It was in the year of our Lord, eighteen-hundred and forty-two, three days after Christmas, that I, Errol Sheridan, came to be in the service of one Henry Lee Blankenship.  However, it was only after his unfortunate demise on the Lord’s birthday.  Mister Blankenship was a shipping magnate that had amassed a great fortune over his lifetime and died all alone on a Virginia estate of two-hundred acres.  Though Blankenship lived to be near ninety years old, he had never married in all his years and never had any children and thus no heir or heiress other than the state of Virginia who had promptly hired me to be a partial caretaker for the estate in the winter of 1842-43.

Henry Blankenship was rumored to be a homosexual, but I was never one to indulge wholeheartedly in gossip nor did I find unscrupulous glee in it.  If the man fancied other men the same way I fancied women, so be it.  Though I did not understand it, it was none of my business nor my concern.  My only concern was in making sure I received the other half of my payment from the state of Virginia.  I myself, being in my thirty-third year at the time of this writing, have never had time for a wife or children, though I do enjoy the company of women. 

I assumed that most people that worked for Mister Blankenship whilst he still lived also cared not about his sexual desires so long as they also accrued their own monetary payments whilst keeping their mouths closed.  Blankenship, though, was a bit of a miser and he employed no in-house staff in full-time positions, nor did he have ‘round the clock groundskeepers.  Even unto his old age I heard that he himself did most of his own cooking as well as the cleaning and upkeep of his mansion.  Only several times a year would he hire temporary staff to do those things for him.

‘Twas by coach that I arrived at the Blankenship estate from Richmond.  The ride was drafty and cold, for it was snowing profusely.  Though, as chilled as I was, I imagined the driver was more so as he sat bundled atop the front seat like a figurehead on the bow of a ship slicing through wind and snow in a determined search for a destination.  I wondered then, as I do now, if one ever truly gets used to those most unfavorable of conditions.

As I stepped through the grand doorway and into the foyer of the main house, I was assuredly taken aback, for I could see that Mister Blankenship had done no cleaning, nor had it done for him, in some time.  A year or more it had been I presumed, for it was heavily-laden with cobwebs and there was visible dust everywhere one looked.

Mister Blankenship’s attorney, one Reginald Duncil, met me at the door and was my introductory host for close to one and one-half hours.  He first showed me the grand fireplace in a wall of the parlor, crackling with soothing warmth.  I must admit that for the ten minutes or so we stood in front of the fire, I heard very little as he yammered on about this and that as my mind was preoccupied with the elation of feeling the heat.  I was intrigued by an oil portrait of Blankenship, from fifteen years before, that hung above the fireplace, for I had only ever seen one rather poor sketch of him, several years before, that accompanied a newspaper article about his shipping business.

After Mister Duncil showed me around the house and my quarters, which were in Blankenship’s bedroom, we went outside to my silent dismay.  He was a bit of a rambler, this Mister Duncil, as he pointed things out amid the snow.  I made note of the firewood and coal and as he droned on, I noticed a rather large cemetery off in the distance of a great field.  It lay just on the other side of Mister Blankenship’s property line.

Mister Duncil explained to me the boundaries of the estate, for it seemed to sprawl to the horizon in every direction, and that the nearly full cemetery was not a private one, but was owned by the county of Westmoreland.  It was the final resting place of Blankenship himself who had been put in the ground there the day before.

It was late in the afternoon when I’d first arrived and by early evening before sundown, Mister Duncil was well on his way to his own homeplace by way of horse.  As I watched him ride away, I felt a bit of sorrow for him because of the relentlessness of that winter’s day and the fact that he had not arranged for himself a coach.  Part of me though, a great part, was glad to see him go, honestly.  If I’d had to listen to him tell me more about the origins of a certain wallpaper or where a particular rug came from and how much it cost, or who melded together the dining room chandelier, I think I would have died then and there.  On a humorous note, if I had not expired, I may have jumped through a window and ran away, snow or not, to escape the choking confines of his verbal grasp.  As a caretaker, and a highly reputable one I might add, my job was simple: watch over the great, empty house and grounds until the first day of spring when it would then pass from my hands.

As night fell, I loaded up the cook stove with coal and made myself pan biscuits and porridge.  The cupboards in the kitchen were very well-stocked of dry goods, however, a stipulation of mine was that I wanted Mister Blankenship’s weekly goods delivery from the town’s general store to continue at the expense of the state and with my picks of course.  I had not a horse, but with steed or not, I did not wish to venture several miles into town on a weekly basis in the freezing cold of the winter months.

