He paced back and forth across the great hall, muttering and sputtering to himself. He was dressed in a thin robe, quite unfit for the stormy night. Wind and rain slapped against the the windows of the hall. There was an unrecognizable howl in the distance. He looked out to the rumbling clouds outside and shivered in the darkness.

He tripped over the corner of a rug, catching himself on one of the heavy velvet curtains that framed the massive windows. “Light,” he muttered, “must have light.” He hobbled to a candelabra resting on an end table and pulled a pack of matches from his pocket. He struck a match and watched the tiny stick alight. A little flame danced on the end, quickly devouring the match stick.

His fingers burned as the flame reached the bottom where he held it. Letting out an, “ouch!” he dropped the match to the floor. It dissipated as it fell through the air. Frustrated now, he lit another. This time he was quick to light the candles in front of him. “Cursed candle… cursed darkness!” The candles flickered with a warm light, illuminating a few feet around him. Picking up the candelabra, he began to pace once more.

As he walked he heard a queer sound, like a voice whispering softly. “What was that,” he said as he spun around, looking for the source, “Who goes there! Show yourself!” The room was still except for the draft coming in from the cracks between the windows. He held the candelabra out in front of him, stretching the light so that he could see further into the room before him.

“Luther… ” he heard a faint voice say.

“Who said that! If you have come to steal from me you should know I am prepared to put up a fight!” Despite his boldness, Luther was frightened. His heart pounded in his chest. He had lived alone in this great house for years. Not a soul had set foot inside his crumbling home since it happened.

“Luther…” The voice came again. This time it was colder and wanting.

“Enough with these games! Show yourself!” Luther knew very well that if this encounter proved dangerous there would be no one around for miles to help him.

From beside a curtain, a shadow fazed into existence. He could barely make out the shape for it stood just out of reach of the light, but it looked like a figure. The sight of it made Luther jump and shake in his slippers.

A woman’s voice radiated from the shadow, Luther recognized it as the voice that was calling out his name. “Luther… what have you planted in the garden…” The voice was sly and taunting. It made Luther’s stomach churn with uneasiness.

“Th-the garden,” he whimpered meekly, “there’s nothing in the garden but weeds.” Luther was in shock. The garden had been a secret place, his secret place.

“Liar!” the figure shrieked, her haunting voice echoed throughout the room.

Luther clutched the candelabra, his whole body shaking. “There is nothing there, I swear it! Oh foul spirit, leave me! I have nothing for you here.”

“Do you think that I cannot see through you? That I cannot see into your heart? I know you, little man. I know that you lie!”

The accusations from the specter filled Luther with newfound boldness. “How dare you! This is my house! You have no right to my secrets!”

“You are more of a coward than I remember,” the figure croaked, “not only do you hide your deeds from me, you hide them from yourself.”

“What do you mean? Who are you? What deeds do you speak of?”

“The deeds I speak of lie deep in the earth, bloated and rotten in the garden…”

Luther was struck with fear. She knew. Whoever this figure was, she knew what he had done. The thing that had happened so long ago. Still, it haunted him. Seasons changed, years had passed and still it kept him up at night. Many nights he found himself pacing around his house, doing his best to forget. “How could you know?” he asked quietly, sinking into a nearby armchair.

“How could I forget. I was there after all.”

“There? Where? In this house? There was was no one in this house on that night. No one but… the two of… us.” Tears welled in his eyes as he realized.

“Yes, Luther, us.”

“It can’t be… it’s not possible! You’ve been here all this time and you have only shown yourself now? Why?” Luther cried out. His fingers clenched the armchair where he sat, clawing at the aged leather. They sat in silence and for a moment everything was still. Luther could no longer hear the heavy sheets of rain or the howling of the wind. It was like time itself had stopped, but the spectre did not answer him.

She gilded closer, her feet hovering a few inches off the floor. Closer and closer she came until she floated over him, so Luther could see what she really was. Dark, matted hair hung loosely past her shoulders.  Her skin was greyish and mottled; signs of rot showed itself where her skin was visible. Most of her body was covered by a tattered nightdress. Once the dress might have been white, but now it was yellowed, tarnished, and covered with a faded brown stain that could only be blood. Luther shivered and shrank in his seat, too afraid to look at her face.

“Look at me, Luther. Look at what you did.”

Slowly, he looked up at her. Her neck was crooked and her head beant oddly to one side. Although her figure was human, her face looked anything but. Nothing but peeled back flesh remained of what was once her mouth. All her teeth were lined in a row. Her gums had withered away forming an unearthly, skeletal smile. From that smile seeped her haunting voice. “You asked me why I came after all this time. Well, I’ll tell you. I had found peace in death’s embrace, something I never found in yours, sweet thing. After all that transpired between us, I was finally at rest. And if I, as a corpse in the ground, had the ability to feel, I know I would have been content. But my eternal rest was, well, short lived,” her teeth chattered in some sort laugh.

