I stand still. It is cold out and even though I wear a sundress I do not care. All the friends and strangers alike are in black wear. Their sobbing dreadfully loud it would hurt my ears if I had a real pair of ears. I watch my horrid mother walk to the podium. She starts to speak fondly of me as if she misses me greatly. But I know the truth. My name is - was- Esther Holdridge. Now I am a wisp of air. There but not there at the same time. I know I should not have attended my own funeral. But I had to know if they could lie in front of everyone. Say what they know is not true. Continue on in like nothing happened. My family, they all know what really happened yet they choose to say nothing. They say it was an accident of a sort. It was not. My mother Mary now makes her way back to her seat. I look around and I see father. He looks sickly happy as they lower me or what is left of my body into the crypt. I close my violet eyes as they seal the tomb once again. That is it, the people who were present at my funeral disperse and go their separate ways.
I know not what to do now. I climb gracefully up a nearby weeping willow, and I sit on the top branch waiting for something, anything to happen. And then I realize what I must do.
I climb down from the tree and start the long walk, or in my case glide to where I know I will find Edith. She will help me. As I glide around I pass by a ugly butcher house and I smell the distinguished smell of blood. A horse and carriage are coming my way now I step right in the middle of the dirt road just to see what will happen. Then they were past I turned around and they were going on down the road not knowing that they just ran over somebody. Wait, I must stop myself I am not someone I am something. I continue on. I see lights in the distance. Edith is near; I can feel her presence. She will help me. She has to. She will see me. she has seen others before. So why would she not see me?
I enter the small village of Haftall just as the sun disappears over the carpeted hills of soft silk. There are few people roaming the streets tonight. Everyone is enjoying a hearty meal with their family- the difference being that their families love them. I never had such luck. Yet I was still able to maintain some pride. I did well in school. I made friends. “Clip-clop-clip-clop!” another horse and carriage are coming by, so I step to the side of the road as the carriage passes. I continue on my way. I can now see her house in the fog. The candles are burning brightly in the very window that Edith broke as child. I am coming close now If I were human I would be able to feel the warmth the house is releasing. I hear hoarse laughter coming from behind the oak door at the front of the house. I know it must be Mr.Shoedin, Edith’s husband. I drift to the side of the house where I could peer into the window that looks into the dining room. I hover above the ground watching as the Shoedin family finishes supper. Suddenly Edith looks up and out the window and lets out the most blood curdling scream I have ever heard. I know then she has seen me. I point to the front door and drift over there. She then opens the door and looks me in the eye. We both stay still looking right into each others souls. I can see the fear in her eyes she knows why I am here. Me, the deceased hovering above her door step. She knows that I am aware that she has seen others of my kind. Edith used to call us line walkers; past beings who walk on the border of life and death. She knows I want her help. I break the silence by letting my breath out as I realized I was holding it in. Edith pointed towards the well in the front yard. I gently glide over to the spot where she had pointed and she followed. Once we had both settled down, Edith sitting on a tree root, and I am on the top of the well. She told me that she would help me on one condition. And that condition was that she would never have to be bothered by me again even if we didn’t succeed in freeing me from this curse. I agreed, and then it was silent. It was so silent that I could hear her human heart. She broke the silence and said,“Tell me what really happened. I don’t believe that you slipped on a hill anymore.” So I told her the whole thing from finish to start. When I was done she stared at me with a strange look of disgust on her face. I let her gape at me and collect herself from what she had just heard. It seemed like hours until she was ready to speak again. Then she started to cry she kept saying how sorry she was and that she would do everything with in her power to help me. She said she now knew what true evil was now. It was not anything I did not already know. I knew what evil was and I knew that is what had happened to me. But I kept my pale face up and did not let translucent tears roll down my smooth face. Edith finally stopped her bawling and tried to take my hand but she could not grasp it. The fingers just slipped through her hand. She gasped. It must have been a while since she last helped line walkers. I drifted off the top of the well. And I whispered to meet me at my grave by noon the next day. I would not have been audible if it weren’t for the slight breeze that carried my voice to Edith’s ear. I could feel her staring at me shaking her head in pity. As I walked away into the gloom. I was sheltered from the dark of night by a abandoned farm a ways from the town. In the barn I started to think of they day where it all ended. I pushed those memories out of my head and tried to think of happy things, but the images just kept coming back.