Though, a regular smoker I am not, I enjoy a good smoke every now and again as long as the tobacco is fresh.  However, I do not enjoy the smell of inside pipe smoke nor cigarettes nor cigars, having always preferred to step outside to indulge while wishing my colleagues would do the same.  I bundled up and went out onto the rear veranda with loaded pipe.  In good spirits I was and was not minding at all that the snow was still falling.

I struck a match and lit a hanging lantern.  I then held the tiny, flickering flame to the top of the small heap of tobacco in the pipe’s bowl and watched as it lit up a twinkling orange as lucid as a candle-lit pumpkin carved up for the devil’s holiday, All Hallow’s Eve.  As I savored the taste of the finest cherry-amber plug money could buy and smelt its sweet aroma before the wind robbed it of me, I heard a series of crunching sounds from the midst of the hollow darkness before me.       

It was the unmistakable sound of a small animal’s limbs breaking through the crest of fresh-fallen snow.  Then I saw the shape of it just outside the semicircle of the lantern’s light and it looked to be a small dog or half-grown wolf.  Blacker than the night it was and it darted from a hedgerow of dormant bushes to a wood pile.  Against the backdrop of snow, which had a nightly, bluish tinge, the canine showed up rather well and I saw that it had a great, bushy tail.  I then realized that my uninvited visitor was a fox.

I reached up for the burning lantern and held it up high before me.  Peculiar, I thought, that the fox would run toward me rather than away.  As the light hit its eyes, they glowed red as twin embers.  Hoping for a better look, I eased forward a step with the lantern.  

The black fox uttered a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a low yelp.  A chill ran up my spine.  My first reaction was to promptly straighten my posture and stand steadfast.  Even then as the fox ran off, it seemed to have a firm grasp on me, for I could not move for at least a half minute’s time I am sure of it.

As the fox disappeared, I lit my pipe for a second time as it had gone out.  As I stood there in the cold darkness, savoring the pipe smoke, staring out into the blackness of the night, it occurred to me how rare it was for one to see a black fox.  I did not recall ever hearing of anyone else seeing one.

It was not long until something else interrupted my solitude.  ‘Twas the low ringing of a far-off bell, clanging profusely in succession several times.  I suspected it was not the wind that made it do so, for the wind was still rather light at the time.  It was not the sound of a large bell, such as a church bell, but was instead the rather faint sound of a small bell.  A hand-held one perhaps.

There were a few clusters of these clangs in a span of several minutes until the clanging stopped and the whispers of the wind filled my ears once more.  I saw no more of the black fox on that first eve, nor did I again hear the bell.

It was the next afternoon that I became slightly acquainted with the dry goods deliverer of the town’s general store.  I say ‘slightly’ because he seemed nervous and was very addled.  He was a boy, really, and a simpleton at that.  He was no more than nineteen or twenty years I imagine.  To save him from embarrassment as I relay this story to you, dear reader, I will refer to him as ‘Archibald’ rather than reveal his true name.

Though the snowfall had stopped sometime in the night, the sun did not penetrate the bleakness of the gray, overcast sky for the whole of the day.  In the afternoon I gathered stumps from the wood pile and began chopping them into smaller, less cumbersome pieces.

At near three o’clock I saw that Archibald was riding in the seat of a small dray being pulled by a horse up to the front of the house.  I’d only had two servings of porridge so far that day.  I looked forward to a supper of vegetable stew with ingredients I found on hand supplemented with ingredients I’d ordered.  As I went ‘round to the front of the house I saw that Archibald was about to climb back into his seat for a hasty retreat.

“You there, young man,” I said to him and introduced myself.

He told me his first name and proceeded to tell me what was inside the small, wooden crate he’d left on the front doorstep: oats, flour, carrots, onions, soap, and so forth.  There was also a complimentary bread loaf for me in being a first-time customer.  It would go well with my stew.   Upon hearing that my order had been fulfilled, I inquired about the odd occurrences of the evening before.

 “Do tell, Archibald,” I said, “do you know of any bellringing in the early hours of dark in these parts?  Just last evening I heard what sounded to be a small bell clanging from seemingly nowhere.  Nowhere but the middle of this great field that is.”

Archibald’s eyes grew wide and he looked to me foremost with fear and then concern.

