Candle

The hallway is black. The walls themselves were white, and where the windows let in light they have turned more yellow than the pages of the ancient books in the library. There is no rug; indeed, there is not a single hint of softness in the entire house. My great grandfather had built this house on the ideals of his faith, the soundness of tradition and the cold piousness everyone in this town once possessed.

The times have changed since the Puritans first came here to impose their ‘freedom’ on a land that was already more free than the European invaders could ever understand. The houses on the main street have either been demolished to make room for supermarkets or converted into movie theaters. Years ago the old oaks were sacrificed to ward off the bitter winter cold. As I prepare to leave every September, the chill begins to invade, like a scout making sure the way is still clear and the people are still submissive. Asphalt coats that crack and split each winter have covered all the dirt roads, only to be mended come spring.

One of the last places to be touched by modernity, the proud old church in the very center of town, has replaced the solemn hymns of the past with a state-of-the-art sound system and barbeques every Friday night. As the new voices and blasphemous music drift past the steeple, time laments its passing.

I have never had the privilege of attending such an event, even though I have spent every summer of my life here. Here; in the huge, solid Victorian set back off all roads, accessible only by a thin strip of exposed earth, shrouded in pine trees and dense brush. Whatever yard there once was disappeared as the trees slowly ate the empty grass.

The forest is so thick I am not allowed outside for fear I would never return, and spend the rest of eternity lost, even as I passed by the house ten feet to the side. What I know of the town I learned from my brief trip down Main Street twice each year to reach the forlorn house in the woods. It is hardly ever mentioned inside the house.

Whenever my Uncle returns from his frequent trips to the surrounding counties, the groceries for the month appear with him. He is an accountant, a silent, scarce man of great reputation in these parts. He is so often on call far away that I usually go the whole summer seeing him but three or four times. His work keeps him away at large, though I wonder if his wife does not aid in the matter.

My Aunt is a ghost, and a terrible ghost indeed.

My own parents find that every summer it is preferable to divest of me and spend the warm comfortable months alone, reliving their newlywed bliss. I am sent off to my Aunt in this desolate house. It is widely thought that these summers spent together are enjoyed by all, as I return with a fashionable pallor and a surprising energy to begin the new school year. My Aunt is given a child each summer to foster her maternal instincts, which lay untested since she is barren. (Though I wonder, too, if this is the design of nature or the design or man.) And so, year after year, I go again to the haunted house in the woods.

I have been told that she was not always a ghost; though I cannot believe it and hold fast that all photographic evidence of a smile crossing her face is forgery. I have been told, additionally, that she is only four years older than my own mother, though this too I dismiss as a blatant untruth. Her gray eyes are dead as though having spent one hundred years in the grave and her tiny, bent body I imagine riddled with worms, falling apart at the joints.

However, they say she was a beautiful baby, a firstborn to be envied. They say her eyes were blue and her hair auburn, straight from the womb. She never cried a night of her life, sleeping soundly and waking at an acceptable. Her teeth came in straight and white and her hair curled at the ends and around her ears.

When the time came to school her she went without a fight. Learning with wondrous determination and ease she quickly became a teacher pet and her fellow student’s bane. Though they admired her secretly, she was too smart, too dangerous and lofty for them to touch. Whether she notice this exile or not they do not say, but if she did, she mourned it only in her secret heart.

She worked tirelessly in school and out. In addition to her formal education she learned from her mother the ways of women, running a home, cooking a meal, and mending a shirt. She excelled in all things and was warm in her housekeeping and studious in her schooling. Her eyes grew wide; her hair grew into a long, thick plait down her back. Her waist grew slim and her hips grew generously. I’ve seen the pictures of this young woman they say is my Aunt, standing in the kitchen at Christmas, with her sisters, baking the goose; or standing before the house with paint across her cheeks and a smile across her face. She was beautiful.

The time came when she graduated first in her class, full of hopes. There are pictures of this day too, of a graduate strung between her mother and her father, beaming her pleasure to the world. There is a photograph taken inside a house very similar to this one (though full of life and happiness), friends and family all around, paintings on the walls and a banner over the doorway. She stands in the midst of it all, looking over her shoulder at the camera and laughing.

There is only one photograph of my Aunt since that day. She sits on a chair in a white dress; lace collared and long lace sleeves. A man stands behind her in a black suit; tall and slight, glasses perched on his nose as he regards the camera coolly. His hand is on her shoulder. It does not rest there lightly, but clenches tightly to the fabric and to her flesh. She does not smile.

The hallway is dark. The trees are grown so close to the windows that the dusky light does not penetrate. All of the lights have gone out and I am scrounging for a candle, though once I find it I have no matches to light it with. However, I have momentarily forgotten my search. As I stand in the corridor, I listen carefully for the sound I just heard on the corner of my mind. It comes again from the room before me, a soft wail. Stepping forward I push the door.

She sits on a rickety chair, leaning forward into her hands. The hair once soft and red spills over her shoulders, turned gray and brittle by time and fortune. Before her lies the last photograph and beside it one I have never seen before. A young man smiles softly, face wide and nonchalant, his hair curled and golden. He leans against a tree; hand extended to the photographer to come, join him and be happy.

She sobs once more.

I go forward to her, into the light of the candle she has lit. She looks up and I understand the words she cannot say. I understand her pain, her horror at being too quickly inducted into this alien adult world. I understand the silence surrounding her, permeating into the house, killing whatever joy it once contained. I understand why I am the only relative permitted (or naive enough, or strong enough) to visit.

Taking a spare candle from the table, I light the wick off her burning flame.