Epilogue
Sarah stared at her wooden gabled house as though she had never seen it before, as though she had only known it in her dreams. It was nearly silent outside that spring afternoon, the dusk settling as pink and gold on the break in the horizon, the crooked oak tree bent even closer to the ground, as though it had grown older in the family’s absence. The fresh blooms flittered in the bay breeze, and everywhere Sarah looked was oddly deserted of people, as though everyone stayed away in deference to the new mournfulness in the old house. Usual traffic flows, the earliest tourists of the season, even walking locals were nowhere to be seen. For decades, neighbors saw the wooden gabled house, noticed the phantasmal man in the shadows, and they were convinced the old house was haunted. N