“I have spent years watching you pace about as this house crumbled around you. I watched as your anxieties melted your mind and turned you into what you are,” she paused and softened her voice, “There was a time when I loved you, you know, back when I was alive. Sometimes I think… sometime I think I still do.” She lifted a skeletal hand to caress Luther’s cheek but the moment she touched it she recoiled, as if it pained her. “But nothing can come of us anymore, not after what you did.”

Mary was a frequent sleepwalker. Luther would often wake to find her absent from his bed. Sometimes he would find his wife walking the halls, muttering to herself as she slept. At first her words had little meaning, just fragments of a peaceful dream.

“No, no, Mr. Vellichor, antelopes don’t have wings,” he once heard her say. Little things like this made him chuckle. They were so childlike. It always disheartened him to wake her from such reveries. But soon the sweet dreams turned sour. Over the course of several months, Mary grew quite ill. The doctors said it was a sickness of the mind. They offered various medicines, none of which worked. They offered operations, recommended specialists, but Luther wanted no harm to come to his poor wife so he refused them all.

Her illness was seldom noticeable by day, but when the sun came down she hardly seemed herself at all. Her late night walkabouts grew numerous. It worried them both.

Although Mary did her best to keep herself together, the fatigue ate away at her. She hardly left the house anymore. She disliked the presence of people, even Luther.

In the center of their home there was a courtyard. She called it her garden. Nothing really grew there. It was mostly weeds, but somehow the little patch of brick and dirt relaxed her. After a while, it was the only place she could be found. She grew more and more obsessed by the “garden” with each passing day. When Luther found here there one night, shivering in the cold, he knew it was time to put a stop to this. Each night he would put Mary to bed and lock all the doors and widows in the house. Each night he would stay awake, sitting by her bed, too worried to sleep.

On the last night, the night when it happened, things were different. Luther had fallen asleep next to his wife's bed, his body finally shutting down after so many sleepless nights, but a sound jolted him awake. When he opened his eyes, he found that the bed before him was empty. This is not what worried him. Mary was a sleepwalker. What worried him was the sound that woke him. Glass shattering.

Luther jumped from his seat and hurried down the hall. He found her at the second story window, overlooking the little garden. The glass had blown inward. Large shards littered the floor around her and stuck to various places on her skin.

“Mary?” he called out, but she did not answer. As he got closer he heard her whispering to herself. It was a strange noise, guttural and harsh, but it did not sound like gibberish.

“Mary…” he called once once more, reaching for her shoulder. He could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric of her nightgown. She was shivering violently. Sweat dripped down her temple. Foul sounds leaked from her lips.

“Mary!” he shouted, squeezing her shoulder.

She stopped muttering and turned to face him. It was like she was looking through him. Her eyes were pure white and glossy. They starred wildly into the air above him. Her teeth chattered as she whimpered.

“Sweet angel,” she croaked, “there is nothing here but darkness. Only darkness. And in darkness, only death… “ Mary doubled over slightly and made an awful, retching noise. Blood erupted from her mouth, splattering on Luther´s face.  He recoiled and pushed her away from him. She stumbled and fell backward through the broken window. Luther heard her body splat as it hit the ground.

Too shocked to react, he crawled to the window, peering into the garden below. Her head was beant to one side, her neck badly broken by the fall. Blood seeped into the ground around her in a halo of red. Lying there, eyes staring blankly at the sky, she looked like a broken doll…

Tears welled in his eyes as he remembered. Luther sank out of his seat and onto his knees. “Forgive me, please.”

The specter that had once been his poor, tragic wife was silent.  A single breath escaped the horrible gash in its face, then it vanished. Slowly fading back into the shadows.

Luther sat there for a while, unable to move. He felt so hollow, so alone. As if his body were working on its own, he stood and hobbled through his ruin of a house, leaving the light behind. His feet dragged him through the dark hallways. He had paced in them so many times that he had no need to see where he was going. They all led to the same place, anyway. They all led to the garden.

Dawn crept over the horizon. The rain had slowed to a little more than a drizzle as he stood in the overgrown courtyard.

Luther stood before the decrepit marker. All the rain had freed it from its underground prison. Here and there pieces of yellowed bone emerged from the surface. A finger bone here, a collar bone there.

He fell to his knees, sinking slightly into the mud. He was soaked to the core. Tears flowed down his cheeks, blending in with the drizzle. “I’m sorry,” he cried into the wind, “Forgive me, Please! I never meant for this to happen. I’m so, so sorry,” he pleaded, sobbing and pounding his fists into the mud, but she was gone now, and there was no one left to hear him.