Miss Penny's Wedding Dress

Was it just in his head? Or was it a real haunting? Was this wailing and the sound of a woman's voice in his room at night really linked in any way to the faded old wedding dress he had found and which now hung in his wardrobe? Was she searching for the dress, and what did it really mean to her? Assuming the voice was actually that of a woman. Dead or otherwise. Or was he simply going crazy and imagining it all?



(An excerpt from the book)

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So far the evening had been quiet. No voices or other strangeness came to him. "Jonathan," he said to himself, but aloud, "I wonder if it all really is something in your own mind."



"Jonathan?" It was the voice of a woman. His heart jumped within his chest.



Then the question was repeated. "Jonathan? Where?" The tone of the inquiry was frantic.



He sat up, his heart frozen and seemingly, in mid beat. But now the beating pounded in his ears.



He fumbled for the lamp, and with a match found by his fingers on the table, even as his hands trembled, he managed to light the lamp. In the light he searched the room with his eyes racing from corner to corner. There was nothing to be seen.



"Who's here?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.



"Who?" from the voice again. "Jonathan?"



"He's not here," Robert answered, his voice trembling. Jonathan was right. Now he knew it. Jonathan was not mad. Nor was he suffering from delusions.



Then the wailing began. Piteous, it was to hear. It was very much the sound of someone in great sorrow.

"Stop!" Robert shouted. "Be gone with you, whatever you are!"



"Whatever I am?" the voice asked.



"Whatever, or whoever you are," Robert answered.



"Whoever I am?" the voice asked.



The feeling of fingers brushed on his face, rubbing up and down his cheeks and pressing fingertips against his eyelids. The feeling drove him to flay his hands before his face. But he touched nothing, and the movement of the fingers continued.