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“Sir, the only nearby bells I know of are those that are placed directly above some of the graves with rope and pulley,” he said shakily, “over at the graveyard there.  Some folks around here have a fear of being buried alive and request to have a thin rope attached to a small bell that runs down into the casket with them on a pulley contraption.  If they are not truly dead and they wake up a day or so after burial, they can yank on the bell string for help.  If after seven days no one has heard any bell ringing from a grave, the bell and pulley system is removed and the grave is completely sealed forever.”

“Do you speak the truth?” I asked, dumbfounded.  “That is the most preposterous tale I’ve ever heard.”

“It is true, sir,” he replied with voice still shaky, “every word.  Superstition runs rampant in this little town, sir.”

I gave Archibald a look of skepticism, clear disbelief, though I am not sure whether he could tell or even cared.

“Mister Blankenship is the most recent of persons in these parts to pass away,” Archibald said and pointed, “and he’s buried right up there.  I heard that he was buried with one of those bell and pulley systems.  Perhaps it was he that rang the bell.”

“Really, boy,” I said with a chuckle.  “Please.”

“I am only telling you things I’ve heard, sir.”

“What of black foxes?” I asked.  “What can you tell me of them if anything?  In the light of my lantern I saw one running around here last night, as black as a raven it was, not long before I heard the bell.”

Archibald’s eyes grew even wider.

“Perhaps I should go,” he replied.  “I think I’ve told you enough.”

“You haven’t told me hardly anything at all other than something about a silly superstition.”

“If they should find out I’ve said something to you, they could – “

“They?  They who?”

“I should go.”

Archibald turned to climb up in the seat of the dray.

“At least tell me what you know of a black fox.”

“Black foxes are a rare sight.  They are a sign of witchery and bad things to come.  This – this place is cursed, sir.  The town, but especially this house and its grounds are cursed.  I – I can say no more.”

Archibald then secured his place in the seat of the dray, shook the reins, and the horse pulled away at a rather brisk pace.

I took the crate inside and with herbs and potatoes on hand; along with the addition of carrots and the onion from the crate, I proceeded to make myself a nice stew that simmered until well after dark.

As I lay in bed on that second night, just before I drifted away to slumber, my rest was interrupted by the familiar sound of a small, ringing bell.  The tootling came in several, sporadic successions at first, much like a series of impatient door knocks.

I lay there hoping that the ringing would cease.  When it did not, I found myself looking out the window into the moonlit night whence the ringing was coming.  As much as I yearned to clamor at whomever was ringing that confounded bell, I of course saw no one to clamor to in the dark.

My common sense had already enlightened me, blatantly telling me that I would see no one and nothing.  Yet there I stood, peering against the glass with hands cupped around both eyes as if I were a boy eyeing a display of ladies’ undergarments through a store window.  I needed not to even see the origin of the bellringing at that time, for the low sounds of it to my ears was more than enough to entice my curiosity and prod a compulsion to go out into the cold dark of night to see just who dangled a bell and shook it about in the dead of winter.

I soon found myself with an overcoat, trousers, and boots over my sleeping gown whilst holding a glowing lantern above my head as I crunched across the snowy tundra.  I headed the way of the cemetery since the bell sounds seemed to be coming from that locale.  I thought it an immoral prankster to do such a thing at a graveyard.  Not only was this person disturbing the eternal rest of the nearby dead, but everyone else’s rest that was within hearing distance.  A real nuisance this person was I thought.

I came to the cemetery’s gate as the bell rattled on.  To my surprise, I saw that the gate of the wrought-iron enclosure was ajar.  I noted that the latch was old and so well-worn that a strong wind could have opened the gate.  Lowering the lantern a bit, in the snow I spotted the familiar, patterned holes of the paw impressions of a canine going up to the gate and beyond to the inside of the cemetery.  I stepped past the gate and lifted the lantern ever higher, shining the light over the vastness of the gravestone-laden grounds.

The ringing ceased to my bemusement.  I lowered the lantern and was compelled to follow the paw prints in the snow.  I walked past row after row of tombstones; some standing tall and fanciful whilst others lay lowly and simple on the ground.  It was a stark reminder to me that no matter how much money one had, or how little, death charges us all the same.

