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Storyteller's Cabin |
"I hope you don't mind," she said to me in a polite, mannered voice. "Your Mother makes the best cookies."
Now when I tell you she "said" that, I don't mean she said it out loud. To my shock, her lips didn't move - but I heard exactly what she said in my mind.
"My name's Eva," she said. "I guess you've figured out by now that I'm a ghost. Does that scare you?"
Well, I guess older folks might have been terrified sitting there speaking with the dead. But for a seven-year-old with an unwavering belief in things like Santa Claus, a ghost didn't bother me much. So I shook my head no.
"Good," she said and motioned for me to sit beside her. "You know, there are many things that are scary in life. Ghosts are scary to some folks. But you know what the scariest thing of all is?"
When I shook my head again, she replied, "The scariest thing in life is being alone. And if you're alone, the holidays only make it worse."
She then told me about the years she lived in the house. She was born and raised there, raised a family of her own, and then watched everyone leave one by one. And when her husband passed away, and each of her children had married and moved away, she found herself alone in that big, empty house.
Eva's children were too consumed with their own lives to spend time with her. Lonely and depressed, she lost all interest in her past hobbies like card games and reading. She never watched TV or listened to the radio. She would rarely talk to friends, and slowly lost her interest in eating. "But the worst part was losing my memory," she said to me. "I used to hate it when people would say, 'You remember when we used to do such-and-such?' And I couldn't remember." She sighed heavily and said, "It was like someone else lived my life."
With a family too busy to care about her, all she had left in the world was the old house. Even when wealthy developers moved in and built new homes around her, she refused to sell at any price.
But the worst time, she told me, were the holidays. The outside world was telling her she was supposed to be happy. She would see the twinkling lights outside, hear the neighborhood carolers. But without a family, those joyous sights and sounds were like mocking reminders of her loneliness. She entombed herself deeper and deeper into the house, rarely going outside. And she died alone in her bed.
But even in death, she could not escape the house. When she would open the door or a window, a dark, cold, terrifying darkness was all she could see. So she was forced to roam the house as a ghost.
She turned to me and smiled, tears welling up in her eyes. "You remember that, child. It's much scarier to be alone than dead."
By this time I had totally forgotten about Santa Claus or presents. Even at such a young age, I was saddened by this lonely ghost in front of me. So I suddenly blurted out, "Then why don't you celebrate Christmas with us?"
Eva smiled, and then looked at the clock on the wall. "Christmas is for the living, not the dead," she said. "But I'll tell you what you can do. When Christmas comes, make a joyful racket in this house. Enjoy your time with your family. Play music, string up lights, have parties. Make this house a happy place again. Then I'll know I'm not alone."
She then winked at me and said, "Oh, and leave me a plate of your Mom's cookies every once in a while, will you?" And with that, she disappeared like a fine mist into the darkness.
So every year after that, I did what she asked for. Each Christmas Eve, I would leave a plate of cookies for her in a different part of the house, so Mom wouldn't suspect anything. Come Christmas morning, the cookie plate was always empty.
As I grew into an adult, married, and had children of my own, I settled down in that same old house. And like my Mom before me, I told my daughter that we had to leave a plate of cookies out for Santa - he'd be hungry from his travels, after all. And every Christmas morning, my daughter would awake with excitement and proclaim, "The cookies are all gone!"
And I would smile at her and say, yes, Santa must have really been hungry. But I knew it was our resident Christmas ghost who had stopped by, and she was now at peace for another year.
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