The Golden Strand

The Golden Strand by Susan Buffum



Dave Forbes found himself standing once more at the well-worn wooden counter of the narrow, dimly lit shop on Beggars Row. Ye Olde Apothecary, it was called. The counter was U-shaped, going around all three sides of the shop ahead, to the left and right as one entered. Behind the counter, on those side and back walls, were floor to ceiling cabinets, cupboards and open shelving crammed full of dust-furred boxes, small vintage tins, smudgy glass jars, vials, and translucent stone pots full of mysterious ingredients with strange names all written in a spidery hand in brown ink that appeared to be disappearing into the brittle, yellowing labels. Dusty sunlight from the skylight set into the slated ceiling above the entrance door fell across the back counter. On the counter, a dulled with age brass call bell waited, shoulders hunched against the inevitable strike of the next customers hand. The store was silent except for the muted ticking of a clock, although there was no clock hanging on the wall. There was a strange miasma of mingled scents perfuming the air—fading rose petals, crumbling eucalyptus, dried lavender, all floating above a curious odor like that of old copper.

Agnes Hartford was not in the shop front so he gave the bell a brisk tap. The clang of the bell was surprisingly loud in the small shop.

The deep purple curtain hanging across the doorway leading to the back room was moved aside as the petite, wizened, white-haired proprietor slipped around the fringe of worn gold tassels along the edge of the material. She turned her faded blue gaze upon him, giving him an enigmatic yet expectant smile. “Have you brought me something?” she inquired.

“I have,” he replied after nervously licking his lips. From the right hand pocket of his suit jacket he removed a folded handkerchief that he laid on the scarred countertop.

She came to stand opposite him, reaching out a small, claw-like hand to slide the handkerchief closer to her. Carefully, she unfolded it before bending closer to examine what lay on the tightly woven material. Opening a drawer on her side of the counter, she rummaged around, metallic items clattering together for a few moments before she produced a pair of tarnished silver tweezers. She used the tweezers to pick up the single golden strand of hair that had lain enshrouded in the folded linen square. Holding it up to the pale yellow rays of light streaming through the skylight, she nodded. “This will do,” she said. “Come back tomorrow at four o’clock.” Her eyes slowly lowered until they met his. “Four o’clock, but no sooner than that.” He nodded, turned and walked to the door. The bell jangled. Pausing before stepping out onto the old brick sidewalk, he glanced back over his shoulder into the store, but the old woman had already vanished behind the purple curtain.

 The following day, he could hardly wait until four o’clock. Glancing across the office, his heart began to beat rapidly as his eyes fell upon Jennifer. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen—tall, shapely, her golden hair shining like the summer sun on even the gloomiest of days. She had the bluest eyes that he’d ever seen. They were the color of sapphires!

 He’d been in love with her ever since Marcus had hired her five months ago after Leslie had abruptly quit. Marcus had told him that he’d felt bad for Jennifer. She’d just graduated from college and moved to the city to look for a job. She had moved in with her older sister, Jessica. Jennifer had still been job hunting when Jessica had been killed one night while crossing a street on her way home from her job as a seamstress and costume maker in an off Broadway theater.

Jennifer wore some amazing outfits. He’d heard from several of the other office girls that Jennifer’s late sister had had an incredible wardrobe. She’d made most of her own clothes. The girls didn’t doubt that Jennifer had taken possession of all of her sister’s clothing to supplement her own wardrobe. She had the figure of a model. You could dress a girl like her in scraps and rags and she’d still look like a million bucks.

Yesterday, he’d gotten onto the elevator ahead of her. He’d turned to face the doors and smiled at her as she’d gotten on. She’d smiled back before turning her back to him to watch the digital numbers on the panel as the car had descended to ground level.

That’s when he’d done it, when the car had given that little jolt as the mechanism that operated it had brought the car to a halt. He’d seen a glimmer of gold on her navy blue sweater. Quickly, he’d plucked the strand of hair off, then snapped his handkerchief open and laid the single strand inside, hastily folding it in a small square and tucking it into his jacket pocket. Glancing around, he had been relieved to see that no one had observed him steal the hair. They had all been focused on the illuminated screens of their cellphones. Jennifer had sailed off the elevator, heels clicking on the marble floor tiles. Even she had been unaware that he had swiped the strand of hair. He’d stepped off the elevator, relieved that he hadn’t had to pluck it from her head, which would have been hard to explain, although he had been prepared to say that the button on the sleeve of his jacket had gotten caught in her long hair as he’d moved his arm.

He’d then gone directly to Beggars Row and dropped the strand of hair off at the shop as directed the previous day. He’d seen the ad last week in the local alternative newspaper. Ye Olde Apothecary specialized in potions, tonics, elixirs, poultices, amulets, charms and cures for all of life’s many afflictions, be they of psyche, body, heart, health, or romance.

Miss Hartford, who ran the shop, had listened to his romantic woes and then advised him to bring a strand of hair from the head of the object of his affection. She would use that strand of hair from the head of his one true love to concoct a special potion that would guarantee that the object of his heart’s desire would be his for all eternity. She’s given him a bit of a sassy wink for a woman of her age, but he’d smiled, convinced that if anyone could make Jennifer fall hopelessly in love with him forever, it would be her.

Now, he paced the uneven brick sidewalk in front of the shop waiting for the bell tower at Holy Trinity to toll four o’clock. He didn’t want to be early, but he was anxious, checking his watch, looking at the time on his cellphone, his ears straining for the peal of that first bell, and the three peals that would follow.

Finally, it happened! BONG! rang the bell. Three more solemn strikes of the clapper in the hollow throat of the bell rang out. He paused, his hand on the door latch, until the last vibrations of the bell ceased to float upon the air in the narrow lane. Now it was a few moments past four o’clock.

