The house stands, sagging and forlorn, at the end of a long winding driveway, hidden around the last curve to jump out at you just as you round the bend.
Its windows, gaze like myopic eyes upon the broken fountain in the courtyard where birds occasionally come in search of the long since evaporated water.
A breeze, stirring through the tattered remains of lace curtains, gives the house an air of life and movement. For a fleeting moment, if you are imaginative enough, you might fancy you saw the face of a girl. It's gone though, before you can be sure and you hurry on by, your mind taken up with the concerns and hassles of the living.
No time for haunted houses today. There's shopping to do, and bills to pay and the flutter of lace at a broken window is really much too fanciful.
Ghosts belong to another time and place.
(c) Margaret Leigh 2007
