He had read them all-repeatedly-even the bad ones. On the bookcase were precisely sixty-three books. Just down the stairs from where Tom sat conversing with his paintings was a simple bookcase, old and lovingly carved. “We could hang it up on the wall to remind us of him.” “We can keep his portrait, you know,” suggested Fyodor. Normally, these faces comforted him, but their frozen expressions, however well or poorly done, only served to make him feel very much alone today. A few more faces lay unfinished off in the corner leaning against the attic wall. Around the table, the other portraits looked on as well: Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Walt Whitman, and Oscar Wilde. There had been a picture to follow in the encyclopedia, but still, it was a good likeness. Still, Tom was proud of that one-the first time he had painted one of his friends in a way that seemed to capture the spirit of the man, William Shakespeare. The coy smile and clever eyes he found there, frozen in time on the canvas of his portrait, seemed very out of place with his gentle words. “I can no longer make out all of the words.” Gazing at the book with a distant look in his eyes, Tom reached out to touch the loose pages before him with a soft, slow hand, much like a father might reach out to touch the face of a dangerously ill child. “The ink has been fading for years now,” said Tom. “How much can we still read?” ventured Charlotte, her voice quiet.
#Ghost stories cracked
The volume was open, its binding cracked and frayed, and its pages slightly askew. Centered on the oval table around which they gathered lay an old copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
#Ghost stories windows
Though sunlight cascaded down through the open windows spreading a warm glow throughout the room, it could not overcome the palpable heaviness that weighed on them today. The Literary Master’s Circle had gathered once again in Tom’s attic for its regular meeting-every third day, without fail. “So what are we going to do?” asked Charles, his voice grave. Silent, simple, and blissfully predictable. Nothing to disturb the visual silence.Ī short time later, Tom sat down at the plain, timeworn table to eat his plain, timeworn dinner. Opening them, he returned to the safety of life as it was: a shuttered room where the light from a dingy lamp in the corner shed an off-yellow glow that cast a reassuring flatness across the room. Whenever this memory lived in him, he felt alive, but the feeling was painful-too deep and sharp, even after so many years.Ĭlosing his eyes tight, he struggled to take control. Tom looked on a room where the gentle colors of twilight were invited in to paint their warmth over life and family. He tried not to see the kitchen through eyes still charged with remembrance-tried and failed. With a resigned breath of determination, Tom stepped into the shadow, opened the door to the whitewashed farmhouse, and walked inside. At least I’ve learned to let it pass.” It was a lie, of course. Shaking his head to disperse his dark thoughts, Tom whispered, “At least it passes quickly now. Frozen like his spirit so many years ago. Tears fell, freezing like rivers of ice intothe cracked lines of a wizened face.
#Ghost stories skin
This was fitting-that he should feel in his skin and his bones what he felt in the darkness of his soul. Shivering, he closed his eyes, inviting the cold to engulf him while the muscles in his face strained with the intensity of his thoughts. On this day, her birthday, an icy November wind cut through his worn and faded flannel shirt, chilling him to the core. Once again, he has returned to the place where she fell. Around him, the charred remains of a roofless barn stood grim and silent. Breathing in the darkness, a solitary man knelt in the dust. Thick and black, as if the earth had banished the moon forever. One autumn day, he discovers another presence in his home that forces him to face the secrets of his past.
In this short ghost story with a twist ending, a man, haunted by dark memories, spends forty years living alone on an isolated farm.