Haunted By A Flame

written by Noordin Ali Kadir, The Wolf-Weaver

It began as it always does, with a death. And in the void of the dearly departed, something came to rest. It doesn’t matter how, it doesn’t matter who, the story does not remember.

Faces in fireplaces, ghosts in iron grates, memory cracked forth from coal and ash. Not as simple as malevolence, nor as complex as cruelty. As for how, and who, the story cannot remember.

Voices howled through winds, reaching out with promise. Magic, mystery, music, inspiration. It yearned to be heard, acknowledged, loved. These stories will not remember.

Our stories are written by us, so instead we call them nuisance. We bar doors and shutter windows, we hide from what we don’t know. We react with fear.

But they are just as us. Reaching out, as we cry terror. Some doors should not be barred. Some fears should not be cowed to.

That home was theirs too. But our stories refuse to remember.