Member-only story
Candles in the Darkest Places of Memory and Mist
Dreams cannot sustain a broken world.
Sometimes when I lay my head down to the floorboards of the little shack Pa inherited, I can hear the voices of the people who once lived here. They whisper secret stories to me when no one else is listening. And every voice sings to me when I feel too scared to sleep.
I once tried to tell Pa about the voices, but he told me that was witchery and no good can come from dwelling on the departed. The lost are forgotten for a reason. If your thoughts linger on the dead too long, they may just come back to haunt you forever. More than a few men have summoned ghosts in just this way.
Old Elizer down the road mourned for his beloved wife Kateen the summer she drowned in the lake. His sorrow became so great that it called out to her — and now she wanders the banks by nightfall, her dress ripped and covered in rotting vines. I saw her once. And I ran away as fast as I could, hoping I’d never glimpse her again.
Even so, sometimes I wished Pa would summon Ma in just this way. She died in childbirth with my brother who only lasted a day longer than she did. Pa and I buried them both in the fields. I cried and cried, but I never saw Pa shed a tear.
