said with a thin grin, and just like that Frank was in his room, waking up with Debbie Reynolds's good morning wishes. His boring room, with no more ethereal visitors, just a full day ahead of him. He still had his Christmas message to write, something for his dear followers to chew on a bit. The usual pleasantries came easily to him, in a routine he'd done hundreds of times before, and so did the last words: "God bless us, every one."

Discussion Questions:

Do you think Frank bears any resemblance to Scrooge?

What lessons do the three ghosts have for Frank?

This is clearly a bit of a non-canon chapter, but what connections might there be between this and all that's come before?