I came to an abrupt halt when the pattern of paw prints I was following suddenly went about haphazardly from left to right and back as if the animal that laid them had suddenly found itself in distress.  Upon raising the lantern to shoulder level, I saw that the tracks continued onward in a curved line to the other side of a tall, slim tombstone. As the light from my lantern bobbed up and down the closer I drew to this tombstone, I saw that it was newly erected, for there was nary bearded mold nor mildew on its back side. 

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Only snow covered the top and skirted the bottom of the tombstone. The light then reflected off something just on the other side. Something that was small and shiny, glinting in the darkness.

When I stepped closer, I saw that it was a small bell dangling in the air, suspended on one end of a thin rope attached to a pulley contraption with the other end of the rope going into the ground. The bell suddenly began to ring, shaking and jingling as if by its own accord. I stepped around the girth of the tombstone, and the full sphere of the lantern’s glow fell across the grave. There, standing atop the freshly churned mound of dirt near the façade of the tombstone, was the black fox.

The bell rope was clamped between its teeth as it yanked and tugged, causing the bell to clang incessantly. I was not surprised to see him, for I’d thought of him as soon as I’d seen the tracks.

However, to my surprise, I found that it was this creature that had caused the bell to ring on that night and likely the ringing of the night before.

Though I had a pistol, it was packed away in my bags. I found the contraption to be very bothersome when trying to load with powder and pellet, so I hardly touched the loathsome thing. Yet, it was the second thing I thought of after seeing the black fox again. The first thing I thought of was making it leave.

“So,” I said, deepening my voice as I had the belief that it would make me sound more fearful.

“’Tis you making all this racket with this annoying bell. Hmmm?”

The fox looked at me, eyes blazing red in the sudden light, and it growled avidly, as if it were as annoyed as I was. Had I had the pistol on my side, I do believe that I would have fired it into the air or ground just to make the fox scamper off, for somewhat startled I was, but I did not yet feel threatened. In the very next moment, I did feel a threat from the little beast as I stepped closer to it. It let go of the bell rope, growled angrily at me, and snapped its teeth not once but twice.

“Here, here,” I said. “’Tis I who should be growling at you and snapping my jowls.”

The fox took a step toward me with its head bowed and eyes glaring. I raised my other arm up, even with the lantern, and braced myself, for I was sure that it was going to pounce. Instead, it trotted off.

I watched it run away until I could no longer see it. Relieved, I turned back to the grave and as the light fell on the tombstone, I read the name:

HENRY LEE BLANKENSHIP
1753-1842

I needed only to see the name to confirm whose gravesite it was. I’d already suspected as much from what Archibald had said to me of graves and local superstition and bells. Most importantly, I remembered that he’d said that Blankenship was the last to go at that time in those parts.

The lantern’s light hastily went out. It was as if a strong wind had stridden by. Yet, there was no wind to speak of. There was only the still of the moonlit night.

Unnerved, I began the long trek back to the house, which looked very small to my eyes at that distance. Though it was a large, righteous abode in the sense of aesthetic excellence. I trudged through the snow carrying the lantern that had become useless to me.

I had gone perhaps a hundred feet when the bell jingled for no more than two seconds. I halted and looked back toward the cemetery, half expecting to make out the black fox jumping around in there. I did not and thought it rather odd that the bell sounded out when still I felt no wind upon my skin, only the numbing coldness of the snow at my thin-booted feet. Surely, I thought, I would have heard the footfalls of the creature in between my own if it had gone back to the cemetery.

I walked on when the confounded bell tootled again. It was a series of rings that time, in three successions of several seconds apiece. Again, I stopped and peered blindingly at the cemetery.

I took a couple of steps back toward the cemetery and listened, waiting again to hear the bell. When I did not hear it after twenty seconds or so, I moved on toward the house and traversed the vastness of that snowy field for the second time. I had gone near another hundred feet when again I heard two chimes of the bell. Whereas there had seemingly been a sense of urgency with the first three rings as I’d left the graveyard behind, these two further rings sounded almost weak, for lack of a better word.

Once more I stopped and gazed blindingly the way of the cemetery. Though the moon was nearly full, it was too far to see any details and as I stood looking around in the dark, I surmised that I may as well have shut my eyes and I would have fared much the same.

I thought that it had to be the black fox again ringing that bell for whatever reason. I was tempted then and there to go back, run the fox off again, and take the bell for myself, yanking it free from the rope as if it were an unwanted weed amid a flower bed. As I stood there, contemplating whether to take the bell or not, I was getting colder by the second.

