Abigail Carlysle's Blog, page 3

The Bone Garden

The earth remembers what the living forget—
every tear watered deep into the roots,
every whispered goodbye stitched into moss,
every unmarked grave tucked beneath the hawthorn trees.

They call this a garden, but it is a reliquary,
a place where lost wars bloom into briar roses,
where grief turns to lichen on the ribcage of the hills,
where the wind hums the names no one else speaks.

I walk among the marrow-blossoms,
barefoot on the sighing soil,
and I feel it—
the memory of battles I thought no one witnessed,
the soft hands of the earth cradling my invisible wounds.

Here, in this bone garden,
I am neither lost nor forsaken.
I am remembered.
I am rooted.
I am becoming something wild, something sacred—
something the living would not recognize,
but the earth always knew.

Returning to Myself

A reflection on becoming, unbecoming, and remembering who I was before the world told me who to be.

There’s this quote by Emily McDowell I stumbled across recently. Maybe you’ve seen it. It begins with:

“Finding yourself is not really how it works. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket. You are also not lost.”

And the rest of it? Well, it felt like someone had read my journal out loud.

I’ve always been searching for something: clarity, purpose, a compass that doesn’t point to other people’s expectations. For a long time, I thought finding myself would mean reinventing everything. Scrubbing away the past. Starting fresh.

But what if it’s not about becoming someone new? What if it’s about coming home?

Unlearning to Remember

So much of who I thought I had to be was shaped by noise. Society. Relatives. Old wounds dressed up as armor. Even silence can be loud when it’s filled with shame.

But I’ve started to see things differently. The older I get, the more I realize that returning to myself means peeling back those layers, not adding more. It’s an excavation. A slow, gentle dusting away of the rubble to reveal the girl who was always underneath.

The one who daydreamed about ghosts. The one who drove down long roads and highways when things weighed heavily on my spirit. The one who always, always knew how to listen.

Sometimes I think we grow into ourselves the same way trees do—not just upward, but inward. Not only branching out, but rooting down.

The Self Before the World Got Involved

Who was I before the world got its hands on me?

I was quiet, but full of stories. Soft, but not weak. Curious. Tender. Haunted in the most beautiful way.

And that girl? She’s still here. She’s always been here. I just forgot how to see her for a while.

Writing has helped me remember. So has caregiving. So have long walks, sleepless nights, and small kindnesses that no one saw but still mattered.

There’s something sacred in the moments when no one is watching. When you’re not performing, proving, or striving. Just existing. Breathing. Letting yourself be.

Becoming Again

This chapter of my life feels like a becoming, but not in the way I once thought.

It’s not about adding glitter or titles or shiny new identities. It’s about shedding. Simplifying. Returning.

It’s about saying: “I’m here. I remember now. I know who I am. And she’s enough.”

Because maybe finding yourself isn’t a search party. Maybe it’s a homecoming. A remembering. A reclaiming of what was never really gone.

Have you ever felt this way, too? Like the person you’re trying to become is actually someone you used to be? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Until next time, dear soul. Keep your lantern lit, your heart soft, and your story sacred.

With love & a little moonlight,
Abigail

The Real Haunting

Sometimes, the scariest thing isn’t what’s hiding under the bed. It’s what you carry in your chest when the room goes quiet.

Not all hauntings come with footsteps or flickering lights. Some arrive in the form of a sentence you can’t forget. A conversation you wish went differently. A person you miss but can’t reach. A feeling that keeps knocking, just to make sure you’re still there.

Lately, I’ve come to realize that the deepest hauntings aren’t the ones I’ve written about. They’re the ones I’ve lived through.

There’s one I’ve been noticing lately. It doesn’t slam doors or scream my name. It just sits beside me, quietly, when someone I care about is hurting. It whispers things like: ‘Are you enough? Should you be doing more? Are you just background noise in someone else’s story?’

