The Kind Ghost

‘I knew we had a ghost,’ the writer said from her armchair piled with cushions, feet warming by the fire.

‘How’s that?’

‘When we moved in, neighbours told me about a soldier who was killed in the Great War but returned to watch over his daughter, to whom he told stories. She became a writer, but died in childbirth, in the house where she grew up.’

‘Are you related?’

‘We bought the house from her husband, our first home as newlyweds. I wasn’t a writer then. One day, I sat down at the table, preparing to write a letter, when I felt the pen in my hand forming words on blank paper. I wrote for hours. I remember telling my husband, “Reading what I have just written, I now believe the neighbours. We have a ghost in our house, but what a kind one!”’

Kim M. Russell, 7th December 2020

Pierre Bonnard: Writing Woman. Art Print, Canvas on Stretcher, Framed Picture

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Prosery: Some Prosery Cheer

Lillian is back with this Monday’s Prosery, which she has started with an emphatic definition and reminder that Prosery is a piece of short prose of no more than 144 words that includes a given line from a poem. She continues with a lovely explanation of the line she chose and how she chose it.

Lillian tells us that on the day she wrote this prompt, she took out Louise Gluck’s Faithful and Virtuous Night, which her son gave her for Christmas 2015 and is very special to her. As she ‘haphazardly flipped it open’, she was presented with a poem ‘Afterward’, which starts with our prompt line: “Reading what I have just written, I now believe”.

It’s coming on Christmas so, in keeping with tradition, what else could I write but a ghost story?

Image: Writing Woman by Pierre Bonnard (3 October 1867 – 23 January 1947)

47 thoughts on “The Kind Ghost”

    1. Thank you, Lill! I’ve written a few stories about automatic writing and several more about ghosts, some of them friendly. My children’s novel, Joe and Nelly, has a friendly ghost.

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    1. I am fond of benevolent ghosts, Bjorn. The ghost in my novel, Joe and Nelly, is one too. I did have a story published about the ghost of an aristocrat who was guillotined in the French Revolution, who guided the pen of a writer staying at his chateau. I included it in mt little anthology, Between Heartbeats..

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    1. Thank you, Merril. I love ghost stories too. The Victorians told ghost stories at Christmas and A Christmas Carol is one of my favourites. I think the ghost in my story would always be kind.

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  11. I love a lighthearted ghost story, and I initially thought this was going to swing to a dark turn. Boy, I am glad I was wrong. This is a beautiful story and the ending made me smile.

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  16. Great little ghost story for our time and all times — the so-called Great War (actually we’ve been at endless war since 1914…) was a huge tragic hiatus. Well done. I am sure psychography is real.

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