When I saw Miss Nan last, she wore a Belgian-lace nightgown. The next morn, when I knelt to light her fire, something brushed my forehead. Starting, I looked up the chimney to see trailing, tattered lace, white as snow, white as death, white as the bare bones I spied stuffed high in the blackened chimney.
Something must ‘ve lured her to the hearth. Icy hands—thin as smoke, strong as steel, they must have been—had pulled her up ‘til the bricks narrowed. All that remained was sagging, tattered lace, sinew, bone. It’d sucked gown, flesh, blood—mayhap ‘er soul—away.
Something must ‘ve lured her to the hearth. Icy hands—thin as smoke, strong as steel, they must have been—had pulled her up ‘til the bricks narrowed. All that remained was sagging, tattered lace, sinew, bone. It’d sucked gown, flesh, blood—mayhap ‘er soul—away.