Miss Hartford was behind the counter, the slanting rays of the afternoon sun giving her cottony fluff of hair a snowy brilliance. “Here you are,” she said, producing a small silver cup embossed with strange symbols from beneath the counter. “Drink this down without pause and your one true love will come to you tonight at the stroke of midnight. I guarantee that she will never leave your side. I give you my word on that.” She slid the little cup across the counter until it was right before him.

He peered down into the murky contents of the cup for a moment, discerning a sort of golden glow at the very bottom of the vessel. “Down the hatch!” he said with a shrug as he lifted the cup to his lips, opening his mouth, taking a quick breath and then quickly drinking down the potion, letting the last drop rest a moment on the back of his tongue before swallowing it. He imagined that that drop was the one that held the mysterious golden glow, the radiant golden essence of the lovely Jennifer.

He set the cup down, took out his wallet, withdrew the crisp one hundred dollar bill that he’d gotten at the bank at lunchtime. He set it on the counter and then slid it across to Miss Hartford. “It’s real,” he assured her, but still she snatched it up, snapped it taut between both hands and then held it up toward the skylight, scrutinizing it before giving him  a curt nod. “Our business is completed.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Have a long and happy life, young man,” she replied as he turned and left the shop, giddy with the knowledge that Jennifer would be his as of midnight that very night.



He’d taken a shower, run the electric razor over his cheeks, chin face and all along and under his jaw. He’d applied a splash of after shave, brushed his teeth, gargled with mouthwash, trimmed his fingernails and toenails, examined his nostrils for any offensive stray nose hair using a small flashlight. He’d then examined his reflection in the mirror. He was thirty-years old. There were just a few faint wrinkles, laugh lines actually, at the corners of his eyes. He liked to laugh. He liked to go out and have fun. He hoped Jennifer was the kind of girl who liked to go out and have fun, too.

He smiled at himself, and then he grinned. Soon he’d be going out to the clubs with the gorgeous, golden-haired Jennifer on his arm. She’d be his and his alone. He’d never have to worry about some other guy stealing her from him. Miss Hartford had assured him that the potion would bind then as a couple forever.

He slid into bed, the stereo playing soft music. He’d lit several pillar candles, the seductive flames casting just enough light in the room so that he’d be able to see her when she appeared. He wasn’t completely certain how Jennifer would manifest at midnight. He supposed it would be by some sort of magical teleportation. He’d just have to relax and believe in Miss Hartford’s skill. He had to trust her completely.

In the distance, the church bells at St. Peter’s and at the First Congregational Church began to toll midnight. He ran his hands nervously over his dark hair, worried that he’d mussed it up by turning his head too many times on the pillow during the past hour to glance at the clock on the bedside table.

Nine…ten…eleven…twelve! The bell towers had struck midnight!

A strange energy had begun to build in the room as the bells had tolled. He could see blue-white sparks snapping in the air above the bed. He could feel the weight of a body pressing into the mattress beside him, could see a form taking shape beneath the covers. Jennifer, the breathtakingly beautiful desire of his heart was slowly materializing at his side.

When he heard a soft gasp, he turned his head, a smile of welcome lifting the corners of his mouth as his eyes readied to drink in the golden glory of her at his side.

For a few moments he continued to smile, although his eyes widened with a look of alarm. The girl whose head rested on the pillow beside his had long, golden hair, but she was not Jennifer! This girl’s jaw was crooked and gaping, revealing broken teeth, gashed lips. Her nose was flattened and askew. Her eyes were dull, vacant…dead eyes. He jumped as they shifted toward him and a ghastly smile exposed more of the damage to her teeth and jaw.

She stretched as arm toward him. The sharp ends of broken bones protruded through the torn flesh of that arm. She was trying to speak as he scrambled wildly out of bed with a shriek of terror and loathing. “You’re not Jennifer!” he shouted accusingly at her. “Who the hell are you?” He had grabbed his clothes and was dressing hurriedly, hopping on one foot and then the other, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his shirt and trying to button it with fingers that refused to work. “Who are you?” he cried as she pushed aside the covers and slowly, like a marionette whose strings had become crossed and tangled so that her movements were disjointed, foreshortened, and awkward, got out of bed. He clamped a hand over his mouth at the sight of her gruesome autopsy wounds, the large stitches binding her mottled flesh together in a long Y-shape. The sickly sweet-rotting meat smell of death now permeated the room. As she lurched toward him, he turned and fled.



Ye Old Apothacary was dark, yet he pounded on the door repeatedly, hoping that Miss Hartford was in the back room, praying that she was still there. “Miss Hartford!” he cried. “It’s Dave Forbes! Open the door! Please! For the love of God, open the door! The potion…it’s…she’s…it’s not Jennifer!” His mind was whirling, spinning like a top, making him dizzy. His heart felt as if it would explode. “Let me in! She’s not the right girl! She’s not the one!” He heard uneven footfalls at the corner of Beggars Row. Turning his head, he saw a shadowy crooked figure shambling down the sidewalk. Pound harder on the door, rattling the glass, he shouted, “You have to make her go away! My God! She’s dead! You have to send her back to the grave!”

But the door remained resolutely closed as the ghastly golden-haired girl staggered closer and closer yet. How could this be? He’d plucked the long, golden strand of hair off Jennifer’s sweater himself!  How could this have happened? Who was this gruesome girl?

And then, in a sudden glimmer of awareness, he understood. Jennifer had inherited her sister’s wardrobe. She must have been wearing one of Jessica’s sweaters the other day. It must have been a strand of the deceased Jessica’s hair that he’d plucked from the sweater, not Jennifer’s!

