The Woman Who Loved a Ghost

Author: Elsebeth Rhiannon

Original post: https://forums.eveonline.com/t/storytime/201045/11

Entry for YC122 New Eden Capsuleer’s Writing Contest in the Prose category.

(As told by a local [translator: shaman, priest, wise person, mentor] to yours truly in YC107, in an attempt to convince one to leave one’s own ghosts behind.)

Once upon a time before the Darkness, there lived a Shaninn woman, who so dearly loved a Sarinde man that they never had eyes for any others. The elders of the clan shook their heads at their passion, the chief tried to reason with their obsession, their families tried to introduce them to other opportunities, their cousins frowned on their indiscretion, but such was the strength of the bond between their spirits that in the end there was nothing to do but to let them marry.

Theirs was a proper and a happy marriage, but it was a short one, for after only three short years he was killed in an accident while hiking in the mountains with his cohort. The woman was devastated. When the pyre was lit, she had not slept, not eaten for three days, and had barely drank a drop of water, and had to be carried to the place. The goodbyes were said, all proper rites followed, and the clans returned to their regular lives.

At first, the woman seemed to recover. She stayed under the shadow of the grief for six days more, but on the seventh she rose, and had something to eat. In two weeks she sat evenings with her cohort, and in three she returned to work. All seemed well.

As time passed, though, she became more and more irregular. She seemed fine one day, and possessed another. She fell into dark moods: sometimes fits of temper overtook her, other times a shadow seemed to pass over her, and she never got up in the morning and never spoke to anyone. Sometimes her cohort heard her talk and laugh and sing in her room, or quarrel with someone, but when they knocked and went inside, there was no one there but her.

Then one night, they found her in the communal hall at the heart of darkness, with a knife, muttering to herself, and when they spoke to her she did not seem to see them, but raised the knife to attack, and they had to bring her down by force and confine her to her room, where she seemed to find rest, but kept on talking to spirits no one else could see.

Many doctors and shamans and priests came to see the woman, and she was prescribed many medicines and therapies, and they tried to banish whatever evil spirit tormented her, but nothing they did helped. Nothing was to be done, so she was left to her own devices, but kept a close eye on.

One afternoon, when the weather was cold, and a nice fire was burning in her room, the cousin who was supposed to keep her company fell asleep by it, and when he woke up, the mad woman was not there anymore. Alarmed, the cousin ran outside, and found her lying crushed and barely conscious on the pavement tiles, for she had climbed to the tower at the old mansion, and attempted to jump to her death. In her hand, the cousin found a ring weaved of red reeds, that he did not recognize.

Doctors and priests and shamans were called again, and the ring was shown to the elders of the clan, and they did recognize it: it had belonged to the father of the dead Sarinde man, and then to the man himself, and then given to the woman as a gift of love.

New Year was coming, and when the fires of remembrance were lit, the woman was again well enough to walk. They walked her to the fires, and they burned the ring in front of her, and as the flames took it and turned it into ashes, she let out a wail of grief, and grasped thin air in front of her, and then collapsed, sobbing.

The ghost finally gone, the woman started to recover. She grieved now, again, but like Shaninn, not like a madwoman. She no longer talked to ghosts, and no more fits of temper or depression overtook her. She became quiet and soft-spoken, and come Mid Year, she left the clan with a shaman she had befriended during her troubles, to become one of them.

Love is strong when you are young, and loss is hard when you love, but time moves on like the river, and all ghosts must be laid to rest. That is andesh.