The Ghost and the Thimble

It is a tale of the most wretched winter's night, when a small and shivering mouse by the name of Pip-friendless, homeless, and quite without prospects-finds his weary paws carrying him through the iron gates of the grand but forsaken Grimthorne Manor. There, in rooms thick with dust and memory, he encounters the spectral gentleman Sir Cornelius Ashworth, who has haunted these lonely halls these thirty years past, bound to the mortal world by naught but a silver thimble and the grief of a love long lost. That two such improbable souls-one barely larger than a man's thumb, the other not of this world at all-should find in one another the warmest and most steadfast of friendships is perhaps the greatest wonder of the tale.
And yet greater wonders still await, for with Christmas drawing near, our most determined little mouse will not rest until the cold and darkened manor is ablaze with candlelight, fragrant with the smell of puddings and pine boughs, and ringing once more with the music of celebration. Through their efforts together-earnest, joyful, and not without considerable mishap-something remarkable stirs within those ancient walls; a spirit of generosity so powerful that it cannot be contained, and which reaches out like a warm hand into the frozen streets of Willowbrook to touch the hearts of all who have forgotten what it is to hope.