“No!” he screamed as the horrible apparition reached for him with her broken arms. This was not his one true love! There’d been a mistake, a terrible mistake!

“She will never leave your side,” Miss Hartford’s voice echoed in his memory. “I guarantee that.”

He turned his head, looking wildly at the door and screamed in terror as a cold hand grasped his wrist. The flaking gold letters painted on the glass read ‘Joseph Yarmitsky—Cobbler and Leather Goods; Shoes shined while you wait.’

A Sinister Staircase

A Sinister Staircase by Susan Buffum

It appeared in the center of a traffic island where Main Street branched at a ninety degree angle onto Elm Street, at a gentle curve to the left around the town green, or continued straight onto the narrower School Street. The island was triangular with multiple traffic signals like tall, yellow pines with bristling light cones—red, yellow, and green—controlling motor vehicle flow. Brick pathways trisected the island, converging at a central junction, each traffic light situated on its own raised dais enclosed by granite curbstones.

It wasn’t there one afternoon. But, it was there the following morning. It created traffic snarls as drivers slowed to a snail’s pace as they craned their necks, tilted their heads back trying to look upward. Several rear end collisions occurred during the morning commute when drivers abruptly stopped to gawk. A number of verbal altercations took place, but they were brief due to the fact that those involved were more curious about the staircase that rose from the center of the traffic island in a lazy, looping coil.

So high it rose that it appeared to vanish into the low lying, steely-gray clouds hovering just a story or two above the tallest building, which happened to be the three-story corner building that now housed a trendy coffee shop on its lower level. There were people sitting at the counter on stools facing out toward the green, eyes raised to the gray clouds, hands wrapped around ignored wide-mouthed cups of coffee in which sweet, creamy hearts surrounded by delicate curlicues floated atop their contents.

A half dozen brave souls had made it up to the second floor and out onto the small balcony where there were several tiny, round, wrought iron café tables with spider-legged matching chairs. There was an occasional stiff breeze gusting down the street in unpredictable bursts. The air smelled heavy with impending rain and slightly poisonous with exhaust fumes trapped beneath the clouds..

“That wasn’t there yesterday, was it?” wondered a woman with long, unruly strawberry-blonde hair who wore a leather jacket and jeans to a woman of indeterminate age who was sitting alone at the next table, her cellphone held like a prayer book in both her slender, pale hands, her face cast in a slightly bluish light.

“Nope,” came a masculine reply. “City must have slapped it up after five o’clock last night. Another damn waste of taxpayer money, if you ask me,” he muttered. He was dressed in work coveralls, was leaning against the brick wall near the doorway leading back inside the building from the balcony. “I’ve got to get to work so my taxes can pay for more crap like this,” he grumbled as he disappeared back inside. The thudding of his steel-toed boots as he descended the wooden staircase to the first floor felt like the reverberations of thunder beneath the feet of the people on the balcony.

“Is it some sort of art installation?” asked a college-aged girl with bright turquoise hair who stood up from her seat to walk to the short wrought iron railing on the parapet that prevented people from jumping and deterred others from climbing over onto the ledge and falling to the brick sidewalk below. “I bet it’s some artist’s doing, but what’s the point of placing it in this town? No one here appreciates art.”

Her companion, a tall, lanky young man with a fall of brown hair obscuring the right side of his lean, chiseled face shrugged as he furiously texted on his cellphone. “There’s nothing holding it up, you know,” he pointed out. “No supports. Another strong gust coming down Elm Street and that thing will topple over. Mark my words. Someone’s going to get killed.”

“You’re such a fatalist,” the girl muttered, grabbing her backpack from the tiled floor, slinging it over her right shoulder before grabbing her coffee that was in a takeout cup. “C’mon, we’re going to be late for class.” The lanky boy rose, stuffing his phone into his sweatshirt pocket before grabbing his own backpack and cup of coffee. He followed the girl with the turquoise hair to the door, ducking as he passed through.

This left the woman with the blue glow illuminating her face, the woman in the leather jacket, and a middle-aged man with a doughy face, receding brown hair, and black-framed glasses that magnified his watery blue eyes on the balcony. “Is that a kid on the staircase?” he asked, reaching up to adjust his glasses. He squinted through the smudgy lenses at the staircase diagonally across from the balcony. “I think there’s a kid on the staircase,” he said.

The woman with the phone glanced up, her gaze falling on the staircase. A slight frown creased her brow and she gave an elegant one-shoulder shrug before returning her gaze to the screen of her phone. “More a young woman, I’d say, not a young girl.”

“No, it’s a child,” he disagreed. “All gangly legs and bare feet on a day like this. Where’s her mother, I want to know,” he replied.

“She’s probably downstairs having coffee. You know how kids are. Easily bored and restless. They like to play,” the strawberry-blonde woman said.

He hauled himself up off the tiny, spindly-legged chair to go to the railing recently abandoned by the girl with the turquoise hair. He caught a faint hint of her cinnamon scent hanging on the heavy air. It made his stomach growl. His thoughts veered to the huge cinnamon roll he had seen in the pastry case behind the counter downstairs. He’d eaten breakfast before leaving home. However, he thought he might have to buy that obscenely enormous pastry and take it to work with him this morning. It was too much temptation to ignore with that scent teasing his olfactory sense. “I think she’s carrying a basket.”

 The women didn’t answer him. One was too absorbed in what she was reading on the small screen of her phone. The other was watching a crow that had landed with a flutter of dark wings on top of a nearby streetlight.

“She doesn’t even have a jacket on, or a sweater. She should at least have a sweater, or a sweatshirt. And some sort of shoes on her feet. She must be cold.” He thought he should go down there and offer her his jacket, but people were such alarmists these days. His kind gesture might be misconstrued as an attempt to molest the girl if he fumbled while trying to button it around her, if he accidentally touched her. One couldn’t even be a good Samaritan in this day and age without someone taking offense or misconstruing good intentions.

