The Whistling

by Rebecca Netley

Ghosts did not exist. The dead did not walk. If they did, would not Clara have come to me?

If I were to believe that such things were possible, all would be lost. To what would I cling?

It was Greer that I pictured then, not Hettie, winding hair about the pebbles and whispering spells. I thought of Mary in the same house with unease.

They did not harm, I told myself; it was the fear itself that would hurt me if I let it.