 What was it, by Fitz James O'Brien? It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approached the strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I propose detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief. I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed under my observation in the month of July last, and which in the annals of the mysteries of physical science are wholly unparalleled. I live at No. N. 26th Street in New York. The house is in some respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the reputation of being haunted. The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a large spiral staircase winding through its center, while the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A., the well-known New York Merchant, who five years ago threw the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank-fraud. Mr. A., as everyone knows, escaped to Europe and died not long after of a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of his decease reached this country and was verified the report spread in No. 26th Street that No. N. was haunted. Real measures had dispossessed the widow of its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a caretaker and his wife, placed there by the house agent into whose hands it had passed for purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were opened without any visible agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various rooms were, during the night, filed one upon the other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight, accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk-dresses and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive balusters. The caretaker and his wife declared they would live there no longer. The house agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others in their place. The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The neighborhood caught up the story, and the house remained untenanted for three years. Several persons negotiated for it, but somehow, always before the bargain was closed, they heard the unpleasant rumors and declined to treat any further. It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a boarding-house in Bleaker Street and who wished to move farther uptown, conceived the bold idea of renting No. N. 26th Street. Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of borders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons, a sea-captain and a returned Californian who immediately gave notice that they would leave, all of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would accompany her in her incursion into the abode of spirits. Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were charmed with our new residence. Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. N. than we began to expect the ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with eagerness. Our dinner conversation was supernatural. I found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or wainscote panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and everyone was prepared for an immediate clanking of chains and a spectral form. After a month of psychological excitement it was with the utmost dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself. Things were in this state when an incident took place so awful and inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare memory of the occurrence. It was the 10th of July. After dinner was over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed between the doctor and myself, we were linked together by a vice. We both smoked opium. We knew each other's secret and respected it. We enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that marvellous intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that boundless feeling of existence when we seemed to have points of contact with the whole universe, in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss which I would not surrender for a throne and which I hope you, reader, will never, never taste. On the evening in question, the 10th of July, the doctor and myself drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large mare-shams, filled with the fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy-tale, held within its narrow limits, wonders beyond the reach of kings, we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the currents of our thoughts. They would not flow through the sun-lit channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable reason they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we flung ourselves on the shores of the east and talked of its gay bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk and expanded, like the one the fishermen released from the copper vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision. Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us and indulged in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the human mind to mysticism and the almost universal love of the terrible, when Hammond suddenly said to me, What do you consider to be the greatest element of terror? The question puzzled me, that many things were terrible I knew, but it now struck me for the first time that there must be one great and ruling embodiment of fear, a king of terrors, to which all others must succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe its existence? I confess, Hammond, I replied to my friend, I never considered the subject before, that there must be one something more terrible than any other thing I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague definition. I am somewhat like you, Harry, he answered. I feel my capacity to experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human mind, something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation hitherto supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in Brockton Brown's novel of Veland is awful. So is the picture of the dweller on the threshold in Bulwer's Zanoni. What, he added, shaking his head gloomily, there is something more horrible still than these. Look here, Hammond, I rejoined. Let us drop this kind of talk for heaven's sake. We shall suffer for it, depend on it. I don't know what's the matter with me tonight, he replied, but my brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as if I could write a story like Hoffman to-night if I were only master of a literary style. Well, if we are going to be Hoffman-esque in our talk, I'm off to bed. Opium and nightmares should never be brought together. How sultry it is. Good night, Hammond. Good night, Harry, pleasant dreams to you. Do you gloomy wretch, affreets, ghouls, and enchanters? We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as soon as I had laid my head upon the pillow and