“Do you see her?” She inquired, casting her gaze about the garden.
“I do not,” The Sorrower said, towering overhead. “Tell me of this ghost.”
“I caught only a glimpse, I- I think I did, anyway. To be completely truthful, I’m not sure I saw a ghost in the garden, but I do know there is one.”
“Why would a ghost be in your garden?”
“I… I think I may have caused her death,” she said, looking down in shame. “I dropped a pair of scissors yesterday.”
The Sorrower drew himself up, knowing the implication thereof. “Point-side down?”
She nodded. “But I was alone in the house, so I didn’t think anything bad could happen. But today, there’s a ghost in my garden. I fear the scissors caused her death.”
“Perhaps,” The Sorrower said. “Perhaps there is another reason she’s visiting you. Sit with me.” The Sorrower sat on the bench overlooking the mums, and she followed suit. “Tell me about yourself,” The Sorrower said.
“My name is Drusilla,” Drusilla said. “I’ve lived alone in this house for a very long time. I work as a seamstress, thus the scissors, you see.”
“Could you have any connection to anyone who might have recently become deceased?”
Drusilla thought on it for a moment. “I did make some mourning clothes a fortnight ago,” she said, “but I didn’t know the decedent myself.”
“I see,” The Sorrower said in thought. “Why do you live alone?”
“My father left my mother when I was very young,” Drusilla said. “The grief of it… she was gone from me long before she died. That was five years ago.”
“And your life outside the house and your work?”
“There isn’t much to tell there,” Drusilla said. But then something occurred to her which caused her to blush. “I suppose there is Marc.”
“A suitor?”
“Oh, I don’t know if I would say that…”
“But you wish he was?”
“I suppose I do,” she said, without having to think on it very much. “He comes by often to keep me company, and he fetches my fabric from town. He’s very often the only person I see in the day.”
“Do you ever wish,” The Sorrower asked, “that you didn’t live alone in this house?”
“Oh, of course I do, Sorrower,” she said plaintively. “There’s so much out there, a big grand world with people and life. And I… I stay here. I don’t know why. I have to. I believe this house is my Sorrow.”
“When is the last time you left?” The Sorrower asked.
Drusilla’s chain of thought stopped completely. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted, seeming concerned with this realization.
“Do you know why I’m here, Drusilla?” The Sorrower then asked, his voice rolling like gentle thunder.
“I had supposed I called for you, but… no, no I didn’t.” She furrowed her brow. “Why don’t I remember calling for you?”
“You didn’t,” The Sorrower explained. “Marc did.”
The realization crept slowly, slowly onto Drusilla’s face. “This house is not my Sorrow,” she said, less of a question than a statement.
“It is not.”
“It’s the other way around, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so,” The Sorrower said. “The ghost in the garden is you. Living a singular moment stretched through time.”
“The moment that…”
“The moment that you dropped the scissors,” The Sorrower said. “The first time, that is.”
“I live alone,” Drusilla said. “Nobody was there to pick them up for me.”
The Sorrower nodded gravely. “I should say, though, that I am very impressed that you intuited something was wrong. Knowing there was a ghost in the garden was a great feat, despite not realizing that it’s you.”
“What can be done, Sorrower?”
The Sorrower leaned back comfortably as he thought on it. “That’s up to you. I could let you keep living this moment, over and over. Dropping your scissors, believing there’s a ghost in your garden. Marc could keep bringing you fabric and keeping you company. You could go on being this house’s Sorrow.”
“But… I don’t see how any of that could be the same as it was, now that I know.”
“You’ll likely forget,” The Sorrower said. “This moment will get washed away in the tide, and you’ll go back to believing nothing is wrong.”
“So I’m trapped,” Drusilla said, “Not only in this house, but in time itself?”
The Sorrower nodded. “You’ll go back to tailoring mourning outfits, getting fabric delivered, dropping scissors.”
“Sorrower,” Drusilla said, “You must do something.”
***
Marc encountered The Sorrower on the road to Drusilla’s home. In his arms was a large bolt of black fabric. The Sorrower was waiting at the end of the street, and his presence caused Marc to draw to a stop. “How is she?” He asked with hope in his eyes.
“I believe she’s already back to how she was,” The Sorrower said. “When she bid me farewell, it seemed like business as usual.”
“What can be done?” Asked Marc earnestly.
“I could guide her to what comes next,” The Sorrower said. “Banish the house of its Sorrow.”
“But that would kill her.”
“She is already dead.”
“No, she isn’t,” Marc said firmly, with a force of character most couldn’t bring themselves to direct at The Sorrower. The Sorrower seemed impressed.
“That is all I can do,” The Sorrower said. “You, however…” He ended that sentence prematurely, thinking it through carefully before completing it. “You may be able to help her in another way.”
“Tell me how,” Marc said immediately. “I will do anything.”
“She lives alone in the house. You must keep her company. You must be there when she drops her scissors.”
“And then what?”
“Pick them up for her.”
“Really? A pair of dropped scissors is the solution to all this?”
“It is the cause,” The Sorrower corrected. “Perhaps you can be the solution. It will take time. Her life is now a river, following the same path. A river cannot change course in a day. But gradually, slowly, you may be able to alter her course. You will have to live in her moments with her. You will have to pick up her scissors. You will have to bring her fabric to make her mourning clothes. You believe she is not dead; you will have to convince her of that. In this moment, and all the next, she lives alone in this house. You must change that.”
“I would do anything for her,” Marc said. “No matter how long it takes.”
“Then go,” The Sorrower said. “Be with her.”
Marc nodded, and set off down the road. He walked up Drusilla’s garden path and knocked on the door.
It opened. “Marc,” The Sorrower heard her say. “You’ve brought my fabric, excellent. Do come in, I-” there was a brief clatter. “Oh, forgive me, I find myself so clumsy these days-”
“Here,” Marc said. “Let me get those for you.”
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