It was an unexceptional night, silver stars hanging in the slate grey sky outside of my uncovered bedroom window as they had on many a night before.

I lay there unable to sleep, as I often did. Trying to lull my active brain into a state of relaxation that would allow me to drift to some secluded place deep within my mind, where an unread story book of dreams would await me.

At first I thought I had imagined it, a tiny hand reaching up over the side of my rose covered quilt.

I closed my eyes for a brief moment but the hairs standing up on the back of my tense neck seemed to be insisting that I open my eyes and look at what I already knew would be right in front of me.

I squinted, needing to look, but almost willing myself not to see.

She stood there, pretty as a picture yet with the appearance of a projected image, tiny sparkles of light covering her from the top of her blonde head to her feet.

Her familiar brown eyes smiled lovingly. My fear had disappeared completely now and I stared in wonder at the beautiful child before me.

I tried to speak but my words seemed to evaporate before they could be heard. It was then, that she moved, in a manner that could only be described as gliding, towards the open bedroom door. I sat transfixed. She turned and beckoned me towards her.

Without questioning I followed her through the door and down the staircase. She paused at the bottom and gestured with her ivory hand down towards the corridor that led to the kitchen.

I turned once again to look at the girl but she had gone. I looked towards the kitchen and saw a thin trail of smoke curling from beneath the closed door.

My senses seemed suddenly to become heightened and for the first time I could hear the crackle of fire, and the smell of burning filled the air. I stepped backwards edging towards the front door of the home in which my twin sister and I had been born thirty years earlier.

I opened the door and stepped into the cold winters night. Then I stopped on the doorstep and turned briefly to grab the one possession from the hallway table that was, to me, the most treasured thing I owned.

I gazed at it. The photograph was still in good condition protected from twenty three years of existence by the strong wooden frame that cradled it.

Staring back at me from the photograph were two seven year old girls. One was me and the other my blond haired, brown eyed twin sister who I had lost so tragically all those years earlier..

"Thank you", I whispered as I walked down the path and towards my future.

Return to the Ghost Story index