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ghostmarmot · 24 days ago

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In the Pale Moonlight

The prompt for this was a rural urban legend. Needless to say, it was rejected by that publication (and several others) but it's the first time I tried to write a story both in reverse and about an inanimate object.

Warnings: deaths, infidelity

In the forest outside of town, there was an old farmhouse. For generations, the local test of courage was to sit on a stump just outside the fence and watch the upstairs window in the dark of the moonless night. Sometimes, around midnight, a pale figure will step up to the window, stare up at the sky, point at something, and then fall from view.

No one really knew who she was, although tales abounded. She was the old man's crazy daughter. She was the old man's crazy wife. She was his captive. He murdered her. She murdered him. Aliens took her. Some, of course, got frustrated by the rumors and delved deep into the records, dredging up as much information as they could about the property, owners, and any deaths, but couldn't ever determine who she was. For that, you would have to know the stone tape and where it came from.

Beneath the gaping hole that was the window, there lay bits of stone and wood. Here and there still glinted a tarnished bit of mirror glass, but it looked almost as though someone had thoroughly destroyed a marble-topped vanity and then left the bits where they lay. From the carvings still evident through the rot and woodworm, it must have been a fancy piece. Certainly it seemed a surprisingly expensive piece to have destroyed so thoroughly.

In the early 1900's the farmer had bought it to give to his wife for their anniversary. He had seen an advertisement in the newspaper offering it at an unbelievable price and, though he was a little disbelieving, expressed his interest. Almost before he knew it, the seller was on his doorstep, insisting that, if he just looked at it, he would love it. And they were right. Oh, the marble top was a little worn and stained and something had obviously chewed on one of the legs at some point, but it was beautiful. It was far better than anything he had hoped to be able to afford and, with the seller's written assurances that it wasn't stolen, he snapped it up in a heartbeat.

His wife loved it. She was a stoic woman and to see her in tears was more than he had expected. And then, nothing would stop her from dragging all of her friends to their bedroom to show them, triggering their envy and their husbands' ire. It was a few years before he got the first hint of why the seller had been so determined. His wife was at their daughter's house after the birth of her first child. In the middle of the night, he woke up to a female form in his room. He rolled over, thinking it was his wife coming home but, when she didn't come to bed, he rolled over. He realized the room was completely dark and, with shaking hands, lit a candle. When he found no one else in the house, he shivered, but attributed it to a dream that followed him to the waking world.

The next hint came a decade or so later. The farmer's wife had passed, and the farmer could no longer manage the stairs as easily, so he had passed the farm to one of his sons and relocated to the front room. The vanity, reminding him of his wife as it did, was left in the upstairs bedroom with the understanding that he was lending it to his daughter-in-law and, once he passed, it was to be a part of the property that was to be divided fairly between his children. The son was coming home far later than expected when he saw the pale figure walk to the window, point, and fall. He ran into the house, calling out to his wife and was stunned when she emerged, not from the upstairs, but from his father's room. She had been there for a while, she said, playing cards with his father while waiting for him to get home.

Once more, the house was searched, and once more it was found to be empty of anyone that shouldn't have been there. The son admitted to having had a few beers before coming home, and was banished to the couch for the night for the crime of lying and worrying everyone unnecessarily. Still, a few weeks later the father did recount to his son the story of the night he had thought his wife had come home.

A couple of years later, the family had come home quite late. The wife, feeling ill, went upstairs while the husband and their children were delayed. They rushed in the second they heard the scream, but by then the wife had tripped, running down the stairs, and died. That night, the husband took an axe up to the bedroom and destroyed the vanity for, in the second he heard his wife's scream, he had looked up and seen that pale figure.

That was how the tale of the vanity ended, but how had it begun?

Before the salesman had been given the vanity with the order to get rid of it immediately, far away, and for only a nominal price, it had been in another home. And before that another, and another, and another. Back to the first. As had later become its habit, it had been an anniversary gift.