Down on the street, the girl hesitated, stopping on the bottom step of the staircase. Across from the island, on the corner, was a hair salon with sparkling golden letters painted on the Main Street side windows. Beside that business was a small bookstore. The proprietor of that shop stood outside the door on the granite stoop smoking a cigarette, one hand thrust into the front pocket of his jeans as he surveyed the morning traffic. The sleeves of his hoodie sweatshirt were pushed up to his elbows revealing lean arms with sinewy muscle snaking around the bones beneath his skin. He wore high-top canvas sneakers as bright a shade of red as arterial blood.  Next to the bookstore was a café, the heads of its patrons in the booths against the front window were bowed over their breakfasts, already having dismissed the mysterious staircase as some sort of advertising ploy, or ridiculous addition to the recently renovated downtown.

The girl seemed to take in everything with one sweep of her calm, dark eyes. She shifted the basket, and then leaned down, setting it on the brick pathway. It rested against the bottom step of the staircase.

“Gathering eggs, little lady?” asked an elderly man who walked crooked over so that he appeared to be the living personification of the cane he gripped in his left hand. The girl gave him a frank and curious look. He nodded toward the basket at her feet. “In your basket, you got eggs?”

“No, sir,” she replied softly. “It’s empty at the moment.”

He dipped his right hand into his deep trouser pocket then dropped a shiny quarter into the bottom of the basket. “Now it’s no longer empty,” he said, nodding his head with satisfaction as the white silhouette of a striding man lit up indicating he could cross the street safely.

A woman holding the hand of a toddler dug her free hand into her jacket pocket, plucking out a dollar bill that she dropped into the basket as they passed by, following the elderly man across Elm Street to the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop. The girl’s head turned as she followed their progress along the sidewalk toward the library on the corner.

Then she frowned down at the money in the bottom of the basket, squatted down and plucked it out, tossing it onto the bricks and then standing up with a defiant scowl on her face, as if daring anyone else to defile her basket by dropping money into it. She folded her thin arms as two men crossed Elm Street to the island. One walked past her to press the button to make the light change so they could cross. The other stopped, looked down at the girl who tilted her head back to look up at him, her face still set in that jaw thrust forward expression. Their eyes locked and held as he crouched down, picking up the dollar bill and the quarter. He rose to his full height again, stuffing the money into his windbreaker pocket, his expression daring her to remark upon his taking it. “You got something you want to say to me, little girl?” he asked, a hint of mockery in his tone, a subtle dare shadowing his words.

“There’s lots more of that, you know,” she replied.

“Lots more of what?”

“Money,” she said, her thumb popping up and flicking in a backwards motion over her shoulder to indicate the staircase.

“What do you mean? There ain’t nothin’ up there,” he retorted.

“Yes, there is. There’s lots and lots of money up there.” He started to scoff at her, but her face was suddenly cherubic, full of that innocence young children radiate. She cocked her head slightly toward her left shoulder, then bent and grasped the handle of the basket. “You’ll need this to carry it back down in.” She held the basket out to him.

He looked skeptical, but reached out and took the handle in his hand. “Chuck, c’mon, man,” said his friend from near the light signal pole. “She’s pullin’ you leg. There ain’t nothin’ up there but sky.”

“Doesn’t hurt nothin’ to run up and take a quick look. Kids don’t lie, right? She’s too young to know how to lie. It’ll just take a coupla seconds. Up and back. Hang tight.” He gave the child a little push to one side and quickly began climbing up the staircase.

“What’s really up there?” asked the other man who pushed his long, dirty, blonde hair back from his face with one hand. He didn’t know why Chuck thought the girl was a kid. She was older than his teenaged daughter. There were the curves of an adolescent girl beneath her simple white shift. They were rather intriguing curves with their promise of filling out to become womanly curves in a few years’ times. “You can tell me.”

“Everything you could ever dream of,” she replied.

“You don’t say.” She nodded, giving him a surprisingly coy look for such a sweet looking young lady.

“She wasn’t yankin’ my chain, Jimmy! Money! There’s piles and piles of it up here!” came Chuck’s distant, excited, and incredulous voice from high above their heads.

“See?” she said.

Jimmy put his foot up on the bottom step and grabbed the railing.

“I wouldn’t go up there, if I was you,” said a voice to his right.

He turned his head and saw it was the bookstore proprietor who had come across the street and was now standing on the island on the brick path. “What business is it of yours, weirdo? Go on back to your shop and stick your big nose into a book, and slam it shut!”

The bookstore proprietor smiled affably and shrugged. “I read a lot. Maybe you should take it up, reading. It never bodes well to climb a staircase you don’t know what’s at the top of.”

“Money! I’m rich!” came Chuck’s gleeful voice, followed by a metallic clatter.

Jimmy, the bookstore proprietor, and the girl all watched as several coins rolled down the staircase. They landed at Jimmy’s feet. He grinned smugly at the man from the bookstore, before shoving him aside and dashing up the staircase. “I’m comin’, Chuck! I want some of that cash!”

The bookstore proprietor sighed, turning his eyes toward the girl. She was a small child with short blonde hair, brown eyes, and lips that curved into a sly smile as he just gazed at her. He nodded, and as he did she seemed to waver in his vision like a mirage, or an image reflected in a funhouse mirror. She appeared to grow from child to adolescent, to young woman, to matron, to crone before becoming a child again. As he studied her, took the measure of her, the basket came rolling slowly down the staircase. “What do you collect in your basket?” he asked her as she bent to pick it up as it came to rest against her bare ankle and foot.

