I wrote this shortshortshort story a few years ago for a competition (it didn't win anything). It's short in words and light in style but deals with some heavy ideas, including time, predestination and the nature of past and future.... Hope you enjoy it! ************************* When Ian and I first saw Hollyholt it was February, damp and dismal, but I fell in love with the house, knew I'd always loved it, and that no thing of bricks and mortar could mean as much to me again. "You know it's haunted?" Jerry the estate agent felt moved to caution as we marvelled at the oak-railed gallery leading off the landing. "A Brown lady, supposed to stare out of the gallery window. But you know village talk." I did, and pooh-poohed the idea; the old house felt warm, welcoming, as if it wanted me as much as I it, and when Ian returned from his exploration of the back and said "There's a massive shed out there - just right for a studio," I knew we'd be moving in. It was our first Christmas Eve in the house - a perfect snowy night, frost sugaring the windows and an applewood fire in the grate - when I had my accident. I'd put on the new party dress (in the season's latest earth colours) I'd been hiding from Ian and was running down to show it off when I tripped on the landing, grabbed for the little gallery-rail (the one we'd put off woodworming until spring), and went right through. It was a fall that shouldn't have happened, and in the last conscious seconds that I remember I admit I thought of our resident ghost, but now I'm sure it was that dog-eared old rug. We'd talked about replacing it only the day before. Things were confused for a long time after that. I remember the pain, the ambulance, but above all Ian's face, abstracted as if he was working on one of his paintings, but touched with a hopelessness I'd never seen before. When I got home life was different, too: for a while I could do nothing for myself, and even finding strength to push open a door has been an uphill struggle, though I've quite mastered the art now. The strain changed Ian, as well; he became distant, nervous, always looking over his shoulder as if expecting to see someone there. Somehow I couldn't seem to get through to him any more. Well, all that was years ago. Ian's gone now; I overheard him telling a friend there was nothing to keep him here any more. I cried for weeks, but Hollyholt has been my comfort. I feel I belong to it these days rather than vice versa, if you can understand what I mean. Not that it doesn't get lonely. I stand at the gallery window watching the few passers-by; sometimes Jerry brings people round, but they never stay very long. In fact I'd like some company, so if you're passing do look me up; anyone in the village will tell you where to find us, Hollyholt and I. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, everyone round here knows me, so just ask for me by name. The Brown Lady, that's me.