Death Doesn’t Become Her

The floorboards creaked as Sir Thomas strode across to his favorite chair, the air filled with the mix of smoke from the fireplace and his Cuban cigar. 

He pulled his robe around himself and threw another log on the fire. He gazed up as he blew a smoke ring following footfalls across the first floor.

He sighed and began a chilling tale of a rectory he had made his house. And of the creaking sounds I could hear, made in the rafters by a clergyman’s ghost. 

T’was two nights before Halloween when the merchant’s wife fell ill. Her face drained to a pale green, to a deathly grey, before she lay still. 

The doctor arrived, pronounced her dead, and prepared a draught for the husband. Such that he fell into a deep slumber and left the funeral in the maid’s hands. 

Finely attired, you’d think she made ready to attend the King’s Royal Ball, the servants carried the deceased to the church for the final pall. 

The clergyman, unstable with his gin, decided to perform the last rite. They laid her in the family crypt, locked the door and bade good night.  

The minister rose from his stupor and thought the woman’s many riches would serve the church, and he, well, and thus, laid his legs in his britches.

The moon hung high in the dark sky doing little to lend light to his deed. The little man laid bare her jewels but that big ruby ring we would need. 

But try as he might, he could not pry that from her cold limp body. He resorted to hacking off the finger and making off with his booty. 

He screamed at the the woman pointing her bloody finger, sitting up in her box. He dropped his findings and raced from his shoes, away in his socks. 

She returned to her home, in only her dress and could not rouse a soul to her plight. Pelting her husband’s window with a stone, he awoke with a look of sorrow and fright. 

He threw open the sash and yelled from above for the scepter to let him mourn in peace. She declared she was his wife, not so dead, and to let her in so his mourning could cease. 

Still believing she to be a phantom, he asked  to prove she now walked alive. The woman held up her bloody stub and pleaded for entry before another demise. With joy he threw open the door and embraced his nearly departed. They made for the doctor, to share the news, who they left with his own draught started.

On the morrow, they visited the clergy’s home, only to find the poor man hanging from these rafters. While the rich man and wife share their fortune, Sir Thomas lives with the ghost for ever after.