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.

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.

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.