Purple Ghosts

The gravestones were smoky, touching the jagged cement like falling sand. It wasn’t morning yet, but the dew was already settling on bare branches. There was nothing much to see: only darkness looming in the corners and cracks of haze oozing into sight. Soon light would break, the mist would fade and it would be just a graveyard. Plain, barren. No green, leafy trees, they were bare; no sprouted tufts of grass, only brown blades dotting the ground. An odd place for a graveyard: next to a child's park. It held only a few, poor souls whom nobody came to visit. The place was haunted with purple ghosts that hovered on legless bodies and made you feel things you wouldn't normally feel: other worldy things, magic things. The coloured ghosts exhaled ice, their lungs frozen solid. Frozen in their moment of death. Did they even breathe? Could they? I did not think so. They were caught in the middle of taking a breath. The last breath. I felt uncomfortable things every time I visited this place. Yes, I visited often. There was a single emotion and a memory that lingered inside, trapped, like my lungs in my ribcage, rattling my bones, trying to escape so it could play among the fields with the purple ghosts, and it was free in this place. And more than the freedom, I liked forgetting and becoming lost in something other than myself, and I existed in a world that I did not belong to. It was different to the pain I was used to in my world. Not good, nor bad, just different. I think it was because of this that I gravitated towards them, the ghosts. Or rather, one particular ghost.

Something touched lightly against my feet, bare. I could not bring myself to put shoes on this morning. I could not remember the last time I had ever been bothered to put shoes on. My soles were black but the forefeet were white with cold. I pulled my wool coat tighter around me, regretting the silly decision. It was colder today than normal. I thought they might turn purple soon.

I couldn't remember what came before today. It was like there never were any days before. There was only this existence. The tangible elements had long left me and all I knew was the graveyard and the park and the abandoned house. The park. The merry-go-round spun loosely. It always did that. Nobody was controlling it. Or perhaps, I was. I pushed it round and round, round and round, pushing more and more against my memory until his face appeared. His straight black hair and his dull eyes that were often lifeless.

His name was Merlow. I saw him in a playground, chasing a child around and around a merry-go-round. The child was laughing and tossing its head back in ecstasy. Merlow, too, was feeling the ecstasy of the child. A feeling, I came to understand, he only ever felt when he looked at the child. I had never seen two people so happy. I didn’t know how anyone could be so happy. So I gravitated toward them, though I did not dare get close, not yet. Perhaps he had a wife, or another child somewhere, and he would reject me as quickly as I had decided I wanted to be near them. Perhaps he thought me strange for watching them. For that’s what I did. Then came the day that I would introduce myself. The child laughed and pointed past Merlow. He thought my face looked funny. Merlow turned and smiled, though something dropped in his eyes when he looked away from the child. His deep blue eyes sparkled less than they had before. But the child lit up. He was incandescent, alive like nobody else in the world. And Merlow quickly flicked his eyes back to the illuminating child without giving me another thought. I left. Lonely, that day, but more determined than ever to make them mine.

Little spurts of rain were falling from the clouds above us. That next day was cold and threatening a storm but that didn’t stop the child and his glee. He pawed at the water sliding off his smooth skin as they started to drop thicker. He did not complain nor ask to leave the merry-go-round to seek shelter. Merlow did not notice the rain. His eyes stayed locked on the child, though he seemed different on this day, uneasy. I knew it wasn’t the rain that was the cause of his uneasiness. I knew it was me. At one point he swung around so viciously to lock eyes with mine for a fraction of a second, before turning back to the child so swiftly I found myself questioning whether I had imagined it. But I felt the coldness so vividly in that momentary glare. I could not have imagined it.

It took a long time for him to stop shooting me glares. But he did eventually stop. The child warmed to me, reaching to me in greeting every time I appeared on the bench. So, Merlow did as well. It was as if the child was his catalyst, controlling everything he was feeling for everything in his life, and there was nothing else but the child and him. One day, they invited me over. The child gave a little ‘come hither’ gesture. It was strange the way he gave me that gesture. It was as if he knew exactly what he was saying, like a man in a child's body. Merlow was spellbound by him and so was I. But beckon he did and only then did Merlow let down his guard. His eyes sparkled, his face lit up and everything changed.

