The Haunting of Maddy Clare

by Simone St. James

Happy people did not leave ghosts; or perhaps they left quiet ghosts, who sat in their favorite corners or wandered the banks of their favorite streams, never bothering the living.

Only a woman can truly understand the feeling of her very favorite item of clothing.

There are large moments in life; but sometimes it is the small moments—the casual moments—that change everything.

I saw him turn to look at me, and I knew the longing would never be gone. I was doomed to it. For there was no way to convince him that, with all his scars, the terrible truth was that he was still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

You can’t imagine how hard it is to come home from hell and be expected to pick up the threads of a life. Apply for jobs, go to a factory, punch in, punch out. Put your lunch in a bag and get on the omnibus every day. Like nothing happened. Nothing.”

“There’s a theory that when a person dies in great emotion, great unrest, or with something important undone in life—that is when a manifestation occurs.

“I think the war annihilates ghosts,” said Matthew. “If we have mechanized death—and we have; I’ve seen it—then where do the ghosts go? I find that most frightening of all. That the ghosts disappear with our humanity.”

For a shy girl unused to men, it is easier to hurl the moon from the sky than it is to turn away from a man who truly wishes to pursue her.

How different I was, I thought, from the girl who had left London. I had been terrified, of course. I was terrified still. But the girl in London had been asleep. She had been sleeping for years. Now I was awake, for better or for worse, and I would never sleep again. I did not want to sleep again.

It was the girls who locked themselves away, who had never felt the loving touch of a man, who, when they loved, loved the fiercest. Maddy and I were different in every way, but this much I understood.