The Ghost of Sweetwater Garden
It was not love that brought me to Sweetwater Garden; but it was love which kept me there.
I had just finished my schooling and had my sights set on teaching, which would supply enough money for a fellow to live on and also leave me enough spare time, I hoped, to cultivate what I was beginning to fancy an actual talent for painting – the work I felt which God had moulded me for. So it was this, the search for a sustainable income, which in my sixteenth year brought me to Star’s Crossing to earn my living as schoolmaster there – and here it was that I became acquainted with the Sweetwaters.
Missy Sweetwater was the only one of the Sweetwater children in my room – the boys, during this harvest time, were required to stay home and help on the farm. The Sweetwater’s stead is where I was to make my home for the next year while I taught – Louisa Sweetwater, Missy’s mother, was a distant cousin of my mother’s, and I suppose she had convinced her husband that a boarder who was related and a schoolteacher to boot was a respectable and profitable thing. Truly, perhaps it was just Christian guilt for the early death of a cousin she had never known, and the son she left behind.
At any rate, here I was in a sleepy little town whose small one room schoolhouse seemed lonely and desolate. By day I taught students from age seven to one aged nineteen – a lovely girl named Mary whose lover, so ran gossip, had died at sea, leaving Mary to decide an education would now be the only way out of oppressive Star’s Crossing. By night, I would feverishly paint by flickering candlelight that shot demonic pictures onto my bedroom wall, at once frightening me and yet having wonderful effects on any piece I was currently working on. Sometimes, I would foolishly dream of Mary. Soon any respectable female in my work had her glossy chestnut hair and deep dark eyes.
Of all those whom I lived or worked with that autumn, however, Missy Sweetwater was undoubtedly my favourite. She and I would take long walks in the smoky evenings, talking of anything that could possibly trouble a seven-year-olds’ little mind. There were times when I could help her wrestle out answers for herself, but as with all humanity, there were times when even the teacher must shrug his shoulders humbly and say, “We must only trust He who created us.” One such time was when Missy asked if I had proof of a life other than that which we knew.
“It troubles me so much sometimes,” she said, blue eyes cast down and rosy lips in a slight pout, “Because we have so little time here; I’m sure I won’t have time to do everything I want. And if I knew that there was another life after this, perhaps I could decide what things I could leave until then.”
“Perhaps,” I regarded her seriously, “You should do just that; Delegate, if you will, the most important tasks and make sure you do them in this lifetime. Then, you will have the most important things done either way. But, Missy, if you are a good girl you know you will go to Heaven, and have a wonderful life there.”
Missy frowned. “But Miss Elizabeth didn’t.”
“What do you mean, Missy? Who is Miss Elizabeth?” I asked curiously. I remember so distinctly how the fallen leaves shuffled at our feet, a golden crinkling following each footstep. It was a colder October day, and the wind had a clear, fluid quality that made you think that if you were thirsty, surely if you drank greedily enough of it, it would satisfy your thirst.
Suddenly Missy’s eyes lit up with their usual sparkle and she innocently took my hand.
“Come; I will show you.”
Missy led me back to the Sweetwater home and then to an orchard on the back of their property. As we came to the ending of it, I could see dense forest not far beyond – the same forest I could see at night from the westerly window in my bedroom. I knew that this was where Missy was leading me: suddenly breaths of air tickled my ear, tantalising as if it wanted me to enter that gloomy caste of evergreens. I became frightened at once, and began pulling the child back in the direction of home.
“Don’t worry, teacher,” she said in a wise tone. “It is scary at first, just because you have never seen her. But Miss Elizabeth is lovely, when she comes.” She frowned and continued in a more subdued tone. “For all the fright you feel entering the forest you can never be sure if she will be there or not. But I’ll tell you the story with or without her.” This with a decided voice and pulling on my hand with a force unnatural in a child of her age and build. Suddenly, it was as if night had fallen over a quiet world. We were within the trees, walking rapidly towards – well, what, I didn’t know. I only followed Missy dumbly, feeling the destination pull at me and wondering what was about to happen. Of course, I cautioned myself, I must not let myself be carried away by the fancies of a child. Most likely Miss Elizabeth was an imaginary friend that had comforted a small girl surrounded by only brothers on a busy farm.
After a time we came upon a clearing where the sun managed to shine a few weak rays through the thickness of tree branches. I was amazed to find, in a haphazard circle where the sun hit the ground, what seemed to be a garden of pale flowers. They were like nothing I had ever seen before – large flopping petals that swayed with the slightest breeze and painted soft pinks and azures. I had never seen anything so strange and beautiful – that unexpected garden cultivated in darkness.
