Click here to go back to the Hub Page

Mrs. Elliot heard the post drop through the slot and went into the hall while the flap was still swinging. She was alone in the house. The sound of the letters landing on the mat seemed to come up through the floorboards, but there was no one else to hear it. She gathered three envelopes and carried them into the front room.

At the desk she sat down and opened them with the paper knife. Two were ordinary letters. She read them with half her attention and set them aside, meaning to answer them later. The third was heavier than the others. She slit the envelope and drew out fifteen pounds in banknotes. She counted the notes twice, pressing each one flat on the desk. She laid them together and folded them once, then twice, so they made a compact square. It was a considerable sum, more than she was used to handling, and she knew she would need to put it somewhere safe before the morning went much further.

She stood up. With the letters in her left hand and the banknotes in her right, she went through the passage into the kitchen.

The fire was already burning well. She set the letters and the banknotes at the end of the kitchen table, not far from each other, and turned to the range. A pan had been left near the front edge, so she moved it back. A tea towel was drying on the rail; she folded it twice and put it on the shelf. The kettle was not quite full enough, so she added water from the jug and set it on the hob. She opened the damper a little wider and heard the fire draw. These were small actions, and she did them without hurrying. Her attention kept returning to the money and to the two letters she had not yet answered.

When she had finished at the range, she turned back to the table. She picked up the papers nearest her hand, certain they were the letters. She had no reason to look at what she held; the letters were the only paper she meant to destroy. She crossed to the fire and lifted her hand to drop them onto the coals.

Before she could open her fingers, she felt another hand laid gently over her own. It pressed her hand backward, away from the heat. The pressure was light but firm, like the touch of someone stopping a child from reaching too close to a flame.

Mrs. Elliot stopped. Her arm remained in the air above the fire. She looked down. The hand she had been about to open held the folded banknotes. The letters she had meant to burn were in her other hand.

She turned quickly, expecting to find someone behind her. The kitchen was empty. The door was shut. The window showed only the still morning. The room held the sound of the fire and nothing else.

“Who’s here?” she said.

No one answered. The kitchen was as it had been.

Mrs. Elliot stepped back from the hearth. She did not put the banknotes down. She carried them to the dresser and opened the tin box where she kept money for the household. She put the notes inside, pressed the lid on, and set the box on the upper shelf behind the jars of preserves.

Then she brought the letters back to the fire and fed them into the coals one by one. The paper caught and blackened at the corners, curling before it fell. When the last envelope had gone, she stood at the hearth a moment. She could not say what had stopped her hand. The touch had been unmistakable, but the kitchen had been empty. It might have been something outside her, or her own mind moving quickly enough to save the money. She did not know.

She turned from the fire. The letters had burned to ash behind the fire bars, and the tin sat high on the shelf, out of reach.

This story is based on a true account from Andrew Lang’s The Book of Dreams and Ghosts. You can read the original account in the free Project Gutenberg edition. And if you are interested in fresh and modern content about dreams that came true, you can find them in my book “Dreams That Wake You Up”, a collection of real dreams and real outcomes, directly from my clients, printed with their consent.

For more articles and stories from us, click here to go back to the Hub Page