Deep within the chapel, silence hung heavy, chilling as fog. The air was thick with incense, choked tears, and a grief sharper than words. People sat hunched, heads low, each islanded in sorrow. Time itself seemed to stop.
Then – footsteps.
Faint. Barefoot.
A boy, perhaps six, stood. His movements were halting, yet his face was solemn, suddenly ageless. He spoke no word. He only walked forward, threading the sad benches until he stood by the coffin.
He paused, as if awaiting permission. Then, slowly, pressed his small ear to his mother’s breast. No sound. Yet he listened. Straining for something within the silence that might answer.
A minute passed. Perhaps two.
Whispers rustled; a sob escaped someone. Suddenly – he lifted his head. His eyes were wide, holding terror mixed with childish faith. He turned to those gathered, looked directly at the vicar, and spoke:
“She says: ‘I never said farewell…’”
All fell utterly silent. Even the candle flames seemed to flutter.
A woman in the back row swooned. A prayer book thudded to the floor. The vicar stepped towards the boy, but before he could speak, the boy added:
“She says… she waits for me. Tonight.”
A dead stillness followed.
They led the boy away then, murmuring of fancies. Yet no one slept well that night. And after midnight…
A neighbour swore she saw a woman’s shape in mourning silk ascend the stairs, a boy close behind.
They were never seen again.
Come morning, the coffin lay empty.
Three days after the burial, the mother’s cottage stood boarded. Relatives refused guardianship – too much frightened them that evening. Too much felt… profoundly wrong.
The boy was called Oliver. Quiet, thoughtful, he’d spoken little since his father’s passing. Only with his mother. They understood each other without words. Often, as she slept, he’d sit bedside, touching her hand – like a guardian charm.
She was his world.
When she fell ill, none thought the end so swift. Within a fortnight, she faded. Not from age, nor accident. As if something consumed her from within. The doctors said: her heart. But the boy knew – not wholly.
After the burial, he stayed with a cousin. One who’d ever disliked his mother and avoided him. She heard him whispering nightly in his sleep. Then, once, he sat bolt upright:
“She’s at the door. Don’t look. She doesn’t call you.”
The cousin summoned the vicar at dawn.
But the vicar, that same one from the funeral, paled on learning who sought him.
“That child… is different,” he murmured. “Best not meddle. Pray. Lock your windows at night.”
On the fourth day, the true strangeness began.
The old churchwarden, Thomas, ran panicked to the chapel.
“The coffin’s empty! She’s gone! No body, no clothes… as though never laid there!”
The vicar went himself. The crypt seal was unbroken. Locks secured. Coffin shut. But inside…
“Empty.”
By evening, whispers spread through the village. Folk claimed Oliver’s mother hadn’t died, but passed to where return might be possible. At midnight, children heard a woman’s voice beyond their windows. Someone saw a long-haired figure in a garden, whispering:
“Where is my son?…”
Panic-stricken, the cousin put Oliver on the chapel orphanage steps and hurried away, never glancing back.
The aged priest, Father Thomas, gave the boy a cell near his own. He’d seen much in his years, yet this…
“Something ancient is at work,” he said softly, meeting Oliver’s gaze. “You hear her voice?”
The boy nodded.
“Each night. She calls. Says she’s cold, that something between us remains unfinished.”
“What, lad?” asked the priest.
Oliver pondered, then whispered: “She swore always to be with me… even beyond.”
Old tales say spirits torn from life unwillfully might walk on the seventh night.
Father Thomas knew this. He did not sleep.
The chapel clock tolled midnight.
Wind howled outside. Candles in the cells snuffed out, one by one, as if pinched by unseen fingers.
And in that moment – Oliver vanished.
The cell door remained bolted from within. No trail, no sound, no open window. He was simply gone.
The priest, torch in hand, ran to the chapel.
There before the stripped altar, Oliver knelt.
And before him stood *her*.
Draped in black, hair unbound, face unearthly pale – yet tears gleamed in her eyes.
“I have returned,” she spoke, “to take him where pain cannot reach.”
“This is not thy path,” the priest countered. “Thy rest is broken, demanding the living.”
Slowly, she turned to him. “He is my flesh. I vowed protection. Death could not unmake my oath.”
“Yet thy journey has ended,” the priest pressed. “Release the child.”
She gazed at Oliver. He lifted his head and smiled – truly smiled – for the first time.
“I am not afraid,” he said. “With her… I am home.”
Then the chapel floor shook. Darkness swallowed air and light. Sound and space vanished. Only void.
When the priest stirred, the altar was bare. Oliver gone. The cemetery coffin was shut fast again. But now within lay a woman. And beside her – a child.
Their hands clasped. As if meant to be.
Since, none sleeps within that chapel walls.
Each year on that night, a child’s laughter mixes with a woman’s lullaby floating on the wind.
A shadow sometimes flickers near the altar. A reminder that oaths born of love hold death itself at bay.
A year passed.
The old chapel endured on the moor, its stucco cracked, its few sad windows broken. No services had been held since Oliver vanished. Locals shunned the place. Father Thomas became a near recluse, whispering constantly in his cell.
One grey Saturday brought a visitor: Eleanor Thorne, a scholar from Cambridge. She chronicled folk beliefs and cursed places. Tales of the “empty coffin” and the “ghost-child” led her here.
Villagers eyed her with suspicion. Only an old shepherd spoke: “Think it fancy? We live with it. We hear. See. At night, when the moor-wind sighs… it whispers of duty. Of returning.”
“‘It’?” asked Eleanor.
The shepherd lowered his voice: “The boy. Oliver.”
She climbed to the chapel at dusk. The doors stood ajar, as if expecting her.
Inside lay dust, cobwebs, neglect. Yet… the air hummed. Or held an echo of life.
Upon the altar rested a child’s drawing.
A weak pencil stroke showed a woman with obsidian wings of grief holding a boy’s hand. Beneath, a simple inscription:
‘Mummy and me. We’ll wake soon.’
Eleanor froze. Wake?
A step sounded behind her. Swift. Soft. She spun – emptiness.
But in a corner, a candle burned steady.
Beside it – the coffin.
She approached. No dust marred it. No touch of time. As if newly placed.
“Lay not hands upon it,” a voice spoke. Father Thomas stood there.
“They are dead?”
The priest shook his head. “Neither. Both… are between. Gone to where souls wait, unsleeping. Waiting recall. Yon family bears
Eleanor stayed thereafter, keeping silent watch from her cottage below, and generations later, a newborn’s cry broke the village quiet, its tiny wrist marked by a circle feathered with wings—signifying that ancient vows cannot be buried.