“Here we are,” Missy stated in a hushed voice. “It’s Miss Elizabeth’s garden – this is the only place she ever comes. There is her seat – ” Missy pointed to a moss covered throne of fallen tree – “And these are the flowers she has grown.”
“Missy, how – how did these flowers grow, away out here in this gloomy place?”
The child shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps you can ask Miss Elizabeth sometime. But not today – she’s not here, you know. I guess she won’t be coming.” She sighed slightly but then blithely lighted onto the fallen tree trunk. “Would you like me to tell you the story now?”
I nodded as I walked a slow circle around the patch of flowers. They certainly did seem ghostly, and they added an air of credence to Missy’s story that otherwise would have been very unbelievable.
“All I know of it is that Miss Elizabeth was terribly disappointed once – so disappointed that she always comes back looking for something that left her. But she only comes to this garden, our garden, but it’s not very often. When you do see her, it is such a treat because she is so pretty, with such beautiful golden hair.” Missy paused. “Well, at first, anyway. She only stays in the garden a little while and then leaves, not to be seen again for ages and ages.”
Missy began kicking the tree slightly with the backs of her heels, which I supposed indicated the end of the story. “Missy,” I asked her. “When was the last time Miss Elizabeth showed up here?”
She suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Oh, a long time ago, now. I don’t even remember, really.” Missy slipped off her perch and once again grabbed my hand. “Come. We must go back before mother misses us.” I let myself be led out of the woods by the little slip of a girl, but now the seeds of interest had been planted and I was determined that I would go back there, and soon.
At dinner that night I reflected upon Missy’s story, and how unsatisfying it was. I felt caught up in a whirlwind of desire to know more about the story of this “Miss Elizabeth”. I ate absentmindedly, barely registering the exuberant chatter of the family as they enjoyed their meal.
After dinner, as she began to clear the table, I decided suddenly that Louisa might be the perfect fount of information on her daughter’s strange tale. I followed her into the kitchen, and she turned towards me delightedly.
“Michael! You do know, don’t you, that by stepping into my domain you have agreed to help with clean up?” She laughed and playfully tossed a rag towards me. “There, you may help me dry the dishes.” She plunged her dish-laden arms into a sink full of soapy water and began washing, handing dishes off to me.
“Be sure to not drip water on the floor,” she warned me as I grabbed the first plate from her.
“I won’t,” I assured her, wiping quickly at the plate. I was unsure as to how to bring up the subject – how does one seriously ask their family and hostess about the truth behind a ghost story?
“Mrs. Sweetwater?”
“Yes?” She smiled her lovely smile at me; a smile that seemed filled with love. A lovely thing to see. I swallowed.
“Today Missy took me for a walk. She took me to what she called a garden – Miss Elizabeth’s garden.”
Louisa laughed. “That old tale! Why, I haven’t thought about it in years. However did Missy hear of it?”
“I don’t know,” I told her eagerly. “But do you know anything of it?”
“Oh, only what everyone in this settlement knows. It’s a fable told at firesides since before I was born. The tale goes one of the earliest settlers was a child named Elizabeth, whose family had forced her to move here with them and leave her sweetheart behind. Apparently he wrote her that he was coming to live here as well, but never appeared. Elizabeth, so it goes, went mad, staying at the shore and watching the water until she just … wasted away. And apparently now she haunts our garden where that shore once stood,” Louisa laughed again, shaking her head. “Where do our young ones come up with such ideas?”
That night as I stood over my canvas, I experienced a sudden urge to throw it and all my paint out the window. Instead I replaced the current canvas and began afresh, painting a blue-green background absently, unsure of where my compulsion would lead me. Subconsciously I noted that rain had begun to fall lightly, scattering lithe little sounds on the roof above me like mice scampering through the walls.
I don’t know how long I spent at my window painting by candlelight; I only know that when I finished the rain was coming down in torrents now and a fierce wind was throwing the trees by the Sweetwater garden into a frenzy. I stepped back from my painting to examine it with an odd sensation of coming back to myself after being away a long while. It was not often that I fell into this kind of trance while working.
Looking over the canvas I was pleased, but for all the good work I had done a chill trembled down my spine. I had painted the scene before my window while never looking at it – painted it as it looked right now, tempestuous and storm-tossed. Had I somehow felt the coming storm?
