This is a small little drabble set on a loosely based Halloween, Samhain, Allhallowtide. Whichever you wish to call the day where the spirit world and ours become thinner.
I've tried to add as many little Halloweeny things as I could!
Samhain, Allhallowtide, Halloween the day was similar but different was what he found as he wandered the old house.
Ingleside was the same as ever, romantic papers covered the walls above the wainscotting, and dark green in the dining room with silver leaves. Mother always loved that paper, while Father's study was a new deep maroon. Mother finally got him to redecorate it seems.
The electric lights flicked as he walked by them, the old victorian house with numerous doors and shadowy corners.
He turns into the kitchen, gleaming in a way that only Susan Baker could make a kitchen. Even with all the little hands and voices that echoed off the walls like memories.
There were pumpkins carved on the table and a tray of pumpkin seeds toasted with salt in a large bowl. Jack-o-lanterns, with crooked smiles and one with teeth of a vampire another of a raven. Walter smiled at that one quoting him to himself.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"' Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.
The stairs that should have creaked, didn't this time around. Maybe they finally had gotten fixed? How long had he been gone? Were they expecting him? How long did it take for him to make it home? Who were these children that graced the walls of the stairwell and on the mantle?
Toothy grins and what appears to be various colours of hair from dark nutty tones to bright and light coppers.
His old room is taken and he sees the blonde hair of Faith Meredith next to his brother's ruddy hair. So Jem and Faith really did tie the knot he thought.
Across the hall in Rilla-my Rilla's old room was shocking at most as he found his baby sister curled up and into Kenneth Ford, hair spread over his bare chest as she slumbered. The curve of her stomach was telling as the ring on her finger glinted in the moonlight from the window.
Married with a child on the way? Then he spots a small cot in the corner, a child, maybe a year or so old sleeping in its stomach. Reddish curls, and little pearls in their ears, meaning it most likely was female.
She opens her eyes looking at him, the same grey he knows well enough from another as she rolls in her blankets to stare up at him. Her teddy bear in the lace-covered cot, a small pillow that seemed to be made out of an old monogrammed handkerchief, again something much his sister would do.
She coo's at him, as her grey eyes peer up at him. He hears his sister stir, as does her husband. He fades into the wall, not wanting to disturb them any longer.
How strange that was, wasn't she still only seventeen with her heart on her sleeve? Hoping and wishing things beyond her world? Whatever happened to that little tyke she looked after as well? Maybe he was around here as well somewhere?
He turns around, facing the next room which is shared. There is a gaggle of children bundled together in beds, curls tied off in rags, and socks falling off their feet. There is a mix of strawberry blondes, ruddy coppery auburn and inky black on the pillows, hugging dolls and teddies as they slept.
Drawings are all propped up on the dresser.
Walt, Jem Jr, Annie, Bertie, Diana, Susie and another one with the name Rose on it, he reads looking over the drawings and sketches of the children. Ghosts and pumpkins, witches on brooms flying in the air. Tombstones with poppies on them, etch into his brain enough that he takes a step back, through the door once more.
Another room, another door. His other sisters are sleeping across the bed holding onto each other as they often did. He frowns watching them, didn't they marry? No there is a ring on both of their fingers he looks and sighs to himself.
Jerry had planned to marry Nan, maybe he was called away? Though Di was more a mystery to him than ever at this point.
He travels down the hallway, to the old garret. Not expecting to find more of his sibling. Shirley and a pretty woman in a bed made up on the floor. It took him a moment to realize there is a brown-haired child between them.
All of them were married, children and yet he was still stuck forever in a moment that had changed his life forever. How would they react if they woke up to him standing over and watching them? Alive as one can be, in the haunting hours of this evening.
He looks over to the old garrot window, where yellow eyes glowed at him. He nods his head to the feline companion of someone at Ingleside. He reaches for a feather that was in his coat pocket and waved it around until the feline comes silently towards him with silent precision, the only tell-a-tale sign was the tinkering of a bell around its inky black throat.
He watches another one of his sibling's slumber break slightly.
"D'artagnan," he hears Shirley mumble. "What did you see boy?"
He ventures back down the stairs,
He turns down the hall, to the old boy's room across from his parents, which was still open a small crack as it always was since he was a child.
