Two decades before the fall I dreamt of that white house with black shutters, entered the dimness and saw myself – withered, a straw body
Could I have altered the course gathered that mummified self in my arms, breathed new passion into old bones, stopped the onslaught of night of cells freezing passionless
No. I walked in oblivion seduced by false trickery dim-witted in the fading light cold, aloof, unresponsive warnings be damned
Two decades later, body inert, mind bereft of hope – I dreamt of a younger self so intent on life that she passed me by.
“What happens after death?” she asked one Sunday, her long, thin body stretched weakly across the settee, her cousin balancing his dinner plate at her feet.
Sundays they came together, all the family, for Grandmother’s dinners; the warm waft of fresh- baked pies, the clank of dishes, voices raised over old farm table.
He shrugged; it was always a concern – she’d been frail from birth, this girl he loved, two years younger, but in every way his peer – said nothing.
“Let’s make a pact!” she blurted “The first to die will leave a sign.” “Grandpa’s bells!” They shook on it and then, with a satisfied grin she succumbed to sleep.
A more sombre clan gathered mid-week eyes red and faces pale with the shock of loss – no smells of warmth to greet them, just cold platters prepared by church ladies
Slumped bodies, heads leaning close, sipped tea on the place where she’d lain that last gathering – no sound of children’s laughter, the hole too hard to bear.
And when the sound came: metal clanging on metal, ringing a joyous clamour, she was the first to see – Grandpa’s bells stirring – her sign!
She knew then he’d be waiting, told me so before that last breath and as I watched her go, I swear I could hear the far off ringing of bells.
(The Pact was originally published September, 2018. Edited here. Image my own)
My eyes are drawn to hidden places warily seeking the source of this disquiet What beasts inhabit crevices, what creatures lurk hiding in the trees that loom over me?
Could it be the incarnation of trapped souls taunting my passage?
Paint, we vowed,
would negate the haunting,
make the house our own –
selected with care:
sage green and dust of pink –
sanded and scraped,
pulled back baseboards…
same colours there –
ghosts had penetrated
our psyches.
One Woman's Quest 