But I had not only painted the scene that now stood before me; no, I had painted a beautiful woman walking serenely into the darkness of the patch of evergreens. A white dress hugs her voluptuous figure, wet from the rain and wind causing it to strain against her body. I only see her from the side, and so her long hair hides her face, rippling swells of gold whipped about by the shrieking aerial forces surrounding her. My breath caught; I had never painted anything such as this. Never. That woman looked about to float out of the canvas and into the room with me. I tried to rationalize it – after all, I had been fascinated by Missy’s story of the blonde-haired spirit who walked the garden. This must be my romantic idea of what she looked like.
I began breathing normally again, setting up my tools and performing general clean up before heading to my bed. The canvas I left where it was so as to dry it. Or perhaps so I could keep an eye on it as I drifted off to sleep. Before snuffing the candles and climbing into bed, though, I had one last compulsion to take a better look at this new painting, surely my best as of yet. As I scrutinized it a flash of bright lightning illuminated the room, and my attention was drawn to the window as if I would see the lightning lick the ground I beheld. But I saw no light. I only saw a girl, a woman in a white dress that billowed around her body. In a moment, she had disappeared behind the trees, her long hair rippling goldenly behind her, caught up by the wind.
I might as well have been sleepwalking the next day at the schoolhouse – I could not concentrate or think in any regular manner. I assigned the children a reading and sat quietly at my desk.
What had I seen the night before? Every woman I knew here would know better than to traverse any kind of distance during a night storm alone – and if they had, surely they would have called at the farmhouse and not continued on into that sinister forgathering of trees at such an hour.
And Missy had said Miss Elizabeth had blonde hair. God, had I been dreaming?
But no, it had all been so real – I had not even gotten into bed. And when I woke it was not with the sense of having dreamed it all, nor of having any dreams that night. I had lain awake for hours afterwards, trying to figure out what on Earth I had seen. I laughed suddenly, startling some of the children. I tried to hide my face as best I could. Who would ever think that the most rational explanation one could come up with was that they had seen a ghost?
I choked down a mad desire to laugh again, coupled with an overwhelming sense of nausea. The thought that fresh air I must have overtook me and I stumbled from behind my desk, muttering for the children to keep their seats, and stepped out into the muggy afternoon air. As I took breath after deep breath of thick air, I looked around for any reason to get out of this accursed schoolhouse and back home so I could think in peace. I found it in a cloud – a dark and forbidding cloud that surely meant another storm, and soon. I hurried back into the schoolroom and dismissed the children, saying a storm was coming up and they must hurry home.
They all left hurriedly and gladly, not one questioning this sudden gift of freedom. Only Missy stayed behind, staring at me with her sombre gaze.
“Teacher,” she asked standing and coming over to take my hand. “What is the matter?”
I tried to smile. “It is only a storm, Missy – nothing to be afraid of, but I felt we should go home lest it kept us at the school and stranded us.”
By now we had begun outside to the path that would lead us home. Missy looked critically towards the cloud I had seen. My heart pounded like a criminal’s.
“It doesn’t look very bad,” she remarked. “But for all that it is nice to be going home now.” She squeezed my hand and smiled up into my face.
“Missy,” I said abruptly. “Have you ever actually seen Miss Elizabeth?”
She locked me with her gaze again, a stare which made me feel she knew things, things I could never teach. Things a child should not know.
“Why? Did Mother tell you I hadn’t?”
“Yes.”
Missy adopted a wise tone. “Oh, Mother is afraid of Miss Elizabeth. She will not let me speak of her. But I’ve seen her – only the once, though,” she admitted. “But I hope to see her again.” She looked around as if expecting the spirit to greet her upon this simple wish.
I cleared my throat, several times. “Missy,” I asked.
“Yes?”
“What did Miss Elizabeth look like?”
“She had the most lovely golden hair – almost down to her waist, it was so long! – and she wore a lovely white dress made of lace, I think. Yes, lace and silk and ribbons.”
As soon as we returned I headed to my room and walked the floor. I could eat no dinner, or read, or paint, or do anything but pace. The ethereal woman I had seen – had she really been a spirit set to walk the garden for eternity? All I could think of was the beautiful hair and voluptuous body wrapped in white cloth. And I longed to see her face with an intensity I could not explain. Hours went by in this same state, unable to do anything but pine and travel the room from side to side.