“Damn the little beast,” I thought.

I decided to hell with that fox and bell and resumed my path. Soon, I came near to the house, just outside a stone’s throw to the back door when I ran almost directly into the black fox. As I approached the back lot, I saw it sitting off to the side. I supposed that it must have taken a long route back across the field to the house without me noticing it in the dark. I was rather startled at the dark shape lumbering not fifty feet from me in the field as it stood up on all fours. As still as a doorstop it was, and though not very large, it was quite imposing in the dark.

I took a few steps more, halting near the rear veranda and just as the crunching sounds of the snow ‘neath my feet left my ears; the jingling and jangling sounds of the far-away bell entered them once more. Very faint it was this time and only lasted for perhaps two heartbeats. I looked back toward the cemetery, barely able to make it out in the moonlit void of the great field. I then looked at the shape that was the fox and something colder than the night sent a shivering chill up my spine. It was a thought.

If the black fox sits there, then who rang that bell?

This I contemplated for the remainder of the evening as I found myself sitting and stoking the fire in the parlor, too unnerved to go right back to bed.

Nearly a fortnight came to pass, and I did not see the black fox, nor did I hear the tootling of the bell. I had fallen into a routine of performing my daily duties and reading in Mister Blankenship’s library, for he had an extensive collection of books, many of them from foreign lands. I sometimes read in bed at night until I fell asleep, and it was on one of those occasions, some thirteen days after I had arrived, that I saw something that remains etched in my mind to haunt me unto my dying breath.

Now, I am not much for drink, other than a sip or two of wine at social gatherings; so, it was out of pure boredom when I had a bottle of whiskey delivered to me along with my regular goods from the general store. It was brewed by J.W. Wadsworth, a fellow out of New York who had just recently started pushing a sauce he’d invented for slathering steaks. A sauce for steaks? Who had ever heard of such a thing? My point is that the bottle of whiskey had come from a highly reputable place. It was also tightly-corked, so I do not believe it was tainted with any mild poisons. I do not believe that there was anything in the bottle added to the straight whiskey to make me have the first of several hellish visions that I saw starting on that night. It came to me much like a fever dream. Though, I was not sick and thus, had no fever. This first terrible vision I will tell you of now.

It began, I suppose, with the uncorking of the whiskey bottle and pouring myself a few drops. I sipped on the spirits for no more than a half-hour or so in the parlor next to the crackling fire with a book in my hands. Having had only a few sips, I was far from drunk, only sleepy and relaxed I became and so went upstairs to the master bedroom to retire. All was quiet until I heard a sound that interrupted my slumber and jarred me slightly awake.

The bedroom door creaked open as if the hinges themselves were yawning. I heard a pattern of footfalls tapping and scraping across the floor from the door to the foot of the bed. Still, I was not awakened fully and it was then that I heard the distinctive sound of a man clearing his throat in an ‘ahem-harumph’ not once, but twice.

Even still, I could not fully awaken. The blankets were then lifted from my upturned feet, and I felt ice-cold fingers poke both, for I was lying flat upon my back. My eyes stirred ever so slightly, the lids seeming to me then heavier than they had ever been in all my days. When I opened them, still not fully aware if I was asleep or awake, I could see the orange, flickering glow of the fire in the room’s fireplace staving off the darkness.

At the foot of the bed, there stood the black shape of a man. His staring eyes were shimmering like two small burning coals floating in the air. I was terrified, but still, I could not fully awaken or even move. Though, the black shape could move, and it did, walking from the foot of the bed to just beside me before coming to a halt. Into the glow of the fire, this thing came, and it no longer reeked of shadows, for I could see its form as it truly appeared.

It was the spirit of one Henry Lee Blankenship. I had never met the man, but I knew in the depths of my soul it to be true that it was him. Rather, what was left of him. I recognized him from the oil portrait of Blankenship that hung in the parlor above the fireplace. The form beside me stood tall and thin, but hunched in a fancy, black burial suit. White hair capped his head, his eyes sunken within dark circles. His jaws were also sunken, the skin as pale as a cloudy afternoon. He smelled of musty earth and death.

I wanted to ask him what he wanted of me just as much as I wanted to know whether I was dreaming or not. Being unable to move, I was also unable to speak. I then heard the hollow voice of Blankenship’s remains.

“You sleep in my bed?” the spirit asked angrily with a scowl. His voice was equally as cold as his hand.

