The Lady in Lavendar, a Ghost Story

Children love this time of year, it is crisp, dusk falls rapidly, and there are roasted marshmallows, hot dogs, hot chocolate, and leaves to pounce in. It is just this atmosphere that makes the old games exhilarating. Running, screaming into "kick the can" as the one who is tagged sags in hopeless disappointment. Hide and seek, blind man's bluff. Oh, these games have gone on for generations.
The problem with these games, in the autumn, is that night falls rapidly, swiftly, and before you know it, it is dark, mothers are calling their young in for the night, cheeks rosy , yet cold as the frosty apples, newly picked.
This is the story that was told to the neighborhood children to keep them close to their homes, and is said to be true.

Matilda was what in our society today, we would call a "battered woman." She was beaten, humiliated, verbally abused and terrified all of her adult life. She waited in trembling, heart pounding terror for the nightly returns of her slovenly drunken husband, who would demand dinner, and then if he was in a good mood he would throw it against the wall, but if he was in a foul mood he threw her against the wall too.
She would herd her children to bed early, hoping to protect them, because in those days, of course there was no police protection, and it was a dirty little secret to be swept under the carpets. Sometimes they caught father's wrath too. One particularly cruel helpless night, when her husband was especially violent, and kept her up half the night railing and ranting at her, something inside of her broke, call it her mind, but she knew that if she and her children were to survive, he couldn't.Any love she had once felt for the loving man he once was, died when he attacked her children. She looked at her son, Jacob, with his arm dangling limply at his side and she made the hardest, but most determined decision of her life. Her husband was going to have to die, before, she or one of her children did..
Levi, got up the next morning, to his coffee and breakfast hung over as usual, and totally unsuspecting. He actually seemed less unpleasant than usual. He wolfed down his eggs, ham and toast, and drank the coffee that was put in front of him. He made a face, and asked how long she had brewed this, well you can imagine the language he used.
Mathilda was terrified that she had been discovered, but Levi, just spit out the mouthful of coffee, and added more sugar and cream and downed the large mug. She watched him, stricken with fear and revulsion, repulsed by what she had done, but picturing her children's ghostlike faces, hiding in their rooms, scattering like rats when they heard him coming in the house in the evenings. There was no way she could live with that anymore. What Mathilda had not counted on was him clutching at his throat gasping, with his eyes bulging with fear. He fell at her feet, pulled at her long skirt, pulling her down to him. Help me he rasped, and writhed in agony, for what seems like hours, but in reality was minutes. The real horror was his realization that SHE had poisoned him. She tried to run, part of her felt, an overwhelming sadness, that she murdered the father of her children, and the man that she once loved so dearly, but pathetically, she was still afraid of him, even as he lay there dying in front of her eyes.

She sobbed and sobbed and grieved for her children, who had no father, she sobbed for the monster she still loved, and yet she had no tears for herself. She lived her life, raising her children, fatherless, but fearless, they grew up to be successful in their life's and families, unaware of what their mother did to save them, and the burden of guilt that she carried.
She was unable to tell the secret until her death bed,, when she revealed it to her sons in a rasping, agonizing voice, and when she saw the look of horror on her son's face, she died with even more guilt and shame then she had carried all of the years before, She died clutching her throat with terror and pain in her eyes.

So on these darkening dusky evenings, the children were reminded of Mathilda, who could be seen haunting, the streets, along the north side of Elkhart, where the rambling houses of the rich lived. Children, were cautious not to turn their backs to the hedges, because they may feel the air suddenly turn still, and cold as ice, and with breath held they would turn their heads, and see a dainty small slippered foot near their own, underneath a long gown, and the most horrifying look of terror on the face of a lady, with mouth split open wide,screaming a silent scream, loud enough to wake the dead.

Many children were rooted to the spot in paralyzing fear. Many horses were spooked when out of the bushes darted the Lady in Lavender, as she began to be called. Many children refused to play outside at dusk, and many husbands came home early for dinner.

Ironically, after many years, she disappeared, and only one little girl knew why. This little girl had lived in a house much like the Lady in Lavender had. Once upon a time, Sara, who was only 7 years old, happened to be visited by the Lady in Lavender. She was playing innocently just like all the other children did, and she felt the cold air, and looked up into the grinning human skull, and she saw, an immense sadness, much like her own, and she held her hand out to the Lady in Lavender who floated down next to Sara. and Sara gently took her head in her hands, and watched the face of Mathilda, melt into tears,years of grief and pain, shame and guilt, as she unleashed her soul's agony to this little girl, and tears of healing , washed away her pain, and the little girl, was healed too.

So if you are ever out in your own neighborhood, and you should see children playing, or should see some mysterious figure walk out in front of your car, chances are it will not be a spirit, but something a lot more sinister than that.Like maybe a monster on his way home to torture his children, and a wife of his own.