Then, again, I abruptly tore about gathering materials and set up for another painting. I feverishly painted another four hours, I am sure, before again coming to myself, realizing it was raining and that again I had painted the mysterious woman. It was as if I had been walking with her the night before, and had seen greater detail than one looking from a window could. Still her face was hidden, but now there were hints of profile, an adorable curving of nose, chin and eyelash. As I looked at it my physicality seemed to take over, and I felt things I had never experienced before – a restlessness as I had never felt, my heart maniacally beating and my breath quickening considerably. Again I began pacing, unsure now of what to do or how to process these new sensations. I turned sharply and headed towards my window as a flash of seeming lightning lit the world. Unsteadily I fell before the window, grasping at the sill as I glanced below into the rainy night. And again I saw a woman in white walking into the dense forest. I made no sound – I simply grabbed my heaviest coat and sped quietly downstairs and out the back door.
I cursed the wind as it appeared to propel me back towards the farmhouse; I was chilled to the bone, frightened, could not feel my feet but still was determined to go on. I had an intuition that as soon as I reached the trees the storm would let up considerably, so I set my sights on the entrance to the forest and trudged along, step by heavy step. Still, though, I felt a hesitation within my own being akin to creeping horror and at times would stop in my tracks and glance around uneasily, for all I could see while the water was whipping at my unprotected face. I felt that surely God would protect me, but –something in me was telling me this moment was divine, perhaps destined … but how can a man tell if that voice beckoning him forward is holy or the powers of darkness? Who was encouraging me on and who beseeching me stay? I only know that the same restlessness I had felt in my room was urging me on more strongly than any other force.
Finally I reached the opening and was inside. Just as I had suspected and hoped, the rain let up greatly and there was no wind. At all. I happened to glance above and could see a few shining stars through a rent in the clouds, but no friendly moon to light my path. I carefully picked my way through the mud and shadows, every so often a branch roughly caressing my face, at which I invariably choked back a terrified scream.
My hands trembled as I went, fingers icy cold. Soon I felt my hair twitching. Everything was off and frightening and yet I kept on. I knew I was nearing the garden – if not by my sense of direction then by all of the physical sensations that were increasingly troubling me. Mist swirled around my face, making it ever more difficult to see what lay ahead.
At once I was upon the clearing Missy had led me to the day before; and there she sat, on the mossy tree trunk, shining with an effervescent glow. She glanced up as I entered and her eyes met mine … and I was forever changed. A prisoner of some force I could not see and barely understand. But somehow, I was hers and always would be.
“Hello.”
Her voice – how can I describe it? It was mystery, velvety darkness I heard but could never understand. Beautiful but sad, an anguished adagio of music lamenting something long and forever lost. I was entranced, frightened, and still as stone.
“Hello. Are – are you Miss Elizabeth?”
She smiled, glancing down to where her hands were lightly clasped on her silken lap. “Someone called me that long ago, yes.”
“Are you – who – what are you exactly?” And yet my tone was more curious than horrified.
“I am what you would call a ghost,” she replied, looking down again.
I felt a wave of sorrow so great it overcame me. I stumbled forward, unable to keep balance. “Why?”
“I made a mistake, long ago. I tried to follow him.”
“Who?”
“His name was David. I came here to wait for him.” She glanced towards the sound of the sea. “Now I will evermore hear the moan of the despairing ocean.”
“What did you do?”
For the first time, she gazed directly into my eyes. I could feel her power and almost staggered again.
“It is my fate to be here, Michael. Just as it is yours.” Her face contorted, grew paler, and blazed as if lightning had flashed beneath her skin. To my amazement I was no longer staring at a beautiful woman but a skull superimposed over glowing skin. I don’t remember screaming, or running for my life, tripping over tree roots to get back to the farm as quickly as possible. I only remember that horrible face, and the sensation of waking up the next morning.
When I woke it was with a start, but for all that I still felt bogged down by sleep. Unwillingly I climbed from my bed and began to dress, before realizing that it was a Saturday morning and I need not go anywhere I didn’t wish. I gratefully yanked off my boots and let myself fall back into bed, ignoring the eventual calls for breakfast. I could not bear to be surrounded by the chatter of the Sweetwaters today.
My thoughts whirled in my head as I lay still – how could I explain it to myself? Once again, I knew I had not slept, not dreamed, until after the horrible vision in the night. My boots, when I had pulled them on, had been damp. Had I the sight, then? How could I have immaculately sketched the profile of a woman I had never seen? Had I even actually seen her?
I groaned and rolled around uneasily in bed, the question eventually forcing me out of bed and downstairs regardless of who I must socialize with. I could see it was a fine day – there would be no storms tonight. I staggered downstairs dreading a meeting that never came. The family must have been either working or playing outside. I thankfully rustled up a bite of breakfast and headed out in solitude towards the forest bordering the Sweetwater land.