I could only move my eyes, and they stayed fixed on this pale ghost, never wavering. I could not even gasp.

“You sleep in my bed?” the spirit repeated. “And you did not answer my bell… You did not answer my bell… You did not answer my bell.”

Blankenship’s specter leaned over and lifted his arms toward me with his long, crooked fingers outstretched. The hands slowly came toward my neck.

“You did not answer my bell.”

Upon closing my eyes and gritting my teeth, I felt those cold, dead hands of Mister Blankenship wrap tightly around my neck. As soon as I felt the thumb bottoms press firmly against my Adam’s Apple, the sensation subsided. I opened my eyes again, and the specter was gone. So too did his smell leave after it lingered in and out of my nostrils for perhaps half a minute.

I am not ashamed to admit that I was too frightened to move at first. However, move I did, and I raised up in bed and looked around the room. Save for the immediate vicinity of the fire, it was most dark and drafty in the vastness of that bedroom. I stood crossing my arms and holding them tight as I went about the room.

Nothing seemed to me then to be out of place. I sat down on the edge of the bed, at a vigil I suppose, for half the night until I fell asleep, and it was unbeknownst to me when I did so. I woke up sometime after daybreak, feet flat on the floor, slumped over on my side with a stiff neck and sore back.

I dismissed the occurrence as nothing more than a ghoulish nightmare brought about by the consumption of the devil’s dew. It was the drink and the fact that I’d eyed the painting of Blankenship quite a number of times since I’d spent so much time in the parlor with a book. Though, the presumed, imagined spirit of him, I thought at the time, appeared just a bit older and frostier; it more than resembled Blankenship’s portrait. I thought at the time that this oil on canvas imagery also influenced my vision. How wrong I was I would soon come to find.

In the days to come, the snow moved on further North. It remained cold for those dry and windy days. So cold in fact that I had gone through more firewood up to that point than I had initially estimated.

Just three days removed from the Blankenship ghost incident, I decided to chop more firewood whilst it was rather sunny. By the time the sun began to dip down in the West, I had amassed a good pile of chopped wood. When I finished, I stood straight to soothe my aching back and looked at the woodpile, proud of myself for the burn-ready accumulation of small logs.

As I rested I saw something move in the field not far from me. I turned and saw none other than my frequent visitor from just over a fortnight before. It was the black fox once again. I presumed it was one and the same animal I had seen before since ‘tis such a rare occasion to see one.

It sat undaunted and still as it stared my way. I too stared back at it, which I probably should not have. Wild animals, they say, do not like it when a man makes eye contact with them, and its yellowish-orange eyes seemed to stare right through mine. I looked away and decided it best to look at him with glances instead. Then, it did the strangest, damned thing imaginable; it wrinkled its muzzle and growled at me not once, but twice. And with no provocation whatsoever on my part. Up until then, I thought we’d had a sort of mutual rapport. It turned up its bushy, black tail then and promptly headed for the woods.

That night as I slept warm and snug in a dead man’s bed, I was awakened by a chill in the air that ran lightly across my face. I opened my eyes and looked to the foot of the bed. Seeing nothing but the glow from the fire, I lay my head back down on the pillow. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I felt a wind again.

I looked across the room between the door and the fire. It was there in the flickering light where stood six small figures. Four girls and two boys, dressed in tattered rags, stared down at me with shimmering eyes and pale, blank faces that bore no expressions other than that of somber melancholy. I estimated their ages to be between six years and twelve years, a blonde girl looking to be the eldest. There was something else of them I noticed that was as strange as them being in the same room with me. When the light from the fire played on the wall behind them prominently, I could see through them.

I could also move freely, unlike the time of several nights before when the specter of Blankenship paid me a visit and I was frozen with shock. However, I was equally as shocked on this occasion, but chose only to raise up in bed. Though, just as with the otherworldly visitation by Mister Blankenship; I was unable to speak, as if the ability to do so was momentarily suspended. I could only gasp and even then I found it very difficult to take in a breath to do so.

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“We have no bells to ring,” the eldest girl’s spirit muttered in a far-off tone.

I looked at her with bulging eyes, unable to respond.

“We have no bells to ring,” repeated the youngest-looking spirit, a boy, and in the self-same, monotone manner of the girl.

Dumbfounded I was to be in the presence of these ghost children.

“We have no bells to ring,” all the ghost children said together.

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Twisted Pulp Magazine Issue #41