She looked down into the basket then reached inside. Half her arm seemed to disappear into the depths of the basket, although to his eyes it looked rather shallow. “Hands,” she said as she lifted a man’s clenched hand from the basket by the ragged, gory stump of its wrist. The book proprietor stepped back one big step as the girl smiled up at him. As she smiled, the hand she held unclenched and a shower of coins fell onto the bricks at their feet with a discordant metallic clatter. She laughed, her laughter as sweet as honey, but there was something tainted lurking within it.

The bookstore proprietor nodded as he kicked a nickel with the toe of his red sneaker. “That certainly is a sinister staircase,” he remarked. The child tossed the disembodied hand into the air. It vanished. Clutching the handle of the basket, she turned and began to climb the stairs without replying. His eyes followed her until she vanished into the gray clouds that still hung low over the intersection.

As he began to look away his eyes fell on the woman standing on the second floor balcony of the coffee shop on the corner. Her face was still illuminated by the screen of the cellphone she held like an open book in her hands. Her eyes rose from the screen to meet his from across the street for a long moment. Slowly, her eyes lowered and her left hand moved as she tapped on her screen.

In his pocket, the bookstore proprietor’s cellphone rang like an old bicycle bell to indicate that he had a text message. Her eyes rose from her phone’s screen as he pulled his phone from his sweatshirt pocket. He tore his gaze away from hers as he tapped the screen and opened the text message. I’ve got your number, he read.

“I bet you have,” he murmured as he swiped the screen and it went dark.

He glanced again toward the balcony, but the woman was gone. The staircase, however, was still in front of him. The coins still littered the brick path at the foot of the stairs. Cars flowed past as he walked to the yellow street signal post and pressed the button, then waited for the ghostly striding figure to light up in the small rectangular signpost across the street in front of the hair salon. There were people on that sidewalk waiting to cross to this island. “Let them come across,” he thought as the figure lit up and he stepped out between the parallel lines of the sidewalk, striding quickly back across the street and over to the granite stoop of his shop. As he opened the door and stepped inside, he flipped the book-shaped sign that hung on the inside of the door so that it read OPEN.

Walking through the store, he noticed a book that had fallen from the shelf. He went to pick it up, to place it back on top of the bookcase in the empty spot that marked the space it had recently occupied. Turning it over in his hands, he saw that it was a copy of Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White.

He laughed.

(NOTE: The novel Some Must Watch published in Great Britain in 1933 was adapted to the screen by screenwriter Mel Dinelli and became the basis for the film The Spiral Staircase in 1946 , starring Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, and Ethel Barrymore.)

Blue- A Ghost Story

The Blue by Susan Buffum (The Hanging Man and Other Stories, copyright 2018)


     The world has gone all blue. I’d noticed this the moment I’d opened my eyes. It all seems like a very long time ago, but the clocks I can see tell me nothing in regards to time. It always seems to be three o’clock, although I swear I can hear the second hands ticking, the hours chiming, however the sound seems to come from far away, not from the same rooms in which the clocks are located.

     I can touch things, however it’s like pushing my hand into a thin blue membrane. I can’t really tell if I am enshrouded in this membrane, or if this membrane hangs like curtains throughout the rooms I move through via narrow corridors between the membranes. The membrane is cold to the touch. It never varies in temperature. I do not feel the cold unless I push hard against it.

     I had always been afraid of dying. I’d never liked the idea of being separated from my loved ones, my cat, our parakeet, the wild rabbit that came as dusk approached to nibble clover in the back yard. I’d never liked the idea of dying and leaving my stuff behind. I had always been attached to my books and belongings, and to everything else in our house. I had always liked to touch things, to experience the solid feel of them beneath my hand. I had liked textures.

     Everything that I do manage to touch now feels cool and smooth like the blue membrane through which I attempt to feel these objects on the other side. I have to really concentrate to manipulate even the smallest object. It seems to take a lot of energy to move a teacup, to turn a page, to push a ball across a floor. My greatest triumph so far has been climbing the staircase and making one of the crystals that dangles from the bottom of a brass wall sconce sway and ring against the other crystals. A faint musical tinkling had filled my ears, as if I was hearing wind chimes hanging high up in a neighbor’s tree from three houses away, a familiar sound from my childhood I had not recalled until that moment.

     I had always thought that death would be heralded by an entourage of relatives who had passed before me gathering to escort me into the light and then to what lies beyond it in the afterlife. We had been taught that our loved ones wait for us just on the other side, just beyond the veil. Yet, I have not seen another soul since the transition from living to deceased. This aloneness is overwhelming. The confinement within the blue membrane is claustrophobic and suffocating to me. I am a restless spirit because of this human baggage that I have hauled behind me, stacked high on an invisible little red wagon. I tug the handle of that wagon and roll it along wherever I go, even up staircases and down stairwells. I can’t see it, but I can feel the weight of it shadowing me through every room.

     I had thought that there would be someone here on the other side, someone to perhaps guide me, someone to tell me what I’m supposed to do, someone to offer some advice…just someone. Instead, there is nothing here but these opaque blue walls that shift and move with beguiling fluidity, but always enshroud me.

     I can push my hand against them, press myself hard up to them and stretch the membrane thin with effort. And that is when I think I am at least partially visible to the people who now live in this house, when I stretch the membrane taut and nearly transparent, just a faint hint of blueness against my nose and forehead and my chin, at my fingertips and knees and elbows. I have tried hard to push myself through the membrane, but it is exceptionally elastic and will only keep stretching and thinning out. It will not rend. It will not give way and allow me to pass back through it into the living world.

