[Estimated reading time: 5 minutes]
Grey stone glowed golden in the reach of the old fireplace. It was the only colour left in the room so late at night, all else bleached by the moonlight. Even the ornaments of the lonely Christmas tree had been robbed of any cheer - and, no less, the elderly woman in the armchair beside the fire. She stared off into the flames and through them, or out into the blizzard beyond her undressed windows, seeing absolutely nothing. It seemed, for all good, that she hadn't smiled in an eternity, and that the tree had been put up by nothing but habit, solely as a means of marking the turning of one year into another.
And so she didn't notice when the fire grew brighter. Nor when it crackled and sputtered, nor when it died out, and not even when she shivered at the suddenly creeping cold. She didn't react. She didn't move. She didn't blink. She just stared on into the night, consumed entirely by something else.
The chill hardened. A breath of it drifted, groaning, brushing every corner of the room with curiosity, whipping a little around each candle it found like a firefly. Every one of them puffed to life, one after another, until the room blazed with twenty candles or more, not one candelabra forgotten.
Now, she noticed.
Slowly, cautiously, she straightened and looked around the room, a deep breath filling her creaking chest as her gaze wandered from flame to flame, searching still for something between the shadows and the night's breath. But there was no alarm around her old eyes. There was hope. Tentative hope, one that promised a payoff in pain, but hope nevertheless.
Then, among the cracks of silence, a deep, ethereal music stirred, from nowhere and everywhere, pulling her drawn face into a smile. She pushed herself to her feet, heart beating fast and hot in her chest.
The short chirps of a violin moved slowly from the darkness to the moonlight above it, like stars glinting awake in an empty sky, giving the music its first shape and colour. The air grew warmer with it. She didn't notice the thicker clouds of her breath as she removed her slippers from her feet, and felt as much as heard more violins joining the first.
Her eyes moved faster, and she spun every few tip-toed steps to keep up with them, searching through the choirs of candles to find shape or face.
Then, the music thinned. Only the violins remained, powerful, yearning, louder than before, and a strong, punctuating drum struck on every third of the repeated bars.
A hand grasped hers.
The music erupted.
The deep, warm hum of cellos joined the rest and spun around her as she followed the pulling hand, and spotted at last instruments of mist and glittering frost around the room, unmanned yet played to perfection, bowing, striking and plucking themselves in precise time. Cheer tinkled from her voice as she laughed and danced with the phantom force, the drums thickening as the room around her began to glitter. But she saw none of it. The ghost of silver smiled down at her, his eyes twinkling like stars as he led her around in a powerful waltz, holding her gaze with his, and she did not fight against it.
Magic, of night or of music, had stolen her entirely.
Around they twirled, her leaning into his hold, he gripping her waist with perfect respect; she with her dress flowering, he with his coattails flicking and drifting, until, finally, the music thinned out to only the deepest violins singing their thrumming, masculine song.
The other instruments relaxed, and the waning music took gravity with it, carrying the two of them both effortlessly from the ground to dance instead upon the ceiling. And there, he released her to drift and dance alone while he began to conduct the instruments himself, drawing one back in at a time with elegant gestures and curls of his fingers until they all danced and sang precisely as he wished them to, and ghostly voices chanted and hymned along from somewhere above or beneath them.
Then she was back in her arms, turning and stepping together again as the power of the music intensified, lowering from the ceiling until they danced with nothing beneath their feet at all. A window burst open with the drums, the blizzard spiralled in and laced around them like stars, howling and tinkling along with the crescendoing melody.
And then, it collapsed.
The music drifted away like a scattering of birds until only the gentlest hum remained, and the ghost kissed her, warming and freezing her suddenly broken heart in the same moment.
She felt the ground return beneath her bare feet. It was frigid, covered in snow and frost and glittering around them like jewels. And then, only the whisper of snow could be heard.
She opened her eyes as he pulled away from the kiss, and she saw him fade before her. But still, he smiled, longing and loving. "Until next year, my love," he promised, his voice hollow and distant, as though shouted over a mile though he appeared right before her.
But she had expected it, even as a small piece of her heart chipped away at the sound. "Until next year," she agreed. "And before long, I'll be with you eternally."
And with that, his hand faded from hers, the candles extinguished, and his sad, pained but grateful eyes etched themselves into her vision to linger but seconds after they vanished, erased by a reluctant blink.
Again, she was alone.
A heavy breath wracked her lungs, and her old legs wavered beneath her. She sought her chair though tear-drowned eyes.
The snow and frost had vanished. The fire had jumped back to life. The window had closed itself. There was no trace of what had just happened.
Nothing, but the cold, red, frosted mark of his handprint in hers.
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