Again as I approached I distinctly felt forces urging me onward and pulling me back. Still, I kept on, for know I must. Still, I never stopped to think how the daylight would make things different – how could I know I wouldn’t just have another dream-like experience and find some way to explain it all away? Was it really truth that I was pursuing, or did I have a baser interest in that garden?
Soon I was within the folds of the forest and the unpleasant physical sensations of push-pull dispersed. I kept on walking, more purposefully now, until I reached the dark garden in the clearing.
Everything was as I had seen it with Missy; ground slightly sun-dappled with strange and exotic flowers sprinkled around a centrepiece of mossy fallen log. I turned to head back, disappointed, when I heard the voice.
“Hello.”
That same voice that had haunted my dreams – for now I was sure they were dreams, oh yes, I was certain – only insanity would insist it was the voice of a ghost – surely it was dreams and I had only imagined the voice –
I turned.
And there she was.
I saw no skull or any other horrifying vision – just an angelic looking young woman with a soft smile directed at me. Either I had lost my mind or this woman was witch as well as ghost – and she had cast her spell upon me.
“Sit,” she asked in a sweet voice. It came as a command. I sat beside her, shyly even! And waited.
“Michael,” she spoke, and her voice was a caress. “You know you cannot come back here.” I looked into her face, and she smiled as if she was trying to hide it from me. “I never thought you would return after the fright I gave you. You are braver than I thought.”
Praise from an angel! I thought. But oh, God, where was my head? What was I doing?
“Elizabeth,” I began, startled to hear my own voice shaking. “Who are you? You are more than what you seem, for me to be so drawn to you. I could not help but return here.”
“Perhaps you know me from long ago,” she answered, gazing into my eyes intently. I felt the breath taken from my body, and then she sighed in what seemed disappointment. “Or perhaps you have felt something supernatural and ache to feel it again.”
I asked her the only thing my addled brain could think of. “Why are you here?”
“I come to this garden in cycles. I come to it young, as you see me now. And every night I grow older, by bounds. I live the life I should have lived over and over – growing old waiting for David as I should have, long ago.” A tear ran down her cheek, and she smiled somewhat apologetically at me. “It was a very precious gift I wasted.”
I cannot describe what I felt then. I was only sixteen and knew nothing of this world or what lay beyond it. I had never been in love or witnessed any miracles. And yet I felt a miracle, and magic, then. I felt love, I was sure of it.
“I will stay with you,” I said irrationally. I tried to take her hand, could not grasp it.
The ghost – Elizabeth – sighed and looked away. “Michael, don’t you see? I have a stain. I cannot be touched. I cannot touch. I left all that behind long ago. I feel nothing; nothing except a need to sit here and wait for David. It is all I have felt in so long. You remind me of him, a little. Such lovely brown eyes.”
“I will stay,” I repeated, stupidly, unsure of what to say but knowing what I need do.
“No. You will always go.” With that the spirit turned to look towards the ocean and began to fade from view. Again I vainly tried to grasp her, hold her close to me, smell or touch that golden hair or smooth my hand against that beautiful glowing skin, but the law of the universe would not allow it. Madly I threw myself at the disappearing spectre and when she was finally gone, and I realized the full meaning of my plight, I lay down on the ground and wept.
When I returned it was nearly nightfall. The Sweetwaters were sitting around a fire telling ghost stories as I walked in, dirty unkempt hair uncovered by a hat and clothes covered in dirt and grass. Louisa took one look at me and gasped.
“Michael! What ever have you done to yourself?” she rushed over to me, clucking.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just wish to be left alone.”
The last I saw of the family who had been kind enough to take me into their home, they were looking confused, even hurt. But I could react no other way. I must get to my supplies. And I must return to the garden.
When I reached my room I stood a moment, shocked at what I was seeing. It was as if someone else had been in the room while I was gone and painted on my canvases with my hands. They were without a doubt my paintings, with my style embedded throughout, inspired by the flickering shadows on my walls. But where once there had been colourful tones now there was only blackness and red – weird shapes and shadings that gave me more than one idea. Where a moment ago I had been planning for rations for a week in the garden now I knew I would need none. Instead I hurried to the foot of my bed where I kept a trunk of treasured items. It took a few minutes of fevered searching but I emerged triumphantly with the small black sheath in my hand.
