Ghosts came to Tea

Now, believe me when I tell you, that Shamus and I had no idea that we had been dead these past ten years. I mean, we have had our "All Hallow's Eve Tea Party Date" at the same time at midnight every year since we had been together.

We have had the mansion house at 666 Maple Avenue all to ourselves for many decades. People used to visit, but lately we have come to realize that no one had been stopping by for a long time. Often we heard voices outside and wondered if they would knock, but they never did. Children would laugh and play outside, some stepped up and rattled the door handle, yelling as kids will often do.

Shamus and I just kept on living our lives. Until tonight. There we were just sipping our tea - when...

We heard a very audible gasp from inside our house - someone was looking out the window. But the curtain fell closed again.

Then, we saw the curious eye peeking at us through the keyhole. Whoever it was probably felt safer behind the door, believing that we could not see them. But, strangely, although it was dark inside and outside, we could see them as clear as day. Not exactly sure why though?

Shamus:

"Someone is in our house, Agnes. I think robbers may have broken in".

Agnes:

"Go take a look, Shamus - it could be a ghost, it is Halloween and the spooks are up to no good, spirits may be confused or lost".

Theatrical Aside whisper: (Now you may be thinking here...he he he - look who is talking. But remember these skeletons/ghosts have no idea that they are actually the ghosts).

Shamus holds unto the table, rising slowly, his bones creaking and groaning, and floats towards the door and the eye still glued to the keyhole.

Agnes saw nothing strange about the cracking bones, or the floating. As far as she could visualize, her beloved was walking to the door as ordinary as can be, he still was the man she had married more than fifty years ago.

~~~~~

The house had a smell - like lavender left too long in a drawer. Wysdom’s mother, halfway up the stairs with a laundry basket, paused and called down:

"Wysdom, can you please check if the window is closed - no more candy, young lady...and go to bed, it's quite late".

"Ok mom". She shouted back.

Wysdom padded over, her socks whispering against the wood floor. She reached for the latch, but something tugged her attention sideways.

She grasped the latch - then paused, rubbing her eyes in disbelief. Was she seeing things. The terrifying sight caused her to jump back from the window in horror.

The peephole.

But, just to make sure she was not dreaming, Wysdom crept to the rather large keyhole in the ornate door leading to the back garden.

She leaned in.

The image she sees is deliciously eerie and poetic - like a scene from a haunted fairytale painted by Edward Gorey and narrated by Angela Carter. A vivid moment of mystical surrealism.

Wysdom was seeing the Bone Tea Ritual

On All Hollow’s Eve, the veil seemed to have thinned like breath on glass. Teenage Wysdom, still unpacking boxes of her parents’ impulsive countryside purchase, wandered from the window to the back door, drawn partly by the mystery of Halloween and by a too deliberate silence.

She had peered through the peephole, and was totally unprepared for what she saw.

In the moon-drenched backyard, two skeletons sat having tea at a table draped in a moonlit black veil. The tea set shimmered - porcelain cups with gold-rimmed edges, steam rising from liquid that glowed faintly blue. One skeleton wore a wide-brimmed hat with a crow perched atop; the other had a string of pearls looped through its ribcage like a rosary.

They sipped slowly. No sound. No wind. Just the clink of bone on China.

Behind them, the garden had rearranged itself: hedges twisted into labyrinthine shapes, pumpkins blinked with eyes carved too intricately to be human handiwork, and a mirror leaned against a tree, reflecting not the scene - but Wysdom herself, older, crowned in ivy, holding a teacup.

She gasped again. The skeletons turned their skulls toward the peephole. Not menacing - more like hosts awaiting a guest.

A chair scraped back.

The skeleton with the crow - Shamus - stood, joints creaking like old floorboards. He turned to the other.

“I’ll go have a word,” he said, voice like wind through reeds.

Agnes, the pearl-laced skeleton, nodded primly. "Make sure they know this is our house".

They believed the tea party still a tradition, the velvet tablecloth theirs, the garden still under their care. The new family - Mother, Father, and Wysdom - were, in their minds, squatters. Trespassers. Uninvited guests.

Wysdom’s eye widened. The skeleton moved with purpose, not menace. Like elderly neighbors about to lodge a polite complaint.

She stepped back from the peephole just as Shamus reached the porch.

The doorknob twitched. Then he was inside.

Shamus' form moved through the door as smoke through wind, No hinges creaked. No latch turned. He simply… passed.

Inside, the hallway was dim, lit only by the flicker of a jack-o’-lantern in the window. He paused, puzzled, surveying the boxes stacked like miniature monuments to change. A coat draped over a banister. A child’s drawing taped to the fridge. None of it familiar.

Wysdom gaped - stupefied. Her voice broke free like a startled bird.

“Mum! Dad! There’s a man made of bones in the hallway!”

The terror in her voice sent footsteps thundering upstairs. Her mother’s voice called back, “What kind of bones?!”

Before Wysdom could answer, the front door creaked again - though no one touched it. Agnes glided in, her pearls clinking faintly like wind chimes. She looked around, nose wrinkled in polite disapproval.

“They’ve rearranged the furniture,” she said. “And what is that smell? Cinnamon?”

Shamus turned to her, his eye sockets wide. “Agnes… I think we’ve been… displaced.”

Wysdom’s parents arrived, breathless. They froze. Three humans. Two skeletons. One moment.

The surreal gathering rendered the adults speechless. They couldn't call the police to say that ghosts were in their house, or rather that skeleton-like apparitions had suddenly manifested in their living room.

Agnes tilted her skull. “You’re not burglars, are you?”

“No,”. Wysdom’s mother said slowly, finding her voice and moving slowly towards her husband, trying to pull her daughter behind her for protection. “We bought this house last month.”

The father stepped in front of his family, grabbing a baseball bat just in case.

Shamus looked down at his translucent hands. “But… we never left.”

Agnes touched her pearls. Realization slowly dawning.

“But how can this be. We have been here this whole time. Oh dear. Are we dead then… ghosts?”

Silence. Then Wysdom, ever the myth-loving teen, stepped forward.

“But, how can you not know that you are. Still, you’re very polite ghosts.”

Agnes blinked. “Well, we were raised properly.”

Shamus chuckled, the sound like dry leaves. “I suppose haunting is better with company.”

"Maybe we all could stay in the house, it is a really large mansion with plenty of rooms. We wondered why it was sold at such a very reasonable price. Now we know. It is haunted". Father said thoughtfully.

"Maybe we could convert the East Wing into a haunted house and make people pay to be haunted. We could use some extra cash". Mother added,

They all stood there, unsure what came next. Then Wysdom smiled.

“Would you like to stay? We could share the house. Maybe even have tea together.”

Agnes beamed. “I’ll bring the velvet tablecloth.”

"Here it is - your spectral tea party brought to life in a cozy swirl of cinnamon and ghostly charm". Wysdom tells her shocked visitors to the haunted house.

They are frightened at first, then learn to love the ghostly dwellers. They keep returning.

The family artist creates comic strip moments: Wysdom’s initial scream, Shamus’ smoky entrance, Agnes’ pearl-clinking diplomacy, and the final toast to cohabitation. It's a design of a recurring ritual - “The Midnight Blend,” a tea ceremony where ghosts and humans share stories once a month.

Everybody was happy...ghosts and humans all getting along.

It was especially spooky during Halloween and All Hollows Eve.