Some sort of something (ghost story)

[Medesha]

So this just kinda popped into my head tonight. I'm not sure where it's going, but I had to write it out before I lost it. Then I liked what I saw so I thought I'd post it here. Comments and feedback are appreciated. It is, as yet, untitled.

[Medesha]

May 14th, 2005

He wants me to go away with him. I don’t know what to do. Why did he have to ask me in the spring? If he’d only asked me in the winter I’d have turned him down without hesitation. When I picture the glassy surface of Merrik’s Pond surrounded by virginal white drifts, it seems perfectly easy, perfectly reasonable to say no. No, I will not go. But when tear-buds, pale green, yellow-tipped, withered and pinched these last few weeks and now, just now, beginning to open, to flower, bob outside my window – how could he! It is cruel of him to ask me in spring.

So say yes, of course, is the thing to do. Say yes while the sap in my veins is flowing so strongly. But the Lady will disapprove. I can picture her gaze now, flatter and icier than Merrik’s Pond ever could be, even in the very throes of winter. Or worse – she never gazes at me again! She disappears utterly, or comes as always but never speaks and keeps her back always towards me. Why must there always be choices in life? Everything was so simple and beautiful before, until he came and ruined everything. I should hate him, but treacherous spring is on his side.

Things made sense in the past. So I will return to the past and hope I can find myself again. Perhaps then I’ll be able to choose. Life without the Lady is unthinkable, unbearable. It would be as if a fire roared through me and burned up everything worthwhile. And yet – to say no to him! To have him go away! It would cut the bloom off of everything, shunt the tips of my roots. I would stay with the Lady, yes, stay – and stay – and stay!

I must make a choice. He will be here soon. So I shall look back to how it all started, the day I became myself.

[Medesha]

June 22nd, 2004

Nobody really lives in the country anymore. Not the way they used to. In the olden days, people would live in the country even when they lived in town. I picture small white houses in my mind, blue shutters, picket fences, dogs and children travelling in boisterous packs without fear of being snatched or purchased. Women hanging laundry on lines – men smoking pipes. Does anyone smoke a pipe nowadays?

Mr. Hamer does. Mr. and Mrs. Hamer I think must be the only two people living in the country anymore. Mr. Hamer is not a farmer, he is a carpenter – or was. I believe he is retired now. Mrs. Hamer baked me a pie and brought it up this morning. Mr. Hamer stood behind her with his pipe in one hand and the thumb of his other hand hooked through the strap of his overalls.

“To make you feel at home, dear,” Mrs. Hamer said, and I took the pie and said thank-you.

Not that this place will ever feel like home. The house is two stories and has more windows than it really seems to need. The walls are wooden and seem thin – when I first saw this place I thought of the phrase “frame house.” I don’t know what a frame house really is, but this place has thin walls and skinny window-frames that someone painted primary colours years ago. With no apparent rhyme or reason – the living room has two blue windows, two red windows and one yellow one. From a distance the house looks like a Mondrian painting with a porch.

The porch wraps around the front and left side of the house. It has a one foot gap underneath it where you can see the ground, and then hollow plank steps leading up to the front door. I stood on the porch this morning when Mrs. Hamer gave me the pie.

“We reckon you’ll be comfortable here,” Mr. Hamer said. “It’s a safe place for a lady to live on her own, and no one’s around to bother you.” (Mr. Hamer is also the only person left who says “reckon”.) He put the unlit pipe stem between his teeth. It jutted out from his mouth like a piece of straw.

I thanked them again and said I was sure I’d be comfortable and that it already felt like home. The bottom of the pie plate was very warm and I kept switching it from hand to hand.

“We’re just right next door,” Mrs. Hamer added, which means their house is three miles away. “If you need anything, just run over. We’re just pleased as punch to have company again. Since young Harry moved out it’s just been the two of us.”

“Thanks,” I said for the third time.

“We’re right sorry about what happened to your folks,” Mr. Hamer added solemnly – so solemnly that I believed him. I believed him more than I believed Aunt Mary’s tears at the funeral. “Hope this place’ll give you a bit of a rest.”

“I’m sure it will,” I said. “Thank you.”

They waved and walked away. I went inside and put the pie on the counter and went back to unpacking. The upstairs bedroom is calling me, and I’m going to go finish it and then try some pie. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

[Medesha]

June 22nd (con't)

I think I’m going crazy. I must write this out because I need to say it – saying it, writing it, makes it real. I’d call the Hamers but I don’t have a phone yet, and I’m not going to walk three miles in the dark to tell them I saw a ghost.

I fell in love with the upstairs bedroom the moment I saw it. It’s really two rooms. The door opens in the center of the west wall, and from the doorway I can see a long stretch of maple flooring, then the big brass bed tucked against the north wall with a white lace coverlet thrown over a down comforter. A dresser stands to my left, and on the opposite side of the bed is a small nightstand with a vase full of dried flowers on it. The eastern wall is a panorama of windows veiled in floor-length gauze, like a row of waiting brides.

The far right corner of the room opens up into an alcove. It looks like it might have once been a walk-in closet but someone knocked the door out and put windows in the east and south walls. I’d seen a desk in another room, a scarred old hardwood desk with a hole in the surface for an ink-pot. The lid lifts on it so I can store pencils and things inside. I moved it into the alcove and it fit perfectly. I could sit there and write and look out the windows, but right now I am at the kitchen table, writing by candlelight. I wouldn’t sit at that desk for anything.

I am writing by candlelight because the power hasn’t been switched on yet. I took a candle up to bed with me tonight; the two slices of rhubarb pie made me very sleepy. Sinking into bed felt great after a day of hefting boxes and washing floors. I think I fell asleep almost right away.

And then I woke up. It must have been around midnight – what other time could it be? The window nearest my bed had come open and the curtain was blowing over my face. I sat up, thinking I should get up and close the window.

And then I saw her, sitting at the desk, her back to me. For one bizarre moment I thought it must be Mrs. Hamer. But then I saw this was no woman. She was a girl with gently sloping shoulders under a white blouse. I saw her curving white neck and the dark curls pinned up on her head. Yes pinned, somehow I could tell. And she was writing with a quill pen.

In the next moment I realized that something was wrong. Either a stranger was in my house or – something was wrong! I felt my heart stop entirely for a second and I broke out in a cold sweat. Nothing really compares to the unshakable knowledge that the natural order of things has been disturbed. It’s like suddenly realizing gravity isn’t working anymore, or dropping a piece of buttered bread and having it land butter-side up.

I must have moved or made a sound, because her head dipped as if she were about to glance over her shoulder. And then she was gone, vanished, as if she’d never been there at all.

I scrambled out of bed and ran downstairs. As soon as I’d left the bedroom I felt better. After writing this I feel almost calm. Surely I must have imagined it?

And yet – the pins. The quill pen. I don’t believe in ghosts – I don’t!

But I’m sleeping on the couch tonight.

[Zarni]

That's good stuff, I want to know more. What's this girl's history? Who is the guy asking her in spring? (presumably 'The Lady' is the ghost woman) But what was the girl writing...?



Loving your description and imagery, by the way.

[Medesha]

Thanks, Zarni. I appreciate the feedback (and kind words!)