It was a bright Saturday afternoon when Charlotte and I, along with Mrs. B, returned to the house in the wood.

I had spent nearly a week in bed, recovering from what the doctor called "nervous exhaustion." Charlotte had been by to visit me every day, and spent an hour or two, settled in the chair by my bed, reading to me passages from a recent romance or one of her esoteric science volumes. Mrs. B, when she periodically peeked in from the doorway, smiled approvingly.

One might wonder why return to the house at all. Mrs. B might say that all things must be faced, in time. Charlotte would say that the job was finished and she would not relinquish what was rightfully hers, and her only connection to her family.

I, perhaps, simply needed to prove something to myself. 

And there was the matter of a proper funeral to attend to.

The great green house seemed smaller to me now, as we descended from the comfort of Mrs. B's enclosed carriage.

Charlotte carried a wooden box, while Mrs. B followed with a small bag of tools. I unlocked the front door. It swung open easily and this time I was not assaulted by the mixed buzz of memories as we entered. It was eerily quiet and still.

Mrs. B turned to shut the door behind us. "No," Charlotte said quickly, grabbing the edge of the open door. "Leave it open."

The interior was cool, and dim as always. "These windows need a good scrubbing," Mrs. B commented as we entered the sitting room. "And that's not all."

I looked around at the room, cluttered and in disarray. My eyes lingered on the fireplace. "Well," Charlotte said grimly, "first things first."

Mrs. B put her hand on Charlotte's shoulder. "Let me do it, dear. You shouldn't have to." Without another word, she took the carved wooden box from Charlotte's hands and approached the fireplace. She crouched down and removed a brush and small dustpan from her bag. 

That day, after my collapse, Charlotte had tended to me on the porch until I was well enough to move. In that time, she'd let the fire burn down. She'd left her nephew's remains there, and taken me home.

Mrs. B set to work sweeping out what was left in the grate. Though it may not be polite to talk about, a body doesn't burn completely and bits of bone are left among the ash. Charlotte went to help, holding the box while Mrs. B filled it. At her direction, a man had come out the previous day to dig a small grave next to Clara's.

I wandered to the base of the stairs and put my hand on the bannister, half-expecting to see Clara coming down. I knew I shouldn't wander off by myself, but I slowly ascended the stairs. Thus far, the memories of the house were silenced.

I went to Clara's room straight away, but shied away from my intended purpose. Instead I strode across to the window and looked out upon the now sunny yard. Spring had truly reached the wood. Charlotte and Clara had played in this yard, back when they were together and maybe even happy. I recalled playing with the girls at the orphanage, too and smiled, for the first time, at that memory. We had a fairly comfortable childhood there, and we had each other.

I turned away and moved back toward the dressing table. The mirror frame was there, face-down. Hesitating only a moment, I snatched it up and peered into its emptiness where the mirror had once been. "Hattie!" Charlotte called. No face looked back at me. Just the backing where the glass should have been. "Hattie? Where are you?" Charlotte's voice was tinged with concern.

"Coming!" I called and hurried back downstairs, satisfied by what I hadn't seen.

------

They didn't want to leave me alone in the house, so the three of us went out to the carriage and Charlotte placed the small box of remains safely inside until we were ready to bury it. A question had been growing in my mind, so while she and Mrs. B stood chatting by the carriage in the sunshine, I strolled forward toward the big tree.

I gazed up at its sprawling branches, flush with the green leaves of springtime, so much brighter than the drab green of the house it shielded.

I had felt and seen nothing unusual in the house. But memories could never be entirely erased, could they?

We might have quelled the rising tide of the house's memories, but trees were living things, like people. Memories might be ignored, or quashed, or whitewashed, but they were never truly gone.

As I gazed at the front door of the house, I purposely leaned up against the tree's rough trunk. The door didn't fly open. No one came charging down the front steps. I relaxed.

Then I heard a child's laughter, followed by a shrill voice. "Come back here!"

Two little girls came running from around the side of the house, the younger one chasing the elder. She threw herself upon her big sister and the two went down in a fit of laughter. Their mother came out of the front door and stood looking down at them from the porch. "That's no behavior for little girls!" she called to them. "Stop rolling around like bear cubs. You're getting your dresses filthy!" But there was a half-smile on her face.

The vision went as easily as it had come. I felt no lingering effects and quickly turned around to see if Charlotte and Mrs. B had noticed anything. Charlotte had her eyes on me, but did not appear to have seen the two girls. I smiled and waved to show that I was all right.

Charlotte wanted to gather some candles and a few items from the house in order to have a "proper ceremony" at the gravesite. Mrs. B was eager to begin cleaning.

Upon re-entering the house, I had an odd feeling, like when you think you are hearing faint music though none is playing—it's just a remnant in the back of your mind from a song you once heard.

"Well, my dears," Mrs. B was saying. "It's going to take some work to clean up this place and bring it back to its full glory."

"I don't mind the task," Charlotte replied.

The two of them seemed to be getting along swimmingly as they organized papers and fabrics into "keep" and "discard" piles and began shifting furniture so that they could sweep the floor. After starting a fire in the grate to ward off the chill in the air, I moved about the room, touching everything—the mantel, the chair, the lamps—with no ill effects,

I strayed into the piano room and trailed my fingers lightly along the keys. A song came to me, as if on a gentle breeze, but I didn't attempt to play it.

Because above their idle chatter, and the memory of the song, I thought I heard something else.

Yes, it was there! "Charlotte! Mrs. B! Come here a moment!" I said excitedly.

They hurried in. "What's the—?"

"There's one more ghost," I said.

"What do you mean?" Charlotte asked with a hint of fear in her voice.

"Shh. Listen," I whispered. "Do you hear it?"

The three of us held our breath and I concentrated on the sound, willing them to hear it, too.

"A bird?" Mrs. B said, cocking her head to one side.

The sound grew louder and clearer. Three short chirps. Pause. Three chirps. Pause.

Charlotte's eyes were wide as she looked at me in wonder. "The wren?"

I put my hand on the birdcage and peered in at the small husk of bones and feathers. I felt a longing to be free, to move on.

"Grab me a cloth or something, will you?" I said.

Charlotte fetched some small doily that was lying atop a table and handed it to me. I wiggled open the door of the cage and carefully scooped up the remains of the little dead bird.

Mrs. B watched with curiosity but asked no questions as I closed the cage again.

I handed the little bundle to Charlotte and we locked eyes. "Fire," I said and she nodded solemnly.

She disappeared into the next room and returned momentarily, empty-handed. "It should burn up quickly," she said.

We hadn't heard any more chirping, but ... I put my hand on the cage. I still felt it, that longing feeling and something else, as if something were rustling or flapping within the cage! It couldn't be, could it?

"Quick!" I exclaimed. "Open that window."

"What? Why?" Charlotte asked.

"Please, just do it!"

Charlotte hurried over to the window behind the piano bench, unlatched it and gave a tug upon the sash. Difficult at first, it slid open haltingly with a rattle and a creak. "What are you girls on about?" Mrs. B asked, but neither of us answered.

Charlotte turned back to me at once. "So now what do you—?"

I imagined the flames in the fireplace licking at the remains of the bird. I felt an urgency, too, from inside the cage. Quickly, I opened the little gilded door and immediately felt something brush my hand.

Like a shimmering shadow, I swear to this day that I saw something very like a bird flutter about for a moment before disappearing out the window and into the sunshine.

But, as I've said before, the human mind is wholly unreliable.