Her Darkly-Shining Soul

“How did you die?” Upon meeting her first ghost, Molly Kingsmith thought this an appropriate question to ask. The ghost occupied the swing next to young Molly, though it showed little interest in doing more than just sitting there. Many people, finding themselves haunted, might have fainted or run screaming from the spectral figure responsible. If there was one thing Molly had learned in her eight short years it was that the world was full of new and wonderous and previously undiscovered things, and a ghost, rather than being the strangest, was simply the newest.

“That’s an impolite question, young lady,” said the ghost, “Hasn’t your mother taught you any manners?” Indeed, Molly’s mother had long since given up on teaching her daughter manners. At some point the girl had gotten it into her head that manners simply got in the way of a great many things, not the least of which was finding out how her new friend had come to its’ present state.

“If you don’t tell me I’ll just guess, “she replied, “I’m a very good guesser, so I’ll probably get it.” Left unconsciously unstated was the promise that said guessing would likely take quite a bit of time and become more than a little annoying before it ceased. Molly noticed the early June air growing substantially colder, and thought nothing of it. The prior July Molly had awoke to a town covered with a sparkling frost which Molly had proceeded to lick off of every available surface until her father plucked her into the air and carted her inside. The disinfectant mouthwash she’d been required to swirl around her mouth tasted of candy canes. Growing impatient, Molly drew breath to begin her guesses, no less than seventeen already prepared in her head.

“I died alone.” The creak of the rusted swingset filled the palpable silence that echoed after the ghost’s declaration. In a full day of guessing, Molly would never have considered that. The tiny girl with the cool blue eyes and autumn red hair was wholly unfamiliar with the concept of being alone. Her father wrote articles on bird watching, and her mother painted pictures that Molly spent, and would continue to spend, much time trying to emulate, so they were never out of earshot. Even in a town as small as Saline, Molly had all of the friends she could want (and some she could do without) and a summer morning did not pass without two, three, or four of them knocking on her door and breathlessly asking her mother if Molly could come out so they could show her their latest discovery. They spent hours thinking about and searching for new things to show Molly, something she would not figure out for many years.

Though Molly couldn’t see it, the ghost studied her deeply-furrowed brow and slightly-bit lip and old, long-dead instincts stilled the response she had been preparing.

“People forget you are a little girl, don’t they Molly?” she asked, instead. Molly looked up then, and for the first time since the ghost had passed, she felt the eyes of a living being upon her. Unbidden, memories of days spent with her own children, Michael and Jacob, both grown with children of their own, came rushing back. She remembered the cold winter day she had met her husband, sweet Raymond, who came across her little ’72 VW Beetle blocked in a parking spot. Without a word he’d stopped and pulled a shovel from his trunk and dug her out. They didn’t exchange names or phone numbers then, but after a few more chance encounters had fallen in love and married. Every moment of her life, good and bad, filled her insubstantial form with a long-forgotten vitality. She, Carol Elders was her name, looked and saw the totality of her life reflected in this child’s eyes, and saw the jack-o’-lantern smile growing on her face. Carol understood, now, why she’d ceased her wandering and sat down next to this little girl. Why she had been drawn to her, like one lost in the darkness. She smiled at the question Molly then asked.

“How did you live?”