His parents are there, older than he remembers, grey in their hair and lines on their faces, his mother is sitting in the old rocking chair. Her hair down in a braid as she rocks, she looks right at him, but see's right through him. She doesn't have the sight yet, not like the young infant does.
He watches her, as she gazes upon his old portrait with loss and remembrance. Shaking her head as the book in her lap falls to the floor.
He wants to pick it up for her, but he can't as she whispers out into the lull of the night.
She sleeps on soft, last breaths; but no ghost looms
Out of the stillness of her palace wall,
Her wall of boys on boys and dooms on dooms.
He does not recognize it—which makes him frown. Wilfred Owen—Poems from the War. Poetry has gone forward without him it seems. Something he can no longer read for himself.
The Piper is framed on her vanity, another photo of him going to a formal at Redmond beside it. All dressed up, with Di on his arm in her evening gown. Beside it is a photo of a wedding, upon further inspection it's one of Rilla in her bridal gown standing next to their mother and father. He can picture the photo in colour in his mind as if he had been there when he hadn't. It's still a strange thought that his little sister had married Kenneth Ford of all people.
His mother stands up, picks up the book and places it aside. Looking over at her sleeping husband with a shake of her head. She looks at him for a moment, queerly once more as if she can see him, but not see him at the same time. He was nothing, he was just a shred of her past who haunted the house on this day.
"I must have been dreaming," she whispers to herself.
"What are you doing out of bed Anne-Girl?" He hears his father says half asleep.
"I swear for a split second that I saw Walter standing there watching me, but of course, it was just my imagination, Gilbert-dear," Anne says as she surrenders herself into his arms.
"I am sure that he is with Joy in heaven Anne-girl, happy and at peace with himself." His father says.
He hasn't seen Joy, and all he did was linger between worlds, waiting for this night of hallow to walk the halls of this old house.
It's the same every year the cross-over, the house except each year it is different. Different babies, sleeping arrangements and couples. Children grow, adults grow older, and photo's change and disappear, reappearing with new ones like magic.
The house is redecorated and changed, yet the old piano forever stays as he looks at it with longing.
Every year it was the same, though less caught sight of him and his glimmers. The youngest is too old, and the eldest is far from the age to have their own children just yet. Each year the time drags on, and the later they stay up. Children dance in paper costumes or lounge with their sweets. Girls giggled and boys told ghost stories, as the elders laughed and shook their heads. Still, the walk is all the same when midnight comes.
This time, there is commotion in the attic, giggles and shrieks. White nightgowns that seemed to come from old trunks, not the colourful plaid or floral flannel that they have worn before in their rooms.
"Grammy says ghosts can visit on this day," One says airily. Red hair and up-turned nose—grey eyes. She had to be Rilla and Ken's daughter, she had to be.
"You believe everything Grandma says Rilla," An older one rolls her eyes. Did Rilla really name her daughter after herself?
"Then why does she always have us over, Annie!" The younger one shrieks indignantly.
"Quiet please!" The nutty-haired one says, crouching over a board game that said Ouija. "Now hurry up, if we want to do this."
"Don't be so bossy Diana!" Rilla Ford says sticking out her tongue.
"Daddy says that this is witchcraft," The youngest dark-haired child says.
He watches with curiosity as they push forth a paddle to letters.
The night is ending as he goes back to his Mothers bedroom. The photos are still there, his poems and a pile of old letters on her dresser. His old snapshot in his uniform, was still all there, like years past.
Her head turns to him with peculiar knowledge as if she knows that he is there. She smiles to herself as she rocks in her chair. Her hair is white, and her eyes are paler than ever.
"Hello Walter," she says quietly. "Come again have you? I hope the girls aren't causing too much havoc with that spirit board of theirs?" She says.
He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.
"Is it my time yet? No, not yet it appears, just hints of shadows still for you and me. Rilla used to see you as a child, she would try to tell Lillian about you but it was never something." She speaks to him.
"I wrote the other day, wondering if I see you this year or not."
Autumn leaves, dry, yellowed and red
Footsteps in the hall that have no tread
Cool breezes and waves ahead
Of all the words left unsaid
By the haunted dead
For those who drowned and bled
It all tied together with a thread
First Poem is the Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.
Second is Wilfred Owen- A Kind Ghost
The third poem is self-written by myself.
If you enjoyed this, leave a comment!
Tina
