[Don't ask. I was in a funny, odd mood. Righto. Read and enjoy.

The whole thing is © Me, Marisa. No taking.]

Empty, silent. The winds of the ages pass through the darkened halls, stirring dust, reviving memories.

She could hear children. Running, laughing, singing. The distant patter of shoes on polished wood. Out, in the vine-filled garden, there were the rhymes and the clatter of sticks and stones.

Past these places, places where the children romped. Onto darker, quieter rooms. The soft murmurs of delicate conversation. Silence thrumming in the ears, full of solemnity and grace; practiced words from practiced people. A mother and father. Polite. From society.

She could hear these ghosts. They whispered through the now dead passageways, only the memories bringing back its former joy. It was unsettling, bittersweet upon the mind.

Lace. Dolls. Chalk. Laughter.

"Hush," said she.

"Yes," said he.

Onward, softly, boots making not a sound, though the creaking floorboards did. They groaned, sighing, wishing for what was. That is the way of houses. They crave people; they crave life. Their purpose is to protect the living.

The blood on the walls had sunk into the wood and cracks in plaster; penetrated the heart of the house. It cries in pain, all night.

Slowly they crept, ignoring the house's pleas.

Stay with me. Make this all worthwhile.

Shoes.

Coats.

Hats.

Pearls.

Out into the garden, where the dead children played. Their skipping rhyme lay buried in the dust, to be swept up by wind and tossed into the air.

Listen to us. Play with us.

He looked to the sky. It was getting colder.

"Rain," he said.

"Hush," she whispered.

Lightning flashed.

She took his hand and led him to the gazebo. Its skeletal structure lay forlorn and forgotten, covered in dead ropes of grape. They did not sit; they listened. Above the rolls of thunder they heard whispers, hushed voices discussing the weather, politics, their children. Deep laughs and sweet chuckles. The hint of cigar smoke and perfume hung in the air.

The sweetness of the past.

The trees grow close together at the edge of the garden. The grass stops and makes way for ferns; they tower and droop, sagging under the wait of what they know; what the trees have told. What has been spoken, silently. Words of the unknowable.

On the ground something dully shines, caked in black. Silvery, flashing in far away lightning.

Dagger.

Blood.

Crying.

Horror.

"The earth cries," he sighed.

The rain began to fall. Silver tears, silver sorrow; silver runs along their faces and into their hair.

"I don't like thunder." She said, quaking. "I don't like lightning."

"I know." He said. He held her close as the rain fell, and slowly the rhymes were beaten into mud, and the memories were driven away by the rain, to settle in their own.