It had been my great-great grandmother’s, so my mother had told me. A trinket left over from the Old Religion, something we seldom spoke of at home, and never in public. A ritual tool that had never drawn blood from man or beast.
It slid easily out of its sheath, ancient jewels glittering in the last rays of the setting sun. The blade, slightly curved, was razor-sharp at its point – all I cared about. I slipped it into my pocket and snuck downstairs, again taking the back door off the kitchen as my escape route into Elizabeth’s realm. It was as if it were not I acting at all, but some unseen force guiding my hand. Still, I knew what I was doing and welcomed it. I had never felt such love, such pure infatuation in my life.
It did not take long to reach the garden. This time I felt no such physical forces pulling me back as I had become accustomed to. Only a burning in my chest that urged me on, a vision of Elizabeth glimmering peacefully behind my eyes.
Staggering like a drunk man I reached the clearing just as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon; I was plunged into darkness that suddenly. I stood still as a statue, praying to hear a faint whisper to announce my lady’s presence. None came, and soon I had decided I would not see her – not tonight, not in this place. But I would be seeing her soon.
“Yes, Elizabeth,” I said out loud, with no hopes of her hearing – yet I felt compelled by some strange force to speak my thoughts, “You said I could not stay with you – that you could neither touch or be touched. But what if I committed the same crime as you? And what if I was forever doomed to this very spot, as you?” I turned about on my heel rapidly, still half-expecting to see her beautiful form emerge in front of me. “Then we would be together. Then I would be yours. Elizabeth?”
Still hoping there would be some answer, some reassurance that what I was doing was indeed the right path. But, perhaps I needed to have faith.
I stuck my hand into my pocket and grasped the athame my mother had given me. It felt cool and comforting in my palm. Quickly I slashed at one arm, then the other, quick painless slices that did nothing but bolster my confidence. I would see Elizabeth soon.
“So, you see, darling,” I mumbled, slumping down so the mossy tree trunk supported my swiftly weakening body, “We will not be alone soon. You will never have to be alone again.” I quieted, waiting for the night to come. My surroundings were becoming ever less focused until I could barely see at all. But I was fine, even as I felt my eyes close for what certainly must be the last time. I imagined that my head was held up not by mossy wood but by a silken lap.
Just before I fell into the darkness and met my destiny, God gave me one last gift. I heard Elizabeth’s voice one last time, melodious and beautiful as ever. I was so thrilled she would see what I had done, and know we would be together soon, I could barely make out the words that dropped, seemingly so sadly, from her lips. But, I thought, it didn’t really matter.
“You fool,” she said.
I woke, still lying slumped against the tree. I felt dizzy, disoriented, but otherwise fine. I looked down at my arms and found no marks. But I had the strangest sense of seeing through myself. It was only then I realized what I had done.
Frantically I searched, but found no trace of Elizabeth. Not only that, but I could not leave the confines of the garden – something stronger than my fear held me there.
It was not long, however, before I heard girlish voices. Frightened, unsure of what to do, I hid as best I could in the trees.
A young girl came skipping in, hair tied up with blue ribbons and a dress the fashion of which I had never seen. She glanced around nervously, then turned and called out, “All right, you coward! There’s nothing in here but the trees!”
A moment later another girl stepped through, also dressed strangely, but unmistakably familiar. Elizabeth!
It took all my strength to keep from crying out. Elizabeth wandered in cautiously, then smiled.
“So you see?” Her companion stated gaily. “There is no ghost. I suspected as much.”
“But my mother never lies,” Elizabeth said worriedly, glancing around until I felt sure her eyes stopped on me. She smiled.
“You see,” she continued, “My mother told me that ghosts reside in this garden. And if they ever catch you, they bewitch you.” She turned round and made a gruesome face that caused her friend to shriek with laughter.
“And then,” Elizabeth continued softly, once again facing me, “Once they get hold of you they don’t let go. You must keep coming back whenever they call you. They will keep you there until you waste away, and they will harvest the energy you have wasted, until they are strong enough to be born again in human form. It is even better if they die there – there is much power in another’s death.” Elizabeth’s eyes locked with mine.
Her friend shivered. “Nonsense. You and your mother’s stories. You’re gruesome. Come, let’s go home and make hot cocoa.” She turned and disappeared into the trees, ribbons flapping.
“Yes,” Elizabeth answered slowly, still staring at me. “I will go home and make cocoa with my friend. Perhaps we will meet again someday. Until then, thank you, Michael. Your gift meant much.” Then she, too, disappeared, leaving my lonely and now empty vigil to myself.
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