Ghosts of Winter Sleep

I’m not spooked by winter anymore. I suppose there was a moment, back there, in grayer days, when the chill felt like the edge of something. Like being 5 years old, with your hand cupped on the edge of your grandmother’s metal platter, that cool rim between you and what you want, and the floor. It startled my sister, I know. To her, the ice was like spiders, racing along the sidewalk, twisting and winding. It was like those desert snakes, tail in their mouths, tumbling, indifferent, across the sands. We knew some winter when we lived in England, of course. England is famous for its cold, wet rain, and the fog that never quite leaves. Windowpanes so thick with frost you might lick them, although it would be the one to eat you.

The ghosts felt like winter when we finally met them. CarolAnn—my sister—and I were running around a corner for some irrelevant thing when there she was, the first one. Tall, languid, and looming. She was so exactly like a tv ghost, we thought it was a game. CarolAnn was barely 6, and she thought it was some kind of cosplay.

“Hey, cool outfit!” I think she said, before she ran to grab the floating hand. Silver-green nails flinched. The woman screamed. And she was gone.

I can’t remember if that’s what made CarolAnn fear the winter, or if it was just a product of that fear.

You play the game of chicken and egg a lot, I find, now that I’m grown, when it comes to being scared. Was it what you feared that made you scared, or were you scared because you feared?

CarolAnn was scared of a lot of things, for a very long time. Ghosts, of course. Also the cold. Carrots. Big dogs. Little dogs. Hot dogs. I’m kidding about the last one, but you have to understand, this story gets heavy for me.

We did see the woman again, and the last time I saw one, it was when CarolAnn died. We saw other ghosts in the interim, but none really stayed with us like ‘the green woman’ as we called her, the woman with the talon nails that twitched, and the sad face that only moved to scream.

She didn’t scream, when CarolAnn died, and I think part of me was offended by that. Or maybe I was jealous, when I saw her nails wrap around that little hand, and the heart meter stopped. It was so rude, to me, that here she did nothing but scare my little sister, and here she got to take her to whatever was beyond without me. I had nobody without CarolAnn. Did the ghost woman care about that? No.

I mean it when I say I had nothing else. My parents were… themselves, off somewhere, doing whatever they needed, and the state check from CarolAnn’s social worker was what was keeping our rent paid and lights on. Without her and that, it was me and the ghosts, and icy streets.

I don’t want to talk about myself, but I’m not well. Nobody cares about that. Once it’s you and yourself, nobody cares about anything. Give, they tell you. Give to the world, and you’ll get back more than yourself. Rubbish. People mind their own. They mind the strong. They don’t care about your bloody feet. Your bloody cough. The dizziness, and the smell of matted human that keeps you from work, from warmth.

We used to live in England, but I can’t tell you where we, I, live now. I’m not spooked by winter anymore because there’s a lot of it here, now.

There’s a lot of trees here, too. I fancy it’s a park. Part of me forgets why I started telling you this—would you like some tea? One pound, if you please. Oh, the ghosts.

Yes, there are more. I see one right behind you, but mind you, she’s not looking at you, she’s looking at me. Sometimes I think there’s a softness to her, but other times I’m certain she’s like the others. I never learned why me and my sister were running into so many of the dead spirits of the world, but we suspect it was our imaginations. Not that we were imagining them, but that, if you’ll stay with me a minute, that they were imagining us. I know that sounds crazy. Children know a great deal more about these things than we do, and CarolAnn, she had a sense for people’s intentions. (I can tell she would have liked you.) That intention extended into the other world, too.

CarolAnn would take us on imaginary games, and I would play along, and when she did this, it was easy to notice the air, chilling. The world, pausing. It paused for us as it often does for children, but it also paused for them. The in-betweeners. I wonder if they, too, seek out some childish fun. It must be awful for them, standing around, screaming, always in distress. Children must be such a light for the wayward forces of the world, even when sick and dying.

I like to imagine old greeny took CarolAnn somewhere nice. Maybe heaven, if such a place exists outside of her little girl’s imagination. Though I can’t see why, if someone could go to heaven, they’d stick around here. Excuse my cough.

You fine folk said you were passing through? You don’t want tea? You can’t possibly be from around here, oh no, hah. I’m not sure where I’m at, but here is a place where people frown at the occasional outlier, like myself. A ‘loser’ they call me. I just sell my little occasional cups of tea and hope nobody notices. Entertain the travelers. Pretend there’s more.

Hey, I say that woman back there. I thought she was a ghost too, but I’m thinking as the sun goes down she’s more like the two of you. Kind-faced, peaceful. You’d like to take these hands? Oh, ho. They’re practically frost-bitten. Well, since you’re so kind. It’s been a long time since I’ve known such kind souls, patient souls.

I can’t say I am afraid, or was afraid, but, before you got here, it was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark.