Ghosts are real; this much I know.

The first ghost I ever saw was that of my father at the age of ten.

My father had been killed before I was even born, and my mother, Edith, remarried soon after. The reason I know is because she would always remark how much I looked so much like my father, never Dr. Alan McMichael's daughter. Then one day at the age of five I asked about this strange curiosity. My mother revealed the mystery only saying that my real father is in Heaven with my grandfather and grandmother. I asked about his family, and all my mother said was that my father and his sister were only children when they were orphaned. She never said anything more at the time, but revealed to me much more in my later years when I asked. My mother had nothing to hide; she was simply disturbed by her past. I understood this better than most. My name is Saraphina Tomei Sharpe.

My step-father, Dr. Alan McMichael, I came to know as my father since he raised me with the love of me as his own. Even so, he and my mother had a child-my brother, Nathaniel McMichael- at my age of ten. In fact, the very night my brother was born is the night I saw my father's ghost.

All I knew prior to encountering my father's spirit was that it was because of my Aunt that he was dead. What had happened between my parents, my real father, and my aunt remained an enigma to me, but the real inquisition remained: why did my father come to see me?

I did not know the reason until it was too late.

The room was dimly lit; screams were heard into the night of the busy mansion in upstate New York. Midwives ran about with sheets, towels, and buckets of cleaner water for the birth in the master bedroom. Alan was hard at work, tending to his wife's labor. Outside in the darkened hallway, the night flashed lightning, rocked the thunder in the furious abysmal sky as rain poured against the windows. The streets were as black as obsidian, but the outside world was drowned out by noise and sight. A ten-year-old girl sat at the end of the hall in a lush chair, upright and bored at the surrounding excitement. Through thick eyelashes that flicked up at the screams, russet eyes looked broodingly forward to the door a dozen feet directly in front of her. With the moonlight and dim lights in the hall, the empty hallway was darkened completely.

The girl was not afraid of the evening, though it was a perfect horror for most. No, what the girl feared was something far more irrational as she seemingly thought. She knew with the birth of this new child that the good doctor would no longer love her as his own. She sat there reminiscing not even from a week prior to the birth of the scene.


Flashes of bright sunlight beamed in an open field, butterflies flit about with the ladybugs and various beetles. Dancing to the wind Sara's hair flew like a flag draping eloquently like a liquid. Her gown was billowing to the breeze. Sara had pitch black hair, like that of the finest ebony silk and velvet. Raven-like eyelashes adorned her bloody-amber chocolatey eyes against the palest of tanned skin. Her smile was bright and her hair was tied with a tiny ribbon that Alan had bought her. He laughed with her, for they had a family picnic that day, and it was pleasant weather. Alan tossed a cricket playfully at Sara, but she dodged away. The cottonwood fluff made it look like there was snow in the fair weather. The lightning bugs started glinting in the dying evening. Alan's smiling face was at peace, his ruffled dirty blonde hair crumpled in his hands as he brushed it back. Though he wore his typical work clothes of decent trousers, a vest-complete with a bronze pocket watch, and a poet's long-sleeve shirt, he looked relaxed. Edith sat next to him, leaning on him on top of the blanket in the tall grassy field, as Sara pranced about. They truly are a family.

Sara sat beside Alan panting her breath in even, but rapid, paces. Their laughing had stopped but the gentle breeze continued. The sun started to bleed into its sunset. Sara simply asked Alan, "You won't love me anymore will you?"

Both Alan and Edith looked shocked at her statement. "Why on earth would you say that?!" Edith cut in before Alan could say anything.

"Now Edith it's all right," He paused after reassuring her before turning to Sara, "Now tell me Sara, why do you think that I would stop loving you?" He pulled her in so she would lean on him as she side sat. Looking up earnestly, Sara remarked, "Mama always says how I look like my father in Heaven. My little brother will look like you, with hair like gold and eyes like pennies. He'll be strong and dedicated to his work, not 'willful and spritely' as she says I am. I supposed you would love him much better than I." Alan looked down at her making eye contact as she said this.

