Leaving the main kitchen, they next went towards the scullery. The door was standing ajar, and as they pushed it open to its full extent Aunt Julia uttered a piercing scream, which she instantly tried to stifle by placing her hand over her mouth. For a second, Shorthouse stood stock-still, catching his breath. He felt as if his spine had suddenly become hollow and someone had filled it with particles of ice.
Facing them, directly in their way between the doorposts, stood the figure of a woman. She had disheveled hair and wildly staring eyes, and her face was terrified and white as death.
She stood there motionless for the space of a single second. Then the candle flickered and she was gone - gone utterly - and the door framed nothing but empty darkness. (14)I found this passage interesting because it gave me something of a start as I read it and it occurred to me that the writing accomplished something that could not be accomplished through any other medium. It offered all the imagery that was required - Aunt Julia crying out as if gasping for her last breath of life, Shorthouse rendered motionless by the horror of the sight, the woman's twisted countenance twitching with the flame and her eyes that still saw that which she saw the moment before her grisly demise - but then leaves the rest to one's imagination. Was it really the figment of both onlookers' imaginations, or could it have been the ghost of the servant-girl murdered there so many years ago?
Blackwood, Algernon. "The Empty House." The Haunted Looking Glass. Ed. Edward Gorey. New York: The New York Review of Books, 1959. 14. Print.
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