my dear miss Mary Doe.

I dreamt of a haunted house. To get to it, I had to run under a stone bridge, across a drain and past a house with an unkept garden. And the person who haunted it went by the name of Mary Doe. I don't know why, but that name stuck.

It was actually a dare from one of my friends. Wanting to show I was no coward, I foolishly marched in without thinking of knocking on the door nor to ring the doorbell.

The interior was lavishly decorated with cobwebs, be it on the banister, the grandfather clock or the ceiling and the furniture was made of a sleek, smooth wood of a dark copper colour. The entire house was a dark turquoise colour, and I felt as though I was aboard a shipwreck. Strangely enough, it was the dark turquoise colour that illuminated the house though it was in the middle of the afternoon. Breathing the musty air, I felt the despair of the house.

I trudged up the staircase and into the study. It was there that I met her. A frail woman wearing a dark maroon Victorian dress, and her hair was strangely white. She had a pleading look on her face, or did I see a look of anger and vengeance instead? She was standing, and she looked elegant. Her eye colour was sea-green, it matched the dimness of the turquoise surrounding us. We merely looked at each other straight in the eye. She spoke, but no words came out of her mouth. Despite that I heard what she had to say. Her voice was an echo, yet crisp and clear. We talked, but I don't remember what we talked of.

Intrigued, though I sensed that it was morning and time to wake up, I dreamt on. At that fleeting moment, when I accidentally drifted into reality, the dream started to shatter. Now it spun in a circle. I was outside once more, and I blinked at the bright white light of the sun. I ran back to the house, under the stone bridge, across the drain, past the house with an unkept garden. I was desperate that she should disappear and I should never see her again. I paused at the gate, catching my breath.. She was standing at the front door. Poised elegantly, a lady of class she was.

I had wanted so badly to retrace it right from the start, string it out as a proper story. But sadly, it was not to be. Even now there are bits and pieces coming together, but it simply cannot be a complete piece. Some fragments are adrift too far for me to retrieve. sigh... I knew I should have taken it down when I woke up this morning.