It’s not a ghost with a name, but it has a presence. And lately, it’s been hovering as I navigate the emotions stirred by someone I care deeply for—someone walking through uncertainty and emotional fog. He calls when he needs advice, when the weight feels too much, when he doesn’t know how to process what he’s feeling. And I listen, I guide, I show up. But sometimes, afterward, that little haunting slips in, wondering if I’m truly helping or if I’m just someone he turns to when no one else answers.

And there are echoes, too. Ones that belong to someone from my past, someone who used silence like a weapon and made me question whether my honesty was ever truly welcome. That old ghost still knocks now and then, especially when I see glimpses of that same pattern in someone new. It doesn’t mean they’re the same—but my heart, having been burned before, remembers the heat.

But even in the haunting, I see something new. I see growth.

I see that I haven’t run from the echoes. I’ve faced them. I’ve opened my door to them, let them sit with me, and in doing so, I’ve discovered I am far stronger and more resilient than I once believed.

I am not a supporting character in someone else’s drama. I am my own main character, with empathy that doesn’t weaken me. It defines me. It reflects others back to themselves. It offers warmth, wisdom, and a safe place to land. And when I feel haunted by doubts or tangled emotions, I don’t push them away like I used to. I learn from them.

That’s the thing about real hauntings—they don’t just chill your spine. They shape your spirit.

So here I am, scribbling by candlelight, not to banish my ghosts but to understand them. To see them as markers of how far I’ve come. And maybe, just maybe, to remind someone reading this that they’re not alone in their own quiet hauntings.

What has haunted you lately, dear reader? And what might it be trying to teach you?

The Hollowed One

Inspired by Psalm 55:4-8

My heart writhes within me,
a bird trapped behind broken ribs,
beating, beating—
yet never flying free.

Fear drapes its cold breath over my shoulders,
a cloak I never asked to wear.
Trembling fills my bones like frost,
and horror sets its camp within my chest.

Oh, that I had wings like a mourning dove—
I would leave these smoking ruins behind,
flee to a wilderness no map dares name,
and vanish into the ash-gray hush.

I would find shelter in the hollow of old trees,
nest in the marrow of mountains,
hide my weary soul in a thorn-thick thicket,
where no voice could find me.

But here I am—
the Hollowed One,
half-flesh, half-fear,
drifting down corridors of my own longing.

Each breath a prayer,
each footfall an unanswered question,
each heartbeat an echo asking:
Where is my place of peace?

Tending the Living, Writing the Dead: A Life Between Worlds

By candlelight and caregiving…

There’s something oddly poetic about spending your days caring for the living—and your nights conjuring the dead.

By Day: Caregiver and Listener of Life Lessons

By morning, I’m a caregiver. Soft-voiced, steady-handed, and ready with a smile, holding a warm blanket or coaxing with a gentle redirect. I help people navigate the small rituals of daily life: brushing teeth, preparing meals, reminiscing about a world that feels both near and far.

It’s quiet work. Tender. Sometimes heavy. Always sacred.

One of my patients, wise with years and a soft smile that could weather storms, once gave me a piece of advice that’s stayed with me like a pressed flower in a book. She said:

“When you get married, you and your partner have to dream and grow together.”

Simple, profound. Life Lesson 101. I tucked it away in the attic of my heart.

Another patient of mine, who just celebrated her 100th birthday this past November (yes, one hundred and still full of spunk), taught me without words. I started picking up on the serene rhythms of her life, like how she’d cook her eggs sunny side-up and poke the yolks just a little so they melted into the whites. Now I do the same. It’s these subtle inheritances that stitch the living to the living.

By Night: Writer of Shadows and Ghosts

Then the sun sets, and something shifts.

I light a candle. I open my laptop. And I walk straight into the dark.

By night, I’m a writer of horror and mystery. Spinning tales of haunted mirrors, lost girls, flickering lanterns in fog-drenched woods. My brain shifts from “did she take her meds today?” to “what’s lurking at the foot of the bed?” without missing a beat.