     I have sat in dim corners hugging my knees and weeping, the blue membrane collapsed around me like a tent in a gale. I have wracked my brain to try to figure out what I am and why. Am I spirit? I believe I still look like me. I can touch my own face, explore my own familiar features, but I do not reflect in any mirror except as a faint blur of blue like a shimmer. I am in my familiar clothes, a favorite outfit from when I was younger. My hair is long again. I am the younger version of the woman who died. This was the time of my life when I was happiest, but I am not necessarily happy now. I am lonely. I am sad, morose, dejected, disheartened, discouraged, and deeply disappointed. Trapped in this rubbery, stretchy blueness, being able to see all these things on the other side of it, to be able to manipulate them just a little bit, I am exceedingly frustrated. I can pull nothing through from that other side of the membrane to this side. I have nothing here but my own self. I am bored and restless.

     This is not what I’d been led to believe death would be like. I am a haunt, a ghost. I understand that, but I do not understand the why of it. This is the house that I grew up in, the place where I was happy. This is where my memories were born. I died in a nursing home, an old lady. I am not old now. I am just confused and sad, and lonely. I am terribly lonely. And I dread when the panic attacks drive me to shrieking and trying to push through the blue membrane. I have frightened the children, startled the young woman, frightened the man when he was in the shower and I managed to press my hand against the shower curtain, moving it inward until it touched his back. I had felt him through the membrane, through the plastic curtain. All he had done was scream and shout for his wife, and it had frightened me!

     I haunt this house. I walk through the blueness, the color of sadness, the spitting image of my depression, and I try to communicate, to get someone to speak to me, to interact with me, but I seem more a nuisance than a being of interest to the family that lives on the other side of the blue membrane.

     I sit on the main staircase, morose and wondering if I will simply go mad as time continues to pass on the other side of the blue membrane while I am trapped here in my past, all alone in the house that is no longer my home with just my memories for comfort and companionship, and wondering, always wondering where every other soul is and why we cannot be with the ones we love like we’d been told when we were alive. If I'd thought life was unfair at times, then I knew nothing of unfairness. Life was always fair and good. Death, my friend, is what is truly unfair.

The Knockers, a creepy little tale

The Knockers by Susan Buffum

The gaslights guttered in the front room of George Jackson, Undertaker, a nondescript wood-framed structure on Darby Road. The building had a somewhat wider than usual front entrance door, and a tall display window to either side. In the display window on the left were several coffins of various sizes. The tallest was standing on end in one corner, a somewhat shorter one in the other, both angled toward the three small caskets ranging from infant-sized to child-sized that lay full length vertically between them, the heads of the caskets propped up on blocks. A black velvet drape hung behind them. At night, they were barely visible, however, during the daylight hours they stood out well enough against the curtain that they could be seen from the street. In the window to the right of the door was a dressmaker’s mannequin modeling somber widow’s weeds. A tiered display stand stood between the mannequin and a tall funeral urn draped in white material. On the tiered display stand, Mr. Jackson showed several hats with veils, pairs of black gloves, handkerchiefs, several pieces of mourning jewelry, and two pair of black women’s shoes, one with laces, the other with buttons. There was no curtain behind this window display, so one could see directly into the undertaker’s front room.

On this particular night, George Jackson was having a game of cards with several of his assistants, their having enjoyed a late dinner. A few hands of cards and several small glasses of good cognac were what they enjoyed after conducting a funeral during the day. George was a trim man in his middle-forties. He had inherited the business from his father, also named George. He had a wife and young son, who had been named George also, so that one day he would be placed in charge of the business and the name of it could remain the same. He resided with his wife and their young son lived in a small house directly behind the business. George didn’t have far to walk to reach his home.

George Jackson’s father was one of the men seated at the table holding cards in his hand that night. He, at sixty-three, still lent a hand when necessary. Thomas Winters, a man in his early thirties, a recent widower, his wife having died in childbirth, and Martin O’Rourke, a twenty-four year old young man with carrot-colored hair and an Irish brogue who had a sweetheart back in Ireland who would be brought over to marry him when he had enough money saved for her passage, both worked for George and were also at the table.

Behind the shop was a large room where many coffins were stored, all standing upright in rows. They had quite a few in stock, in all sizes, for they had a reputation as a trustworthy undertaking business. Harper’s over on River Street had once had that sterling reputation, but Frank Harper had taken over from his father after the elder Harper had died in an accidental fall down the basement steps after having had too much to drink, and Frank, a rumored wife beater, just hadn’t had the same respect for the deceased that his father had had. Spirits had corrupted him in his youth and made him surly.

The clock on the wall marked the passing of the minutes as the game of cards continued. The minute and the hour hand steadily drew nearer together as both approached the numeral twelve at the top of the clock face. Martin had cast a few nervous glances toward the resolute clock, anxious as the hour of midnight drew near to be on his way home. Thomas, unable to bear the apartment he had shared with his late, beloved wife Sally, had moved into two rooms above the undertaker’s shop. They were rooms George Jackson, the elder’s father had lived in with his wife and family. George the elder had built the house behind the shop for his wife. But now he had the other two rooms above the shop, a hallway with a steep, narrow staircase at one end separating his rooms from the rooms Thomas was currently occupying.

Thomas and George the elder did not seem inclined to call it a night. George held a good hand at the moment, and though he thought it would be nice to go home and kiss his wife goodnight, he was reluctant to forfeit the game when he might win the small pot of coins at the center of the table.

Martin was about to make an excuse of a sudden stabbing headache so that he could go home when from the back room there came the sound of sharp knocking. All four heads at the table turned toward the doorway to the back room. Martin had visibly jumped, startled, but the other three men were more curious than frightened. “Whatever could that be?” George asked.

The rapping came again, more forcefully, more urgently. Martin blanched, jumping to his feet, his chair falling backwards with a loud crash that made the other three men jump and turn toward him with wide eyes. Without a word, Martin grabbed his coat and cap and fled the shop through the front door. The others heard his rapid retreat down the street, boots clattering on the cobbles.

