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The Ghosts We Bring

May 16, 2017 8 Comments

The Ghosts We Bring
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Parvale wasn’t a haunted house in the traditional sense. No spirit was tethered there, no crime unsolved. Instead it acted as a resonator: manifesting your guilt and sins as shades.

People came there, brought by word of mouth: the penitent, the defiant, the masochistic. Some fled screaming into the night. Few found what they were looking for. None came more than once.

I asked the caretaker, the only person who could stand to stay, what his secret was.

“First, you have to stand before your sins and beg forgiveness,” he said.

“And then?”

He smiled. “Then you have to forgive yourself.”

By Ian Rennie

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. dontassone says

    May 16, 2017 at 4:39 am

    Amen! Well done.

    Reply
  2. Jacqueline says

    May 16, 2017 at 3:04 am

    Cool!

    Reply
  3. merrillyew says

    May 16, 2017 at 4:57 am

    Nicely written ?

    Reply
  4. Susan says

    May 16, 2017 at 5:07 am

    A haunting tale…from beginning to end. I loved it.

    Reply
  5. azsalinas23 says

    May 16, 2017 at 6:29 am

    I love that this reads like a myth. Reading about Parvale is enough to influence our moods, and we haven’t even been yet. Great story.

    Reply
  6. Mark Goolsby says

    May 16, 2017 at 10:20 am

    Brilliant!!!!

    Reply
  7. Thomas Minder says

    May 16, 2017 at 10:46 am

    Nice. Good and wise finish.

    Reply
  8. Christopher Ramsey says

    May 17, 2017 at 5:20 am

    Good stuff!

    Reply

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