The silence in the church felt heavy, almost tangible. Incense mixed with tears and a grief beyond words hung thick in the air. People sat with bowed heads, lost in private sorrow. Time itself seemed frozen.
Then came footsteps.
Soft, bare feet on stone floor.
A boy, about six, rose from his seat. His movements were hesitant, but his face held a sudden seriousness beyond his years. He didn’t speak. He just walked forward, navigating the pews until he reached the coffin.
He stood beside it, waiting for permission. Slowly, gently, he pressed his small ear against his mother’s chest. No sound came. Yet he listened intently, as if searching for a whisper beyond the silence.
A minute passed. Perhaps two.
Murmurs rose among the mourners, someone stifled a sob. Suddenly, the boy lifted his head. His eyes were wide pools of terror mixed with childish faith. He turned to face the congregation, looked straight at the vicar, and spoke:
“She said… ‘I didn’t say goodbye.’”
Everyone froze. Even the candle flames seemed to shudder.
A woman slumped unconscious at the back. Someone dropped a prayer book. The vicar took a step towards the boy, but before he could speak, Arthur added:
“She says she’s waiting for me… tonight.”
Deathly silence fell.
The boy was quickly led away, told it was just his imagination. But no one slept easy that night. And in the small hours…
The downstairs neighbour swore she saw a woman’s silhouette in mourning dress ascending the stairs, the boy following close behind.
They were never seen again.
The coffin was empty the next morning.
Three days after the funeral. The house where mother and son lived stood boarded up. Relatives refused custody – too many frightening things that evening. Too much felt wrong.
The boy’s name was Arthur. A quiet, thoughtful child, he’d rarely spoken since his father died. Only with his mother. They understood each other without words. Sometimes, when she slept, he sat by her bed, touching her hand – a protective charm.
She was his entire world.
Her illness ended swiftly. She faded within two weeks. Not from age, not from accident. As if something consumed her from within. Doctors cited heart failure. But Arthur knew better.
After the funeral, he stayed temporarily with his great-aunt, Mildred. She’d never cared for Arthur’s mother and avoided the boy. At night, she heard him whispering in his sleep. Once, he suddenly sat bolt upright:
“She’s beside the door. Only don’t look. She hasn’t called for you.”
Aunt Mildred summoned the vicar at first light.
But that vicar, the one from the funeral, paled when he knew who’d called him.
“That boy… he’s different,” he said. “Best leave be. Pray. Lock your windows after dark.”
On the fourth day, reality shifted.
The village graveyard keeper, old Henry, raced to the church in panic.
“The coffin’s empty! She’s gone! No body, no clothes… like she was never there!”
The vicar himself went to confirm. The stone slab lay undisturbed. Locks intact. Coffin shut. Inside…
“Empty.”
Rumours spread by evening. Villagers whispered Arthur’s mother hadn’t died, but gone somewhere returnable. At midnight, children heard a woman’s voice outside. Someone glimpsed a woman with long black hair in a garden, whispering:
“Where is my son?”
Aunt Mildred, terrified, thrust Arthur out. She left him on the doorstep of the parish orphanage and walked away, never turning back.
The old parish priest, Father Michael, regarded Arthur gravely as he settled the boy in the cell next to his own.
“Something ancient is at work here,” he murmured, searching Arthur’s eyes. “You hear her voice?”
The boy nodded.
“Every night. She calls. Says she’s cold, and that something remains unfinished.”
“What?” asked the priest.
Arthur paused. Then whispered:
“She promised she’d always be with me… even beyond.”
Tradition holds that on the seventh night, souls taken unwillingly may return.
Father Michael knew this. He didn’t sleep.
The church clock struck midnight.
Wind howled outside. Candles in the cells snuffed out one by one, blown or pinched by an unseen hand.
At that moment, Arthur vanished.
The cell door was barred inside. No footprints, no sound, no open windows. Simply gone.
The priest grabbed a torch and ran towards the church.
There, kneeling before the bare altar, he saw Arthur.
And before him stood she.
Black-clad, hair like ink, face deathly pale, tears in her eyes.
“I returned,” she breathed, “to take him where pain cannot reach.”
“This isn’t your rightful path,” the priest replied. “You disturb the peace, taking the living.”
She turned slowly.
“He is part of me. I pledged to protect him. Not even death could break my vow.”
“Your journey ended,” the priest insisted. “Release the child.”
She gazed at Arthur. He looked up, smiled his first smile since her passing.
“I’m not afraid,” he said. “With her, I’m home.”
The church floor trembled. Darkness swallowed the air. Light, sound, space vanished into emptiness.
When Father Michael regained his senses, the altar was bare. Arthur was gone. The grave held the coffin, sealed now. This time, inside lay two figures: the woman and the boy.
Their hands clasped tight. As if meant to be.
No one sleeps in the church now.
Every year on the same night, a childish laugh echoes alongside a woman’s voice softly singing a lullaby.
Over the altar, a
Years later, when that child turned seven, he vanished from his bed one storm-swept night, leaving only the faint scent of incense and the distant echo of a woman singing a lullaby drifting from the abandoned church.
