From Bluenose Ghosts, today's ghostly excerpt:
Forerunners come sometimes as a kindly form of preparation where the shock of sudden death might be too great. An Amherst couple, for instance, lived happily together, and both were in excellent health. There was no reason to suppose any change would come to alter their unruffled lives. The house they lived in was very old and had bolts to fasten the doors. One night Rachel and her husband went to their room and he bolted the door as he always did. They were no sooner settled than she asked him to shut the door. He said, "I did." She said, "It's open," so he got up and closed it a second time. Once more they prepared themselves for sleep when again Rachel pointed out that the door was open. This time after closing it he got back into bed, but crawled in beside her and shivered and shook. She said, "What did you see?" but he refused to tell her. Finding him so greatly upset, and not being able to discover the reason, she appealed to her brother for help. "No," her husband said, "I won't tell you now, but if it ever comes to pass I'll tell you then." The next day Rachel took sick and a few days later she died and it was very sudden and distressing. She was laid out in a white dress and, when her husband saw her like this, he said,
"There, that's what I saw. Yes, I saw her laid out in her grave clothes."
I finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tonight - yes, I read all day! Lovely, lovely reading day. And we did enjoy Walking With Dinosaurs very much yesterday. I'll review Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tomorrow, it's late now- so for now, I hope you enjoy the ghostly tale from Bluenose Ghosts. It makes me shiver. I can only read the book a little at a time or I get too frightened. I know, it sounds silly, but these are real tales that people told of things they'd experienced - very short, simply told, as Creighton says, folktales and superstitions aren't elaborate - and it makes them all the more vivid for me, anyway, so I get little chills and my heart beats a little faster and I get jumpy......delicious. Happy RIPIV reading!
7 comments:
The excerpt you shared made me shiver too!
I haven't yet read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo but it's one I hope to get to eventually. I look forward to reading your review of it.
I hope you have a great week!
I love the excerpt...sounds like one we would tell around the fire when we are on a camping trip!
Literary Feline: I'm so glad you shivered too! reading this book is quite an experience....I will be scaring you through the month, I hope!
I'll be reviewing it tonight, I hope, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo....
have a great week too!
Kathleen: exactly! and I'd shiver then too! Stay tuned for more :-D
So you just put Bluenose Ghosts onto my wishlist!! It sounds like such a cool book Susan!! I hope I can get it and read it before RIP is over now ;)
If you'd picked up 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' you had no option but to read all day. It isn't possible to put that book down until you've found out what happens. Be warned, the second one in the series is even more compulsive. Do you think I should cancel my order for the third one until this term is over?
Woo hoo! Bluenose Ghosts!
Chris: I am so delighted I could be a bad blogger! *satisfied smile* I only have about 30 more books before we're even, you know!!!! LOL I hope you can get it, try Amazon.ca, they did have a few copies when I was on that night (Sat I think).
Table Talk: Even more compulsive? Maybe I'll put it on my Christmas list so I can read it over the holidays! Well, at least I'll have a couple of days off then! I really enjoyed Dragon Tattoo, I will review it shortly - I have to do RIP 4 first.....as for cancelling #3, hmm, it depends if you want to read it as soon as you get it, or if you can use it as a reward to get through the term!
Julia: have you read it? I know, from your neck of the woods....reading it sure makes me homesick for the sea!
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