instantly flung it to the other side of the room. It was Goudon's History of Monsters, a curious French work which I had lately imported from Paris, but which, in the state of mind I had then reached, was anything but an agreeable companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once, so turning down my gas until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of the tube I composed myself to rest. The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained alight did not illuminate a distance of three inches around the burner. I desperately drew my arm across my eyes as if to shut out even the darkness and tried to think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves in my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be-blindness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me. While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest, and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat endeavoring to choke me. I am no coward and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me, strung every nerve to its highest tension. My body acted from instinct before my brain had time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two muscular arms around the creature and squeezed it with all the strength of despair against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity, immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature of the thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder, neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair of sinewy agile hands which my utmost efforts could not confine. These were a combination of circumstances to combat which required all the strength, skill, and courage that I possessed. At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was, apparently, as exhausted as I was. That was one comfort. At this moment I remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed, a large yellow silk pocket-hanker-chiff. I felt for it instantly. It was there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the creature's arms. I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a certain pride in not giving the alarm before. I wished to make the capture alone and unaided. Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to reach the gas burner, these I made with the greatest caution, holding the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's length of the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas burner lay. Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and led on the full flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive. I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked with terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. I saw nothing. Yes, I had one arm firmly clasped around a breathing, panting, corporeal grip. My other hand gripped with all its strength a throat as warm and apparently fleshy as my own. And yet with this living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld nothing. Not even an outline, a vapor. I do not even at this hour realize the situation in which I found myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident thoroughly. Imagination in vain tries to compass the awful paradox. It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth like my own. There at lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone, and yet utterly invisible. I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful instinct must have sustained me, for absolutely, in place of loosening my hold on the terrible enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force that I felt the creature shivering with agony. Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon as he beheld my face, which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight to look at, he hastened forward crying, Great Heaven, what has happened? Hammond! Hammond! I cried. Come here. Oh! This is awful! I have been attacked in bed by something or other which I have hold of. But I can't see it. I can't see it! Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfaithful horror expressed in my countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human being in my position, it was the worst species of cruelty. Now I can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem with an airy nothing and calling for assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd, that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood. Hammond! Hammond! I cried again despairingly. For God's sake, come to me. I can hold the thing but a short while longer. It is overpowering me. Help me! Help me! Arry! I whispered Hammond, approaching me. You have been smoking too much opium. I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision, I answered in the same low tone. Don't you see how it shakes my whole frame with its struggles? If you don't believe me, convince yourself. Feel it. Touch it. Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry of horror burst from him. He had felt it. In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of cord and was next instant winding it and nodding it about the body of the unseen being that I clasped in my arms. Arry! he said in a horse-agitated voice, for, though he preserved his presence of mind, he was deeply moved. Arry! It's all safe now. You may let go, old fellow, if you're tired. The thing can't move. I was utterly exhausted and I gladly loosed my hold. Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the invisible, twisted round his hand, while, before him, self-supporting as it were, he beheld a rope laced and interlaced and stretching tightly around a vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe. Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly and one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was not daunted. The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself, who beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling something, who beheld me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was over, the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders, when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door and could not be induced to approach Hammond and his charge. Still, incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They were incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked? My reply was this. I gave a sign to Hammond and both of us, conquering our fearful repugnance to touch the invisible creature, lifted it from the ground, manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. This weight was about that of a boy of fourteen. Now, my friends, I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature suspended over the bed, I can give you self-evident proof that here is a solid, ponderable body, which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively. I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so calmly, but I had recovered from my first terror and felt a sort of scientific pride in the affair which dominated every other feeling. The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was the dull sound of a heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow and on the bed itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a low cry and rushed from the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our mystery. We remained silent for some time, listening to the low irregular breathing of the creature on the bed and watching the rustle of the bed-clothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement. Then Hammond spoke, Harry, this is awful! Ay, awful! But not unaccountable! Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God grant that I am not mad and that this is not an insane fantasy. Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch but which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Make a piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to be totally invisible. It is not theoretically impossible, mind you, to make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light, a glass so pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We do not see the air and yet we feel it. That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances. Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. This thing has a heart that palpitates, a will that moves it, lungs that play and inspire and respire. You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late, answered the Dr. Gravely. At the meetings called spirit circles, invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round the table, warm, fleshy hands that seem to pulsate with mortal life. What? Do you think, then, that this thing is— I don't know what it is, was the solemn reply. But please, the gods, I will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it. We watched, together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it slept. The next morning the house was all a stir. The borders congregated on the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could be induced to set foot in the apartment. The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in which the bedclothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty which themselves were invisible. Hammond and myself had wracked our brains during the long night to discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general appearance of the enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human. There was a mouth, a round smooth head without hair, a nose which, however, was little elevated above the cheeks, and its hands and feet felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a smooth surface and tracing its outlines with chalk as shoemakers traced the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value. Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation. A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster of Paris. This would give us the solid figure and satisfy all our wishes. But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the setting of the plastic covering and distort the mould. Another thought. Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs, that was evident by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility we could do with it what we would. Doctor X was sent for, and after the worthy physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement he proceeded to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were unable to remove the fetters from the creature's body and a modeler was busily engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In five minutes more we had a mould, and before evening a rough facsimile of the mystery. It was shaped like a man, distorted, uncouth and horrible, but still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height, and its limbs revealed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustave Doré or Calotte or Tony Jehanot never conceived anything so horrible. There is a face in one of the latter's illustrations to a voyage où il vous plaira, which somewhat approaches the countenance of this creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I should fancy a ghoul might be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding on human flesh. Having satisfied our curiosity and bound everyone in the house to secrecy it became a question what was to be done with our enigma. It was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house. It was equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature's destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would undertake the execution of this horrible semblance to a human being? Day after day this question was deliberated gravely. The borders all left the house. Mrs. Moffitt was in despair and threatened Hammond and myself with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the horror. Our answer was, we will go if you like, but we declined taking this creature with us. Remove it yourself, if you please. It appeared in your house. On you the responsibility rests. To this there was, of course, no answer. Mrs. Moffitt could not obtain for love or money a person who would even approach the mystery. At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to Dr. X, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street. As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have drawn up this narrative of an event, the most singular that has ever come to my knowledge. And of what was it? Recording by Roger Maline. Yuki Onna by Lavcario Hearn. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Lincoln Brooks. Yuki Onna by Lavcario Hearn. In a village of Musashi province, there lived two woodcutters, Mozaku and Minokichi. At the time of which I am speaking, Mozaku was an old man, and Minokichi, his apprentice, was a lad of 18 years. Every day they went together to a forest situated about five miles from their village. On the way to that forest there is a wide river to cross, and there is a ferry boat. Several times a bridge was built where the ferry is, but the bridge was each time carried away by a flood. No common bridge can resist the current there when the river rises. Mozaku and Minokichi were on their way home one very cold evening when a great snowstorm overtook them. They reached the ferry, and they found that the boatmen had gone away, leaving his boat on the other side of the river. It was no day for swimming, and the woodcutters took shelter in the ferryman's hut, thinking themselves lucky to find any shelter at all. There was no brazier in the hut, nor any place in which to make a fire. It was only a two-mat hut with a single