Free Goblins and Ghosties by Maggie Pearson Page B

his feet, but he could see his father (though he’d never admit it) could hardly put one foot in front of the other. So they took refuge in a cave on a lonely hillside and waited for the storm to blow itself out.
    They had no water and nothing to eat. Worst of all, there was no way of getting a fire going. All they could do was huddle together for warmth.
    At last, the old man stopped shivering and fell asleep. The young man, too, must have slept, because when he opened his eyes again, he saw that the storm had passed over. It was bright moonlight outside and there was someone moving about inside the cave. He saw a woman, dressed all in white. Her hair, too, was white as snow.
    But her face in the moonlight was the face of a young girl.
    The closer she came, the colder he felt, till he was colder than he’d ever been in his life before. She bent over his father, breathing a deathly cold over the old man as he slept. He saw the old man’s last breath leave him, drawn up into the cold lady’s mouth.
    Then she turned towards him, the son. Strangely, he wasn’t afraid, only faintly surprised. ‘Is this it?’ he wondered. ‘Is this death? The end of all my hopes and dreams?’
    â€˜Such a pretty boy!’ the cold lady murmured. ‘So young! Too young to die yet.’
    She was about to move away when she saw that his eyes were open, watching her.
    â€˜Swear to me,’ she said, ‘that you will never speak of me or of this night. Not to mother nor brother, nor sister, nor sweetheart, nor wedded wife, nor child, nor friend, nor foe, nor to any living creature that walks or crawls on land or swims in the sea or flies in the sky.’
    â€˜I swear,’ he said. Then fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
    Next morning, he was found by some shepherds who were out searching for sheep lost in the storm. It took him some days after that to recover his strength and arrange for his father’s funeral.
    By the time he got home, he found his mother had taken on a new servant girl, Yuki.
    â€˜I think of her more as a friend,’ said his mother.
    â€˜Her friend and her nurse,’ Yuki told him quietly. ‘You mother is sick, but I will do what I can to make her last days happy ones.’
    So she did, moving quietly about the house, always there when she was needed but never in the way.
    He got so used to having her around that, after his mother died, it seemed the natural step for them to marry.
    And they were happy.
    Seven children they had over the years. The children grew up and married in their turn. So now it was just the two of them, growing old together.
    His hair was turning white. So too was Yuki’s, though she still had the smooth, unlined face of a young girl.
    So it was that one winter’s evening, seeing her standing in the moonlight looking out at the snow falling on the garden, he was reminded of that night long ago.
    â€˜What are thinking?’ she asked him.
    â€˜I was thinking of a dream I had once,’ he said. ‘At least, I think now it must have been a dream, though it seemed very real at the time. It was the night my father died.’
    â€˜Tell me about it,’ she said quietly.
    So he told her about the cave on the lonely hillside and the cold lady and the oath he’d sworn.
    â€˜Do you remember the words of that oath?’ she said.
    â€˜Strangely, I do,’ he said. ‘Every word. It was never to speak of her or that night, not to mother, nor brother, nor sister, nor sweetheart, nor…’
    â€˜Nor wedded wife, nor child,’ she said, ‘nor friend, nor foe, nor to any living creature that walks or crawls on land or swims in the sea or flies in the sky. You broke your promise,’ she said sadly.
    Suddenly, the room was deathly cold.
    â€˜Such a pretty boy you were then,’ she said. ‘So young, that I took pity on you.’
    She turned away, opened the window and stepped out into the