The Other Side / Shadows on the Wall by Jan Darrow

The Other Side

she was in the kitchen

when they plowed the house under

on that flat tar road

farm country

but keeping it under

has been the issue  

pieces of glass that sparkle in the sun

are always cropping up 

fragments of porcelain knobs and silver faucets 

come to the surface like blue water tuna 

wanting a glimpse of the other side

and she’s there still  

whispering through papered walls

and open windows

locking secrets into mahogany drawers

in the downstairs bedroom

layering always decades 

nearer to the truth

Shadows on the Wall

They came in the evening to talk and I would listen.

Some were just wisps and spoke with gold colored voices.  The others spoke in echoes.  Sometimes in the fading October light they sang songs I had never heard before.  But mostly they talked about the witches.

“On the third floor darling,” they would say.

I didn’t tell them I didn’t go up there anymore.  Why should I climb stairs to rooms full of dusty boxes?  I hadn’t opened the door to that staircase in years.  I had even thought about having Henry nail the door shut, but he was much too busy with the garden.

Then one night I heard whispers, and I wondered.  So I took my slippers and crept up to the third floor staircase.  Slowly I opened the door, but heard nothing.

Back in bed I listened to Henry breathe, it calmed me, and I fell asleep, but in the morning I remembered, and in the afternoon in my study I put my papers away and waited for the shadows.

“What do the witches do all day?” I asked when only the smallest wisp danced under the window sill.

“They fold themselves into the tiniest cracks into places you would never think to look.  Oh darling, you can’t see them until later!”

And I believed…… that is until I came to my senses and thought how ridiculous the shadows were.  I mean really, shadows can’t talk.

“Witches! Ha!”  I said out loud as I climbed the stairs to the top floor.  I would see the rooms in the daylight.  I would see them for what they were…empty and full of dust.  And as I made it to the very top the sun moved low enough to stream through the window panes and I stopped to see Henry outside.  Won’t he laugh out loud when I tell him about the shadows?

But as I turned away from the window in the hall I saw them.  Not just one or two, but thirty or maybe forty on the wall. Black wicked shadows: witches pointing, laughing, and riding brooms.  Everywhere the witches were in groups whispering, planning, plotting, holding court while the blackest of cats screeched, and dripped between cauldrons of steaming potions.  The hypnotic acid filled the air until I could no longer breathe, and I stumbled down to the second floor and slammed the door behind me.

It was later that Henry found me in the tool shed with a hammer and nails in my hand.

Jan Darrow is a graduate of the University of Michigan. She has always been interested in the paranormal and finds abandoned places utterly beautiful. You can view more of her work at jandarrow.blogspot.com