“Did someone lock a cat in the storeroom?” George asked.

“There was nothing there when I locked up,” Thomas replied, sounding slightly offended that anyone would even think that he had not checked to make sure that any animals had gotten inside. The Jacksons owned several cats, all of them fine mousers. From time to time they allowed the cats into the shop to hunt when there were signs of mice discovered.

The knocking came again, more demanding of their attention. George the elder sighed as he laid his cards face down on the table. “I’ve heard this before,” he said. “It’s just the coffins drumming up business. They don’t like to stand empty for long.” His son and Thomas both looked at him. “Mark my words. Someone is going to die tonight. Tomorrow morning we’ll have a caller who’ll want to hire us for a funeral. You’ll see.”

“I say we call it a night then as we’ll be busy tomorrow,” George said, more anxious now than before to head to the little house behind the business.

“I won’t get a wink of sleep if this ruckus continues all night,” Thomas grumbled as he gathered up the abandoned cards and tucked them back into their box.

The three men rose simultaneously. Without a prearranged signal, they all took their tumblers in hand and raised them in a silent salute to the passing of a soul that night, draining the contents. George collected the tumblers to bring home. Alice would wash them with the breakfast dishes in the morning. He bid his father and Thomas a goodnight and departed through the front door, not wishing to walk through the back room where the ghostly knocking still persisted, although with a decrease in urgency and volume.

The following morning George and Thomas were in the shop. George the elder was in the back room taking inventory and checking to make sure that none of the coffins had been damaged or knocked awry by the knockers last night. Martin had not yet arrived for work. He was supposed to be raking the yard and cleaning the stable today.

At a quarter past nine, a man with orange hair and a smattering of freckles came into the shop. He appeared to be in his early forties. His face was pale beneath a mottling of emotion, and his blue eyes stood out vividly from swollen, reddened lids. He was so distraught that he’d forgotten to remove his hat upon entering. “I’ve come to hire you,” he said. “I’ve come to tell you…” His voice broke and he raised his hand to cover his tortured eyes.

“You’ve lost someone, then?” George asked gently. The man nodded. “Yes, of course. We are at your service, sir. May I inquire as to the name of the deceased?”

“He is…he was…no, he is my son. You know him, sir. His name is Martin O’Rourke.”

In the sudden silence that fell upon the undertaker’s establishment, the sound of George the elder dropping his inventory book in the back room startled them all. However, only the two Georges and Tom fully understood that this time the knockers had come calling for one of their own.

A Man Gives His Heart

 A Man Gives His Heart



     I’d known Mrs. Jackson all my life. She lived in the big, white Victorian house halfway down the street, around the corner from where I still lived with my parents. I was going to the community college, studying to be a veterinary technician. My parents didn’t have the money to send me to college to be a vet, but I was thinking I could get a job, save some money and finish my education, even if I could only take a couple of classes each year. I was young enough to do that. And I could make extra money so I could afford those classes by doing odd jobs like this one.

     Mrs. Jackson had called to ask if I could drop by today. She had a leaky faucet in the kitchen and now the incessant dripping had turned into a constant trickling. I was pretty good at small plumbing jobs so had quickly diagnosed the issue. A blown gasket. Well, basically, it had disintegrated, it being so old. A quick trip to the hardware store on Main Street and now I was back with the few small things I needed to repair the faucet.

     Mrs. Jackson, a widower a number of times over, was busy at the stove frying strips of what looked and smelled like bacon. “I’m making you a nice sandwich before you go,” she said.

     “You don’t have to do that,” I replied.

     “You work so hard, Billy, it’s the least I can do. How are your classes going, by the way?”

     “I aced the anatomy and physiology exam last week.”

     “Good for you! Your parents must be so proud of you.”

     “I guess.” I think my parents were anxious to get me out of the apartment. I was costing them money still.

     “You’ll get your degree in May?”

     “Yup. I’ve already been doing an internship at We Care Veterinary Clinic out on Shore Road.”

     “You’ve always loved animals. You’ll make a good veterinarian one day.”

     “I think they’ll offer me a job when graduation gets closer.” She nodded. I turned back and gave the faucet handle a few tries. On and off. On and off. No drips. Good water pressure. “I think you’re all set.”

     “Thank you, dear. Henry was a plumber, you know. He always took care of the pipes and drains.” Henry had been one of her husbands. I didn’t remember how many she’d had, but there had been more than six. She hadn’t had much luck with husbands. They’d all had health issues and died fairly young. “John was an electrician. Peter was a carpenter. They kept the house up through the years. I always seemed to have the right husband at the right time, when something went wrong in the house. Old houses are like old ladies, dear. You can keep up the appearance with some paint and primping, but the internal mechanisms, the heart of the home deteriorates.” She sighed as she turned the strips of meat in the pan. “I miss them at Valentine’s Day. They always brought me candy.”

     Now I wished I’d thought to stop at the drug store to get her a small box of candy on my way back from the hardware store. It would have been a nice thing to do. She must be lonely here all by herself. But, hadn’t I heard that she was pretty close to Mr. Baker these days? Mr. Baker was one of the ushers in church. He was a few years younger than Mrs. Jackson, according to what Mom and her friend Barbara had been saying over coffee in the kitchen the other day. “Maybe Mr. Baker will bring you some chocolates later.”

     She nodded. “Perhaps. He is coming over for dinner tonight. He’s been so lonely since Louise passed. I thought a nice dinner would cheer him up.”

     “Maybe he’ll bring you roses,” I said as I turned on the tap so I could wash my hands.”

