The black Gate

It was a cold, dark night but she was still going. The cold didn’t bother her it was the dark she was afraid of. The letter he had sent her was all she had and all she needed. In her knowledge there was only one back entrance to the church courtyard, the Black Gate.1

The Black Gate was old and neglected but still Rose knew how to reach it. Rose was twenty-one now and could remember the gate being left to keep itself ten years ago. This was also one of the two gateways to the very same courtyard her parents had walked through when they were married, where she would on her wedding day. 2

The Black Gate was a place she both adored and hated at the same time. The memories flooded back to her. She loved him, loved him with her life and soul. She remembered his proposal; it had been a snowy day the week before her 18th birthday. She had been upset about the ruin of her white gloves and he had taken her home, hand in hand, with her tear-stained cheeks and proposed on her doorstep. His voice had been so gentle, warm and loving. His eyes wide and sparkling. His hand shaking in hers, both ice cold. Her gasp had lead to a silence and then a waterfall of tears. She remembered herself, her stomach turning, her cheeks feeling warm and tingling. She had said yes, and her family planned for her wedding day, in this very place.3

She shook herself back to where she was, pushing the rest of that romance to the back of her mind. She had to reach the gate by midnight and there was a way to go still. The letter Rose had kept was in a leather pouch laying near to her pale, soft skin under her blouse. It was the only letter she kept and also the most recent. They had been coming for three months now and most had been thrown in the fire so they would not be found, but not this one. It had been hidden in her grandmother’s pouch for the past two weeks, read and reread the paper thinning at the folds. She couldn’t remember how many times she had read it. She almost took it out to read again but knew she could remember it word for word. She had finally worked out the riddle and knew the exact time and place she was to meet him.4

Rose had come prepared, everything she wanted in a small green bag that was hidden under her grey cloak. Her midnight blue work dress and dark grey cloak blended into the dark brickwork and she was almost invisible, a mere shadow moving silently along the village streets. The hood of her cloak covered her blonde hair, as she had planned, so that she would not be seen by the keen eyes of the suspecting villagers. 5

She was almost there now; the Black gate was just around the corner. Something moved behind her and she spun round on her toes as quickly as a fox, only to realise it was a tabby cat.6

‘Hello kitty, what are you doing out here tonight? Come to keep me safe?’7

The cat purred back at Rose’s voice and followed close to her legs.8

Rose paused for a moment, letting memories fill her thoughts. It was the night of her wedding when he left. They had planned for a spring wedding, just as the first bright flowers were escaping from the cold, hard winter earth. She had dressed in the most delightful white wedding dress with white shoes and had wild roses as her flowers.  By the time her mother found the note she had been ready to go. It had simply stated that he had left with a girl from a nearby village and would not be coming back. 9

Rose had spent months in the house, refusing to go out, refusing to be seen. She dressed as a widow in black and grey and not as a beautiful young woman was expected to. It was a shock and a pleasure to her when the letters started coming and her life had seemed to brighten. Eventually unwelcome memories only escaped late at night when the silence and dark had pried them from her mind however hard she tried not to let them.10

Rose had rounded the corner now, her footsteps had slowed and quietened. Cautiously she went further.  The silence surrounded her like a thick blanket, but was cold and shunting and lacked the normal buzz of the air at this time of year. The cat by Rose’s side shivered, it was a reaction she herself felt and a second later a hand was placed on her shoulder.11

Her spine tingled and her heart pounded in her ears, loud and powerful. She heard his deep soothing voice and calmed. He slowly moved into the candlelight coming from the small but radiant candle in Roses snow-white hand that stood out against the black enclosing her. 12

Rose suddenly remembered his terrible deed and the horror and pain came back to her eyes. This couldn’t and wasn’t meant to be the man who had sent her all those love letters! Her hand shot to the green bag and grabbed at the knife.13

If he hadn’t left her life forever on that unforgettable eve of her wedding she would make sure he couldn’t come back this time. Him leaving her for some one else again would be too much to bear. All her thoughts on a new romance and a new start at life died the moment she struck, all her hatred of his other woman being released. 14

The faithful cat had wandered behind a bag and sat there watching Rose relive her nightmare, as she did every year. This was the third time the cat had seen Rose now and he was used to the ghostly cold touch as she stroked his head, running her long gentler fingers over his neck, down to his shoulders, along his spine and up to the tip of his tail. Again, her lover came and struggled. Again, he watched her strike, over and over. Finally, before it slinked off, it watched her write the note in her beautiful hand with tears streaming down her cheeks again:15

‘He never treated me right and slipped into the night. He tore my heart away from me and now you see, we’ll be better matched in heaven.’16

Rose cried that night, for the first time in two years since her white gloves had been ruined. She never had been able to cry about his disappearance because she had hated the girl he ran off with so much. Now her heart let out its sorrow and she cried until the first light of day. She was glad no one would find them before church this morning. The knife was still in her hand, she didn’t cry out as it pierced her thin white skin and the first jewels of warm, rich-red blood ran down her cold, white body. The last whispered words that passed through her purple cold lips were sewn together with her sorrow and she cursed herself with them to an eternity of remembrance.17

‘The love that was torn by him should have been forgiven, but not my deed for my deed was far worse.’18

The words were lost into the snow that had started to fall and that eventually covered both lovers in an icy blanket, far colder than the silence that had surrounded them before.19

That night, no murder was committed and no bodies were found, only the cat knew of the ghost named Rose who replayed her deed every year on Christmas Eve. And only the cat had seen the ghosts pain and love in her eyes when she realised that she had murdered her true love. 50 years before, on a crisp clear morning, in the white sparkling snow, after the Christmas service, a girl and her true love had been found dead together and were buried in the earth where they lay side by side under the shadow of the Black Gate and on their joint tomb stone stood the inscription:20

‘In memory for these who loved and lost and whose love will be kept alive forever more.’21