It’s strange, I know. My browser history is an interesting cocktail of “how long can a body stay preserved in salt water?” and “best moisturizing lotions for seniors.” Duality, my friend.

But somehow, both worlds make sense to me. Being a caregiver has taught me how to pay attention to the things people say and don’t say, to the way fear looks when it’s real. And that attentiveness? It’s the marrow of good storytelling. My horror has heart because I’ve sat with the real thing. I know what it means to hold someone’s hand when they’re afraid.

Between the Veil: Where Life and Story Blur

Some days, I wonder if the ghosts I write are echoes of the quiet sadnesses I absorb during the day. The unspoken griefs. The memories that tremble just under the surface.

Other times, I think maybe I’ve just always belonged to the in-between. One foot in the here, the other in the haunted. I’m not sure I chose this life. I think it chose me.

But either way, I’ve made peace with the liminal.

Horror writers, in our own strange way, are caregivers too. We tend to fear. We hold the reader’s hand and say, “It’s okay, I’ve been here before.” We pull the shadow into the candlelight and say, “Look. It’s not so scary now.”

In Between: Coffee, Ghosts, and Egg Yolk Revelations

So yes, I spend my days tending to the living, and my nights writing about the dead.

And in between?

I drink too much coffee and Bai Cocofusions. I pick up habits from centenarians. I question my search history. I try not to fall asleep with a LibreOffice doc open on my face. I remember the words of the wise. And I keep showing up—heart open, pen in hand, light low.

It’s a strange life. A beautiful one. A haunted one.
But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Until next time. Keep your lights low, your beverage of choice warm, and your shadows friendly.

With love & a little moonlight,
Abigail

Want a Sneak Peek (and a Chance to Help)? Beta Readers Needed!

Calling all lovers of shadowy tales and eerie mysteries!

I’m on the hunt for passionate beta readers to delve into the early manuscript of my upcoming YA Gothic horror novel From the Ashes! If you enjoy Gothic atmosphere and historical secrets, this could be your chance to be among the first to experience the story! Your valuable feedback will help shape the final version.

In return, you’ll get an early read and my sincere gratitude…plus, perhaps a little something special for my earliest supporters down the line

Interested in joining the From the Ashes beta team? Get in touch through my contact page or comment below!

A Letter to the Girl Who Stayed Too Long

Dear you,

I know you’re tired. Not just physically, but in that deep, marrow-dragging way that makes every sunrise feel more like a deadline than a beginning. You wake up with your heart already braced—tight-chested, white-knuckled, breath held like a secret. You’ve convinced yourself this is love. That love is meant to ache like this.

It’s not.

I know the way you walk on eggshells, trying to decode silence and read between the lines of the words he never says. You’ve learned to flinch before the blow, even when it’s not your skin that bruises, but your spirit. You think if you just become smaller, softer, quieter, more agreeable—maybe this time he won’t turn cold. Maybe this time, you’ll be enough.

But here’s what you haven’t learned yet: you were always enough.

You stayed because you saw the potential in him. The flickers of goodness. The rare apologies, the near-tears, the almost-changes. You built a home on almosts. And still, you kept the lights on.

But love is not made of apologies. It is not made of walking on tightropes strung over eggshells. It is not made of enduring pain so someone else doesn’t have to look in the mirror.

I want you to know I’m not mad at you. I used to be. I used to wonder why you didn’t run, why you didn’t scream, why you let him twist your self-worth into something so small you forgot the shape of your own voice. But now I see you were surviving. You were doing the best you could with what you knew.

You loved with the kind of depth that deserved poetry, not punishment.

And one day—you’ll leave. Not with a bang. Not with a dramatic scene. But with the quiet, resolute kind of strength that comes from finally remembering who you are. You’ll pack not just your bags, but the pieces of yourself he told you were too much, too needy, too emotional, too intense. You’ll carry them out like holy relics.

