A (True) Ghost Story

Writerly friends, my family has two camps re: the ghost thing. Some of us believe. Some of us don't. The believers find it impossible to wake the skeptics when a vision skimpily clad in reality appears to us in the middle of the night.

You can take a ghost tour in my home town,
old Ellicott City.

This happened (really):

The Old Hotel

by Laura Shovan

There was a cackle in the hall,

a creak, a heavy footstep fall

that night we spent in Montreal.

My mother said, “An old hotel!

Haunted, but we might as well

enjoy the spooky clientele.”

And that is when she passed out cold,

leaving me, more shy than bold,

to watch the long, long night unfold.

I fell asleep, and it was dark

as black cat’s fur when some odd spark

or shimmer caused me to remark,

“Are you awake?” for standing near

my mother’s bed, a woman sheer

as smoke had not yet disappeared.

I am entering "The Old Hotel" in Susanna Leonard Hill's Halloweensie writing contest. The rules are simple: child appropriate, 100 words, must include "black cat," "cackle," and "spooky" in the text. Deadline is 10/31, natch.

Give it a go!

From FanPop. 
Sadly, black cats are at risk of abuse on Halloween.

I have one other poem about the other side. It was part of the Poetry Postcard Series, and includes a ghostly photograph from Williamsburg, VA. You'll see a close-up of the ghost (a little girl) at this post.