As the sun sets each day, it blankets the hills with a twilight-colored warmth. And each evening, as inevitable as the sunset itself, a ghost in black attire appears in the window of a decrepit old mansion to bathe in that nostalgic glow. He stares into the red horizon, unblinking as the harsh rays burn his irises. A single dirt road weaves its way through those endless hills that stretch out beyond the ghost’s home. No matter how many sunsets come to pass, not a single soul ever walks that path.
As the sun rises each day, it gives life to a world shrouded in darkness. As the veil is pierced by the gentle morning glow, a beautiful garden springs to life, though no resident exists in that mansion to tend to the frail flowers or aging trees. A glass wall separates that small colorful paradise from the dusty interior. Within, a lone piano occupies the room. Sitting there is a ghost in a slender white dress. She strokes the time-stained keys with pale fingers, parting her lips to sing a tune with no sound. No matter how many mornings grace this vestige of the past, not a single soul ever hears the song.
The faint flickering of a candle joins the many lights of stars that dot the night following each day. The ghost in black grasps a tattered diary with trembling hands, reading and rereading each worn page, forcing himself to never forget any of the fading letters written in elegant, flowing script. They tell the story of a woman, heavy with child, who left her home in the countryside to raise her progeny in the city far from the abusive man the babe would call father. The final page, barely clinging to the tome’s binding, is dated seven years after the day the woman fled from her husband’s estate. Wracked by the grief of loneliness and regret of being unfit to provide for her daughter, she pledged to live out her final days in the company of the man she once loved.
When the sun hangs highest in the sky, it beats down relentlessly on the mansion as if to expose the sins nestled there for all to see. The ghost in white stands paralyzed in the attic, eyes glued to the simple, gruesome scene before her. Through the dilapidated roofing, light pours in and sets the stage for motes of dust to dance merrily despite the tragic state of the place. In the very center of the room, a sturdy wooden chair stands boldly beneath a dangling strand of thick rope, suspended from the final rafter that remains intact. All the hatred, fear, grief, torment, and regret that the woman felt in life are bundled up there, in the knot that forms the noose.
A day arrived when the ghost in the window spent the twilight hour looking out to the world with an expression of peace, rather than the usual sorrow. As the gradient of the sky shifted to blue-black, the man descended the termite-infested stairs with a matchbox in hand. He ran his wrinkled hand over the dry wood of his wife’s precious piano. Perfect tinder to form the pyre on which he would burn for his crimes.
A gentle melody resounded through the empty halls. There, in the moonlight, the ghost in black laid his tear-drowned eyes on the visage of the person he thought he couldn’t bear to see again. The ghost in white sang through her bittersweet smile a song of hope and forgiveness. It turned to a soothing lullaby as one ghost kneeled to embrace the other. The woman had often hummed this rhythm to their daughter, and it gave power to the touch the ghosts shared. Through the warmth, the ghost in white took on all the burdens weighing down the ghost in black.
The ghost in the window set foot outside his self-made prison for the first time in what could have been a lifetime. The matchbox was withdrawn from the black coat’s pocket and found a new use. The mansion that for so long had been haunted by unthinkable negativity lit up the night. At long last, the lonely road that wound through the hills had the chance to carry a traveler bound by a newfound purpose. The man took one last look over his shoulder and saw, framed by the flame-covered curtains, a beautiful ghost in the window.