Day 265 - The Ghosting

 The Ghosting

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

The temperature dropped and the seasons changed and the leaves began to brown. Fall was upon the village; the nights grew longer and colder and dark. The people closed their windows and lit their candles and threw extra logs on their fires. During the day they nodded and spoke their pleasantries, but at night they stayed away from one another and averted their eyes when they had to go out.

Past the fields and across the river, a robed man crept through the burnt ruins of a church. He lay a flower on the ground and tears rolled down his cheeks. He held a handkerchief close to his heart. The wind kicked up and he looked around, half-expecting to see someone there beside him. It sounded as if animals crept through the darkness. The man was not afraid. He kissed the handkerchief and lay it on top of the flowers. He took out a vial and poured a liquid on the ground in a circle around the flower. Finding a mostly intact pew, he sat back and waited.

There had been a battle fought years ago. Those in the village didn’t speak of it or what went on. Every year, every fall, they turned their heads in shame and never said a word. The children wondered why their parents seemed so sad, but no one said a word.

Past the fields and across the river and down the road was an abandoned village. The children were not allowed to wonder there alone.

The apparitions would return. Men in militia uniforms. Crossing the bridges. Guarding the doors. Running through the fields, charging into the forest. Step by step, the same path every year. The villagers abandoned the town and built a new one and tried to forget. But the ghosts remembered. They could not forget.

The robed man sat throughout the night and just after midnight, the faint greenish hue began to form. First as some sort of mist or fog. Then it took shape. A floating apparition. A spectre, there to watch him.

The man opened his eyes and a look of sadness turned to fear turned to excitement. She was here. She was back. He had always known she would return. He had been sure of it. Slowly he stood and crossed to her. She floated down to his level and they wrapped their arms around one another. The man had plans, for her, for the villagers. But first, he shared a moment of contentedness. He sank into the fog as she enveloped him and they were once again together, one. His sweat, beautiful wife returned to him. And the villagers would pay for what they had done.