door, but no window. Mozaku and Minokichi fastened the door and lay down to rest with their straw raincoats over them. At first they did not feel very cold, and they thought that the storm would soon be over. The old man almost immediately fell asleep, but the boy, Minokichi, lay awake a long time, listening to the awful wind and the continual slashing of the snow against the door. The river was roaring, and the hut swayed and creaked like a junk at sea. It was a terrible storm, and the air was every moment becoming colder, and Minokichi shivered under his raincoat. But at last, in spite of the cold, he too fell asleep. He was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The door of the hut had been forced open, and by the snow-light he saw a woman in the room, a woman all in white. She was bending above Mozaku and blowing her breath upon him, and her breath was like a bright, white smoke, almost in the same moment she turned to Minokichi and stooped over him. He tried to cry out, but found that he could not utter any sound. The white woman bent down over him, lower and lower, until her face almost touched him. And he saw that she was very beautiful, though her eyes made him afraid. For a little time she continued to look at him. Then she smiled and she whispered, I intended to treat you like the other man, but I cannot help feeling some pity for you, because you are so young. You are a pretty boy, Minokichi, and I will not hurt you now. But if you ever tell anybody, even your own mother, about what you have seen this night, I shall know it, and then I will kill you. Remember what I say. With these words she turned from him and passed through the doorway. Then he found himself able to move, and he sprang up and looked out. But the woman was nowhere to be seen. And the snow was driving furiously into the hut. Minokichi closed the door and secured it by fixing several billets of wood against it. He wondered if the wind had blown it open. He thought that he might have been only dreaming and might have mistaken the gleam of the snowlight in the doorway for the figure of a white woman. But he could not be sure. He called to Mosaku and was frightened because the old man did not answer. He put out his hand in the dark and touched Mosaku's face and found that it was ice. Mosaku was stark and dead. By dawn the storm was over, and when the ferryman returned to his station a little after sunrise he found Minokichi lying senseless beside the frozen body of Mosaku. Minokichi was promptly cared for and soon came to himself, but he remained a long time ill from the effects of the cold of that terrible night. He had been greatly frightened also by the old man's death. But he said nothing about the vision of the woman in white. As soon as he got well again he returned to his calling, going alone every morning to the forest and coming back at nightfall with his bundles of wood which his mother helped him to sell. One evening in the winter of the following year, as he was on his way home, he overtook a girl who happened to be traveling by the same road. She was a tall, slim girl, very good looking, and she answered Minokichi's greeting in a voice as pleasant to the ear as the voice of a songbird. Then he walked beside her and they began to talk. The girl said that her name was O-Yuki, that she had lately lost both of her parents, and that she was going to Yedo where she happened to have some poor relations who might help her find a situation as a servant. Minokichi soon felt charmed by this strange girl, and the more that he looked at her, the handsomer she appeared to be. He asked her whether she was yet betrothed, and she answered, laughingly, that she was free. Then, in her turn, she asked Minokichi whether he was married or pledged to marry, and he told her that although he had only a widowed mother to support, the question of an honorable daughter-in-law had not yet been considered, as he was very young. After these confidences, they walked on for a long while without speaking. But, as the proverb declares, kiga areba memo kuchi odo ni mono wo yu, when the wish is there, the eyes can say as much as the mouth. By the time they reached the village, they had become very much pleased with each other. And then Minokichi asked Oh, Yuki, to rest a while at his house. After some shy hesitation, she went there with him, and his mother made her welcome, and prepared a warm meal for her. Oh, Yuki behaved so nicely that Minokichi's mother took a sudden fancy to her, and persuaded her to delay her journey to Yedo. And the natural end of the matter was that Yuki never went to Yedo at all. She remained in the house as an honorable daughter-in-law. Oh, Yuki proved a very good daughter-in-law. When Minokichi's mother came to die some five years later, her last words were words of affection and praise for the wife of her son. And Oh, Yuki bore Minokichi 10 children, boys and girls, handsome children, all of them, and very fair of skin. The country folk thought Oh, Yuki a wonderful person, by nature different from themselves. Most of the peasant women age early, but Oh, Yuki, even after having become the mother of 10 children, looked as young and fresh as on the day when she had first come to the village. One night, after the children had gone to sleep, Oh, Yuki was sowing by the light of a paper lamp. And Minokichi, watching her, said, to see you sowing there with the light on your face makes me think of a strange thing that happened when I was a lad of 18. I then saw somebody as beautiful and white as you are now. Indeed, she was very like you. Without lifting her eyes from her work, Oh, Yuki responded, tell me about her. Where did you see her? Then Minokichi told her about the terrible night in the ferryman's hut and about the white woman that had stooped above him, smiling and whispering, and about the silent death of old Mosaku. And he said, asleep or awake, that was the only time that I saw a being as beautiful as you. Of course, she was not a human being and I was afraid of her, very much afraid, but she was so white. Indeed, I have never been sure whether it was a dream that I saw or the woman of the snow. Oh, Yuki flung down her sowing in a rose and bowed above Minokichi where he sat and shrieked into his face. It was I, I, I, Yuki it was. And I told you then that I would kill you if you ever said one word about it, but for those children asleep there, I would kill you this moment. And now you had better take very, very good care of them, for if they ever have reason to complain of you, I will treat you as you deserve. Even as she screamed, her voice became thin, like a crying of wind, then she melted into a bright, white mist that spired to the roof beams and shuddered away through the smoke hold. Never again was she seen, end of story.