“Scarlet Jack,” Colin spits the name. “Treacherous whoreson. They said I could trust him. I did, and he betrayed me. Stabbed me in the back, and that is both metaphor and truth.”
“Can you tell me more about this Scarlet Jack?”
Colin hesitates.
I continue, “If you were involved in something that might have landed you in prison, that is no concern of mine. It is no concern ofyours, either, given the sheer impossibility of confining you.” I try for a smile, though I am not certain I accomplish it.
“’Twas not my fault,” Colin says. “I had no choice except allowing my mother and sisters to starve.”
“I understand.”
“I spent a time on the road,” he says, “with others who would stop wealthy coaches and demand payment for passage.”
Highwaymen. I keep my expression impassive and alert, listening to what he has to say and passing no judgment.
“We only took from those who could afford it,” Colin insists. “Those who already had too much, when we had naught, through famine and misfortune. Yet there were some...” He shifts on the bench, uncomfortable. “I found myself with men who were not the gentlemen I took them for. When we stopped the coaches, they were rough with the ladies. They would goad the men into protecting these ladies and then claim they had no choice but to defend themselves by force. I wanted to leave their company, but the work kept my mother and sisters fed. Then Scarlet Jack sought me out with an offer that seemed to solve everything.”
“Scarlet Jack being...”
“A legend. A phantom. A boogey story told round the campfire. They said he was a lord whose parents had been murdered by the ‘knights of the road,’ and so he would disguise himself as one and even rob coaches—distributing the profits among the poor—so that he could pass among us and learn our secrets and turn us over to the proper authorities to answer for our crimes.”
“A counterfeit highwayman who hunted true highwaymen.”
“Yes, ma’am. My confederates had stolen this clock, you see, and they did not realize the value of it, so they only added it to their stash of goods. Scarlet Jack made contact with me and said that if I helped him turn my confederates over to the magistrate, I could have my choice of baubles from their coffers, before the rest was sold for poor relief. I said I wanted the clock. I had it that night—I’d secreted it from the hiding place—so that I could flee as soon as my job was done.”
“Your job being to lead Scarlet Jack to your confederates.”
He nods. “He was to meet me, and I would show him where to find the others. I heard the horse, and I went to meet it, but when I arrived, I found only a riderless horse. Then I was stabbed in the back. The last thing I remember was my killer taking my satchel—with the clock—and leaving me to die.”
“I’m sorry.” I meet his eyes. “I amsosorry.”
I pause a moment—giving his words the weight and space they deserve—before I relate the remainder of the story to Nicolas.
“I was going to give my family the money for Christmas,” Colin says when I have finished. “I knew I would not be able to sell the clock for what it is truly worth—I would not know how to do that—but it would have been a small fortune regardless.”
After I relay this, Nicolas says, “You return each holiday season, then, to wherever the clock is.”
“Yes.”
“Where has it been?” I ask.
It takes Colin a few moments to answer, as if the memories of his visits are patchwork at best, which is understandable, given his obvious confusion. It is as if he passes through in a dream state, walking in his sleep, knowing only that he has a purpose, the memory fading upon waking.
“For many years, it was in storage,” he says. “In a dark place with such treasures. Then it was in a place like this, but not here. Finally, here. It must be possible for me to take it. Otherwise, why would I be returned to it, year upon year? There is a higher power—God or Fate—that wishes me to have it.”
Thoughts on God or Fate aside, I believe what draws him here is his own compulsion. Ghosts remain trapped in our world by unfinished business, usually their murder. Their killer has gone free, and until that killer is named, they cannot cross over. It is not even punishment that is required—simply naming. Their life and their death must be acknowledged.
This young man was murdered, but he has crossed over because outrage over his death does not bind him here. That is true for many—it would be a cruel way to treat a victim if they were all trapped in this plane.
Colin has crossed, yet he is drawn back. Like the ghost Edmund met, who is compelled to return to help travelers at the holiday. Only that ghost recognizes that is an act of volition. Colin does not realize that he is crossing time—throwing himself through the barrier—each year to finish what he failed.
It is not about the clock. It is what the clock represents. He turned his comrades over for justice, and that seems proper, but he may still suffer some guilt. He did it to be free of them in a way that compensated for the loss of necessary income. Betray his comrades, win the clock, sell it to feed his family, and then he could take a respectable job.
In the end, he turned over his comrades and died for it, but it is not that death that drives him: it is the fact that he lost the clock he needed for his family. A family that suffered doubly in their loss of him and the income he provided.
Colin Booth made mistakes. He fell into a dangerous line of work. He joined up with men whose behavior horrified him. He trusted a stranger who betrayed and murdered him. The clock represents all those mistakes. Get it, and he can turn back time. He can’t, of course, but his gut insists this is the way.
“How much was the clock worth in your time?” Nicolas asks, looking in Colin’s direction.