When the cold weather turned warm I brought them iced drinks which the child lapped up greedily. He asked for more and Merlow let him drink to his own content. I didn’t even think about worrying for the child’s health. He was plump and round, healthy as any child I’d ever seen, yet more beautiful than the rest, and so much more alive than any living thing I had ever seen. The sugary drinks only added to his radiance. I would fetch them happily, like the slave to them I had become. They drank three or four some days. Merlow smiled at me and caressed my hair.

There is nothing I could tell you about the pair; about their life, where they came from, what Merlow did to earn his living. It was as if they had entered my life from somewhere unknown and brought with them a blanket of thick fog. Slowly, I pulled myself under with them. I was entering the steep fog, becoming a part of the mystery that was the father and child in the playground in Russell Square, next to the haunted Russell Graveyard. We had no need to speak. We had no need for explanation. Every evening I left them, though where I went I did not know. As the days became months, I could not recall what else I had in my life or what I did when I was not with them. I could not remember my other life: my real life. I felt only the pull of Merlow and the child and I was being pulled under.

When they disappeared I could not bring myself to leave. I lay in the park, curled up with my legs clutched to my stomach, letting the cold night overcome me. The presence of Merlow and the child hovered like ghosts just above me, just out of reach. But that was enough to keep me there. All I needed was a tiny glimpse of what I had felt towards them. It was not simply love. It was something far more dangerous.

Then I saw the purple ghost. It was hovering about two metres away from where I lay. I was next to Merlow's gravestone. It flickered like a faint firelight in the distance. There were no legs, only two small arms beckoning me to 'come hither.' It held a large square lantern with a burning flame inside it that made long shadows on the trees as it flickered in and out of its steel cage. And the eyes. They belonged to the child.

I answered its call. I followed. It turned its back on me and snickered in a high-pitched fashion. That laugh chilled my bones, if it was possible to make them any colder. Carefully, I picked my way across the uneven path through the graveyard. Stone cold footpath under my feet, now turning blue. Not purple. I was not there yet. Eventually we came to the house: his house. The ghost shimmered through the front door, taking the child's eyes with it. I pushed open the door.

A broken staircase, half-burnt curtains, pieces of a wall clock: they were the first things I noticed upon entry to the house. There was an old musty smell hanging in the air like humidity on a rainy day. It engulfed me, weighing me down. Not a sound was there in the house, not another soul; nothing but mustiness and broken things. I looked up to the first landing of the staircase and saw the faint purple hue of the ghost. It was almost as if it wasn't there, it was so faint, just a figment of my imagination. I climbed, with difficulty, the staircase full of holes and broken bits of wood, and followed the purple ghost.

I did not stop to think why the ghost was leading me into this house. I had lost all sense of 'why.' My bluish feet padded on below me and I was led to a bedroom. The bed was scorched: clearly the victim of a house-wide fire. The ghost hovered by blackened curtains dangling over an open window. But it was no longer the ghost that was pulling me in. Something on the little table next to the bed had caught my eye. It was a little black book.

I clambered over the bed, not even bothering to go around, and ignored the ash that billowed into the air, the flying remains of bed covers. I snatched at the book greedily, desperate to open it, though I had no idea why I was suddenly in such a flurry. The book was bound in a sturdy black leather and the pages were faded. But apart from that, there was no evidence that it had been damaged in the fire. I opened the first page. Two pieces of paper fell out into my hand. One was a letter and one was a cheque. I read the letter:

My Darling Ebony,

Tonight will be my last night on Earth. As I write this, I know it will be some time until you read it and you will not understand, yet I also know that I cannot stay here. I will not stay while our son is stuck in that world, the shadow world, the lost world, whatever people call it, forever. The Bible calls it "purgatory". He was the only thing for me, and, though I love you, I cannot stay in a world that does not have him in it. You will see him again when you attempt to enter the shadow world to look for him. Beaumont will be waiting for you. He will look different, yet similar. He will lead you to this book and he will teach you to understand that you must go back to Earth for both of us and go on living without us. You are the only one that can. Live, my darling, live a beautiful life.

I have left you the last of my money: $20,000. Please use it to get out of this unfortunate, small town. Forget about the park where we met and start a new life. Without us. We will never move on. But you must.

Your loving husband,

Merlow.