For a moment, both Edith and Alan remained painfully quiet. Edith bore a face of guilt and shame, stroking her enlarged tummy. Alan looked back down on Sara, still holding her, "I can never love your brother no more or any less than I love you. You are a gift from God to your mother and me for all the heartache we've been through. You are our redemption, a second chance to a life we have now. A life we almost lost, so you are a daily reminder of how grateful we are to have another day to have a blessed and loving family until we die and join our other loved ones in Heaven."

With that answer, Sara leaned in happily against her father's arms, completely at peace. As Sara closed her eyes, Alan and Edith exchanged a quick worried look, but then relaxed at the notion that his words are a true statement of their condition. The sentiment, however, would not last forever…


The carpets had dancing shadows that creeped and crawled like tendrils of smoke from the moonlit windows above them. Sara looked darkly at the angry portraits around her. She wore a black pinafore, her hair half tied neatly back. Sara played with her rosary beads in fingerless gloved hands. The only color that Sara could see in the dark was a glimpse of red from the mahogany clock upon the wall. Screams of pain still echoed out, and Sara continued to sit in silence alone.

When the clock struck three in the morning, everything fell absolutely silent. All Sara could hear was the sound of her heart beating and her breathing in sync with the clock. The warm air that surrounded Sara was gone instantly. The breath that seemed to escape her lungs in an even pace changed suddenly. Shadows that danced stood still, and the light that never wavered flickered in an unholy way.

Sara's quiet scowling self looked like a human beacon in the falling darkness. Not that she was light or dark in nature, rather the fact that she was living made her stand out in the silent pit.

Sara looked up to the crucifix that hung on the wall across from her, she thumbed her rosary praying for her sins, praying for others, praying that she'd did something good so that any atrocity that would happen would be merciful. It was odd; the warm wooden hand carved beads went heavy and icy in her hands. She felt God in her soul and mind, but then her heart seemed to stop at what came next.

Sara held her breath as a white figure emerged from the solid wall before her. Her heart exploded like that of a frightened animal, she felt the devil wasn't tempting, but tormenting the poor girl's spirit-or so she thought.

The ghost was tall and leanly built. The pale Shade wore simple clothes, but that is not what disturbed young Sara. The gaunt looking man had a wound under his left eye that seemed to pour out red effervescent fog, like ghostly blood. Near the waist coat was another wound similar in color and physical nature. All of the misty gases seemed to solidify with each step the ghost took from the wall towards Sara. She sat there, immovable, and though she was incredibly frightened she surprised herself.

Standing she firmly faced the ghost, "In the name of God, you do not belong here so you must leave!" She hissed at a normal volume. The ghost came closer to her, and Sara's determination through the fear made her stand in an attack stance towards the ghost. The spirit was silent and was going to say nothing until it got closer to the girl, but Sara instead demanded, "In the name of God, you must state your name spirit!"

The ghost paused halfway down the hallway, and curiously cocked his head at her. A chilling laughter started to grow in the house as the ghost simply smiled darkly. Sara was highly unnerved, but still remained anchored in her spot. The entity finally came within reaching distance of Sara and it made her blood run cold as he spoke to her, "You, who is so much like your mother, oh my child-you must heed my warning: Don't trust your eyes; for your friend the crow sits among ravens and is not your friend. Your friend the raven sits among crows and is not your enemy. One will trick you and the other will help you, but do not confuse the liar with the gullible."

"Don't trust your eyes," Sara repeated to herself quietly in question. Looking up to the pale shade, she raised her eyebrow inquisitively. The shade simply came close to her and held her against him in the sort of caress a father does a child. The one arm on the upper back pulling Sara in, and the other hand stroking the shape of her round head patting her hair, while Sara's left ear rested on the ghost's solid self where the heart would be in the chest. An odd thing for a non-corporal entity to solidify in this way. Sara heard neither heartbeat nor warmth, but it felt like she was against the coldest metal in the world.

The ghost simply hugged his child, for she was his only daughter. The moonlight came in washing away the darkness that fell. The only whisper Sara heard was an odd blend of her echo and her father's voice saying 'don't trust your eyes.' As soon as she looked up moving her head from the previous position, the shade dissolved into the darkness at the coming of the growing bluish silver light. The spirit was gone, and Sara was left alone to hear the resuming of paused sounds that now made the house come back to life. Like a phonograph, the first sound that resumed and resounded in Sara's ears was the sound of a wailing babe.