     “I didn’t think of that.” She paused, thinking, and then said, “You’re tall. Would you go in the pantry and reach down a vase for me? They’re in one of the cupboards.”

     “You got it. No problem.” I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel then walked toward the pantry.       “You’ve sure had a lot of husbands,” I said, what I was thinking in my head just slipping out of my mouth.

     “Yes, I have. I’ve been lucky though. Every one of them gave me his heart.”

     “Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be, though? A guy gives his heart to his girl,” I said, pausing in the pantry doorway to look back over my shoulder at her.

     She turned her head and smiled at me, her blue eyes twinkling. “Yes, it certainly is supposed to be that way. You’re right about that.” A strip of meat popped in the pan. She flipped it over using the long handled fork she held. “You’re still young, but one day, there’ll be a special girl who comes along and you’ll find yourself doing exactly that, Billy, giving her your heart.”

     I nodded. I liked a girl in one of my classes. Her name was Annie. She was cute. She had freckles. I stopped and surveyed the pantry. It was narrow and deep, lined with cupboards above a counter and cabinets beneath. There were two dusty windows looking out toward the old carriage house and attached shed in the side yard.

     I began opening cupboard doors, not sure where she kept vases. There were canned goods and packages of various types of pasta in the cupboard closest to the doorway to the kitchen. Dishes and glasses in the next. Then I noticed a glint of glass through the gap where the last cupboard door was slightly ajar. I walked to the end and opened that door

     I didn’t quite know what to make of what I found in that cupboard. There were canning jars in this one, each one containing one preserved something or other. I reached in and rotated one f the jars. There was a strip of old masking tape that had come loose. I ran my thumb over it to lay it flat but the adhesive was too old, it wouldn’t stick and the rest of it came loose. “Oops,” I murmured, picking up the piece of tape to see if any part of it still retained any stickiness. It felt crisp and dry. It was very old. But the writing on it was still fairly legible. It looked like the word heart. My eyes went back to the jar where my brain acknowledged that yes, it looked like a preserved heart in the jar. I’d seen stuff like this in anatomy and physiology. I had dissected a sheep heart, a cow heart, and a pig heart. I wasn’t absolutely sure what kind of heart this was, but it seemed weird she had a cupboard full of jars with hearts in them.

     “Not that one, dearie,” Mrs. Jackson said from the doorway. “The next one back toward me has the vases in it.”

     “The label fell off this jar,” I said, holding up the piece of tape. “It dried out.”

     “I’ll make a new label later on. Just leave it on the counter so I remember. Now, grab a vase, and then come and have your lunch. It’s ready.”

     I nodded and she went back into the kitchen. Glancing down, I looked at the label. It wasn’t the word heart like I thought. It was a name. The name Henry was written on the piece of tape. My eyes went back to the rows of jaws, to the jar missing its label first and what it contained. Then my eyes shifted to the next jar. Its label also looked kind of brittle, but the name on it was still legible. Frank. The next piece of tape read Peter. The one behind that said John.

     My heart was pounding as I quickly swung the cupboard door closed. It didn’t quite catch and kind of bounced open again. The door either needed to be sanded because it had warped or the hinges needed oiling. I could fix that for her, but then I shook my head. There was something weird here, something not right. I couldn’t shake the goosebumps that had popped up all over me.

     “Billy, are you coming to eat your lunch?” Mrs. Jackson called from the kitchen. Again she appeared in the doorway, long fork in hand. Her eyes fell on the open cupboard door and then slowly returned to meet mine. “I still do my own slaughtering and butchering,” she said. “One pig will last me a couple of years. I always preserve their hearts. Down in the cold cellar, I have jars of pig’s feet, pig’s ears, and pig’s knuckles.” She smiled at me. “Come along. I’m sure you want to get home and get cleaned up. You must have a big date tonight?” I nodded. I was taking Annie out to a movie and then for something to eat.

     “I can fix that cupboard door for you, if you want,” I said as I swung the door mostly shut.

     “Another time,” she replied. “Just grab a vase down from the shelf in that next cupboard before you come to the table, will you? And wash your hands before you sit down.”

     “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, opening the next cupboard door, expecting to see a shelf full of grinning skulls, but there were only vases and miscellaneous bowls and platters. I grabbed a tall vase off the top shelf. It looked sturdy enough to hold a dozen roses. Cautiously, I entered the kitchen, thinking she might run me through with her fork, but she wasn’t in the room. The cellar door across the room stood open however.

     Glancing around, I noticed the sandwich, thick with bacon that she’d fried up, on the table. There was only one place set. A glance to my right showed me that there were still some wide, thick strips of bacon sizzling in the frying pan. The burner, however, was off. I walked over and stood looking down into the pan. I’d never seen home cut bacon before, but even so, it seemed a little odd to me, not quite right. It didn’t quite smell like any bacon I’d ever eaten either. I didn’t know how she’d cure it though. Maybe she did it some old-fashioned way that I didn’t know about.

     “Billy! Before you sit down, can you come downstairs a minute? I could use some help, please. I’ve got something heavy that needs to be moved into the root cellar.” I walked to the cellar doorway, but something made me stop at the top of the stairs. I could see her shadow moving around down there. No, it wasn’t her. It was something else, something large, the shadow of something big swinging slowly back and forth on what appeared to be a segment of rope or several thick links of chain. My God! She must have something hanging from the basement ceiling!

     As I stood there, I heard her footsteps approaching the stairs. “Billy?” She appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me with a sweet smile on her face, her blue eyes twinkling.

     But that was how she always looked, well, except for her hands. Her hands were wet and red, dripping with gore. In her right fist she gripped the handle of a long butchering knife, its blade red with blood also. Clutched in her left hand was what made me turn and bolt for the front door. It was a heart, a very human heart!