And slowly, piece by piece, you’ll become whole again.

You’ll cry. You’ll rage. You’ll grieve not just the person, but the years, the dreams, the version of you who waited so long for someone to change. But in that grieving, you’ll also rise. Like embers flaring back into flame.

And when someone comes along who listens, who nurtures, who shows up without needing to be begged—you’ll realize how much you’ve healed. Not because they saved you. But because you saved yourself first.

So here’s to you, the girl who stayed too long.

I love you. And I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become.

Always, Me

Where I’m At: A Little Writing Update from the Shadows

Hello lovely readers!

I thought it was about time I popped in with a cozy little update on my writing journey—the highs, the haunted bits, and everything in between. Whether you’re new to my world or you’ve been following the breadcrumbs through the dark forest, thank you for being here. Truly.

Lately, I’ve been dancing between projects like a ghost at a masquerade. My main focus has been on From the Ashes. The characters have been whispering their secrets to me at odd hours, as they tend to do, and I’ve welcomed them with open arms and far too much coffee (tea and maybe hot cocoa, too, because why not?).

I’ve reached my fourth round of self-editing and landed at a glorious 82,277 words, which is a significant leap from my initial 62,786! Every single word feels like it belongs, like it’s always been waiting to be unearthed. This round took a little longer than I planned (the best ones often do), but I am absolutely head-over-heels in LOVE with how the story is singing now. The Victorian-inspired prose hums with life, and the characters feel more flesh-and-bone than ever.

From the Ashes is still very much me—stitched together with my signature style and eerie ink—but it also marks a shift. It feels a little different from my two self-published novels. A little bolder. A little deeper. I won’t lie, that difference makes me a touch nervous. But more than anything, I’m so, so proud of how far this story has come. The next big step? Beta readers (Eeep!). I’ll be posting a separate piece soon on how to apply, so if you’re intrigued, keep your lanterns lit.

In other exciting news, I’ve recently joined Medium, where I’m beginning to share work not found on this blog. Right now, you’ll find horror, mystery, reflective musings, and short stories nestled there. A little library of shadows I’m slowly building, essentially. A couple of the posts are free to read, and the others are part of the paid subscriber tier. If you do check it out, thank you. Every read means the world to me.

There’s another idea brewing in the cauldron: a faceless YouTube channel where I can share my written work aloud. Stories told in the dark, with voice and silence in equal measure. I’d love to collaborate with other writers one day, too. There’s something beautiful about hearing another person bring your words to life or lending your voice to theirs.

Lately, I’ve also been pulled toward more reflective writing, as I touched on in my previous post, The Lantern I Carry. I’ve been craving the kind of pieces that peel back the veil. Not only the stories themselves, but the why behind them. The themes. The real-life ghosts that haunt the heart before they ever appear on the page. So keep an eye out for more personal posts soon: the kind that feel like journal entries written by candlelight.

Oh, and something mysterious is brewing behind the scenes…
Let’s just say I’m dreaming up something special for From the Ashes once it’s ready for publication. Special and spectral, laced with secrets from the story itself. I won’t say much more (I’d hate to spoil the surprise), but…you’ll want to be watching the shadows.

That’s the beauty of writing, isn’t it? It changes with us. It grows alongside our seasons, our heartbreaks, and our quiet victories.

Until next time—keep your lights low, your beverage of choice warm, and your shadows friendly.

With love & a little moonlight,
A bigail

Adonai in the Gray

They never tell you how loud the silence can be when you’re waiting for a sign.

When you’re young, you imagine that life will hand you answers with the efficiency of a mail carrier. Neat envelopes sealed with certainty, arriving right on time. But life…life is not a tidy courier. It’s messy, slow, stitched together by invisible threads you can’t always see. And lately, I’ve realized—I always knew this, but now I know it—life rarely moves in clean black-and-white moments.

