A/N - This is a more of a Halloween/Ghost story about the other side. Yes, it’s short, and yes, I probably will elaborate on this story - just not right now. With that said, please read and - enjoy?

Everyone knew that Kenja was crazy. After all, she did believe that her husband, long dead and buried, was still alive, just waiting for her to catch up with him.

“He’s not dead,” she could be heard to rasp in the village square on cool autumn evenings. “He’s waiting for me to catch up to him, waiting on the other side.”

Most evenings, no one bothered to listen to her except the very young, who did not know better, and the very old, who had nothing better to do except listen to her spin tales; most evenings being all nights except All Hallow’s Eve. On All Hallow’s Eve, nearly every villager could be found in the square, listening to Kenja tell her tale, and wondering that perhaps - just perhaps - there was a chance that she was right.

“Well, you all know what happened, what befell my husband, Taen. Or at least, I should hope you do. Was killed by a falling beam some years ago, killed while working on our neighbor’s barn. Everyone knows that. What most don’t know, though, is that he didn’t really die. At least, not in our sense of death. He’s still hanging around, waiting for me to come and meet him. You know - come and join him on the other side. Some days I can see him, and I try to tell him that I’ll be coming soon - after all, each day spent alive is a day closer to death. Sometimes he listens. Most times he don’t. I’m not saying that he never listens to me, never hears my words. He does - sometimes. I think it has something to do with the weather, or what mood he’s in, or something.” Kenja would say. Inevitably, the elements of her story were always the same, with noting ever differing. Each year, each All Hallow’s Eve was the same.

Except this year. This year, Kenja did not finish her tale. This year, her tale finished her.

Just as she was beginning to tell her story, she stopped, and with a strange expression on her face addressed the crowd gathered round her -

“Taen’s come for me. It’s my turn to cross to the other side.”

Without warning, she suddenly slumped over, her hair obscuring her face.

For a long moment, no one moved. Finally, someone - the village leech - dared to approach Kenja, to take her pulse. It did not take long for him to make his ruling.

“She’s dead. Her heart must have stopped.”

They buried Kenja’s body in the village graveyard, in the plot next to her husband’s. Nearly all of the village turned out for her funeral, for even if they did not believe the old woman, they loved her as one of their own, and were sorry to see her go.

It was at her funeral that it happened. Some said that it was a story, that it did not really take place. Kenja and her husband could not have been seen, walking down the high road, holding hands after having watched her funeral. For after all, such a thing could not have happened . . . could it? Some say that it did not. Others, however, say that it did.

Whether the legend of Kenja is true or not, one thing is for certain - on clear days, while walking on lonely roads outside the village of Torin, two lovers can often be seen, holding hands and strolling down the road as calm as can be.