38. A Moroi Story

Laura - The house in the suburbs

When my grandfather died, I was too young to remember him. Everybody says he was tall and handsome. The women in the village swooned at the sight of him. People said he had a girlfriend back in his birth hamlet, but they were both poor.

He married my grandmother even though she was already pregnant at the time with my father’s older brother. She had cows, land, and almost everything you can think of for those times, except for a noble title.

After his death, people reported sightings of him strolling through the main street out of the village. The more courageous ones tried to approach him, but he wouldn’t look any other way than straight ahead. It was as if he was sleepwalking.

They followed him into the next village, his birthplace. Every night he went to the same house, a modest cottage among fields. He cut wood, built a fire in the hearth, kissed the sleeping woman and child in the bedroom, and then returned to the cemetery to slide back into his t