There’s a holiness in the gray.
A tenderness in the in-between.
A whisper tucked in the folds of fog.

This is where I’ve found Adonai. Not in thunderclaps or fire, but in the quiet that makes you lean closer. Like Elijah, who did not find Him in the mighty wind or the earthquake or the fire, but in a still, small voice:

“After the fire, there was a soft whisper of a voice. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle, went out, and stood at the cave’s entrance.” ~ 1 Kings 19:12 (TLV)

It’s strange, isn’t it, how easy it is to miss a whisper when you’re braced for a storm?

Living in the Liminal

Lately, I’ve been living in the thresholds: the almosts and maybes, the spaces between heartbeats. Some parts of my life feel suspended in a kind of twilight, neither day nor night. Not quite a beginning, not quite an ending.

Relationships too. The ones that once felt like clear rivers now feel more like shifting mist. I’ve learned, quietly and painfully, that some people only seek you out when they need shelter from their own storms. When the winds are calm, they forget the safe harbor you offered.

It’s not just with others. Healing, too, has unfolded for me not in a blinding epiphany, but slowly, stubbornly—like a fog lifting inch by inch. The echoes of past hurts don’t vanish in a single day. They dissolve, grain by grain, like sand slipping through fingers.

Signs, Silence, and Searching

We’re all searching for signs, aren’t we?

I’ve watched people I care about do it. Throwing wishes into the well of uncertainty, hoping for a ripple. I’ve done it, too. I’ve asked the sky for a sign. Begged it, even. And sometimes, all I’ve received in return is silence.

But I’m starting to learn:
Silence is a sign.
It’s a kind of answer, even when it breaks your heart a little.

When there’s no map, no neon “this way” sign, all you can do is trust the quiet compass tucked in your chest. The gut feeling. The sacred nudge. The Spirit’s murmur you feel more than hear.

And you know what? It has not once led me into ruin.
Even when it led me into grayness, it somehow also led me into grace.

The God Who Dwells in Mystery

Adonai doesn’t always crash into our lives with burning bushes and parted seas.
Sometimes, He hums low in the fog.
Sometimes, He writes His messages in missed calls, empty Saturday afternoons, half-finished conversations, unanswered questions.

And still, still, I have found myself held.

In quiet friendships that anchor me.
In laughter that bubbles up when I least expect it.
In the way resilience rises in me like a slow, steady tide.

There’s a story I always carry close, Footprints in the Sand, that reminds me: sometimes when it looks like we’re walking alone, we’re being carried. We just can’t always see the arms holding us until later.

Gentle Encouragement

If you’re living through a season of not-knowing, I’m standing with you. Lantern in hand. Heart in hand.

You’re not lost.
You’re not broken.
You’re learning a language only the soul can speak.

The gray isn’t a curse.
It’s a classroom.

And Adonai’s voice? It echoes loudest when we stop straining for trumpets and start leaning into the hush.

Have you ever found yourself caught in a foggy season—where nothing felt certain, but something still whispered stay?
How do you find peace in the pause?

I’d love to hear your heart, your story, your whispers.

Where Sleep Hides the Knives

Some nights, I chase sleep like a lover I lost in another life—
soft-footed, breath held,
hoping it won’t see me coming.

But when it does,
it drags its nails down my mind
and calls it comfort.

The bed folds like a secret,
creases shaped like prayers.
The dark speaks in familiar voices
I stopped answering years ago.

Dreams come dressed as paper airplanes—
delicate, floating,
until they unfold midair
into claws,
into questions I never asked out loud.

I turn the pillow to its cooler side,
pretend it’s a fresh start.
But the ceiling keeps whispering names
I’ve buried in daylight.

Still,
somewhere between REM and retreat,
the moon peeks through the blinds
like she hasn’t given up on me yet.

And I remember—
there is mercy in waking.
There is beauty in breathing.
Even the night, with all its teeth,
lets go
when morning arrives
quiet and whole.