Charlotte had been the daughter of a poor country baron. Not even the first, she was the second of three, with two brothers. As her youngest sister had been sickly from a young age, she was allowed to run free with the boys most of the time. They didn't welcome her, so she learned to run faster to keep up. They didn't want her to stay with them, so spiders, frogs, and other creepy crawlies had wound up in her bed, so she learned how not to show her fear.

Then came the day, her sister died and her mother remembered she would have to be married some day. Suddenly, she wasn't allowed to run free over the surroundings and had to learn how to sit, stand, walk, and talk about nothing. She had to smile until her face hurt, but not her real smile. She could never laugh or show her true emotions. And that, too she learned.

Her days of husband hunting were rather unsuccessful until one garden party when she scandalized many of those present. At a party, she had been standing and talking to a couple of her friends when the host's youngest son threw millipedes out on the crowd. Most women scattered, but her future husband watched, shocked, as she finished her drink and used the empty glass to scoop up the bug that had attached itself to her dress. She then lifted her skirts off the floor and calmly walked to her chaperone. The tale spread and society was divided between those that applauded her calm as almost unnatural and those that felt that she had behaved in an unladylike way.

Still, James had started to court her since that day, and it caused some mild jealousy. James wasn't the most sought on the marriage market, and wasn't the most handsome, but he was about the middle. Something that seemed to suit Charlotte, who felt she had always been stuck in the middle and never solidly 'here' or 'there'.

That theme also seemed to apply to her marriage. They were neither happy nor unhappy, they just... were. They drifted through life, existing in each other's orbits. It was a predictable, if emotionless, life. That started to change, however, when Charlotte became pregnant. James hovered, anxious, as Charlotte lost her aplomb. Then, after the birth of their first son, Mark, Charlotte found that James moved closer into her orbit and, with that and the love for her son, she finally started to leave the middle. So, when she realized that she was pregnant a few years later, she was over the moon.

Secretly, she hoped for a daughter. She had seen how close her son and husband had become and, despite being happy these days, she had occasional jealousy. It wasn't fair, she knew, but she also knew that someday she would have a daughter of her own to have those moments with.

Her family soon intruded upon her happiness far more than she would have ever believed possible. Her elder sister Emma came to visit for a few weeks and then the first horror happened. Her son fell ill. Her sister shoved her out of the sickroom claiming that she couldn't risk getting ill while she was pregnant. Charlotte understood, but still felt like a bad mother. James seemed to agree, although he also didn't want anything happening to their second child. And Emma seemed to be doing a good job. After a few days, Mark started getting better and everyone attributed that to Emma, who had never left his side.

In fact, it seemed like every time that it was about time for Emma to leave, Mark started falling ill again. And then, not even Emma's presence by his side could pull Mark back. He passed and, in the shock, Charlotte fell ill with the same strange illness. And then the next horror came. Charlotte lost the baby. She had been a girl, just as Charlotte had hoped and it became too much for James. Unable to deal with his emotions, James would leave for longer and longer times on business. With Charlotte's composure completely abandoning her in the face of her grief, Emma became the pillar of their household.

Charlotte had learned how both sides felt and, as great as her happinesses had been, her griefs now were equal. Eventually, she started moving back towards the middle, but it seemed that every time she started to, she was struck down with that illness. Time and again, she reached towards James and their previous happiness and time and again she was knocked back down by the illness.

One dark, moonless midnight she could stand the distance and the cold from her husband no more, so she forced herself to her feet. Staggering through the halls, she reflected on the past few years and resolved to speak her piece. She had been happy before, and knew that he had been, too. They could again, but they had to reach for each other.

But, when she entered her husband's room, it was cold and dark. She knew he was home. He had said good night just a few hours ago. Thinking to herself that Emma would know if he had been called away, she sought her sister's room across the hall. When she started hearing noises, it didn't register to her what kind they were. Not until she walked in on her sister and her husband. She stared in shock, before pointing at them in shocked silence and falling over. After all, all the women of her generation from their family had heart problems. Even if the main problem was that one of them didn't have one.

#writing #writeblr #stone tape #short horror story #short story #free fiction #story in reverse

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