” Do you know that people used to tell ghost stories at Christmas?” Patience told her sister Experience as they made their way home from the bus stop at the end of their road.

The road was filled with black ice and hard compacted  snow and the sidewalks were  almost non-existent so the girls carefully picked their way across the blue and white winter wasteland and their normally quick walk was taking much longer tonight.

That is why Patience was more chatty then usual and Experience was less so. She was focused on getting home.

Experience shrugged.  ” My favorite color is pink. People would never believe that about me.”

” What has that got to do with people enjoying a good ghost story after eating a huge Christmas meal and relaxing by firelight and candles?”

” Nothing. I just thought that while you’re throwing out random pointless facts, I’d join in the fun.”

The oddly named sisters- whose parents had been devoutly religious in life- gave their daughters their names because they thought it would be funny which was about the extent of the fun they ever indulged in.

” Well. It sounds fun and cozy to me. Plus I love ghost stories.” Patience told her sister.

” Seriously Patience. Ghost stories?”

Patience shrugged.

” I mean. Ghost stories. That’s just- stupid.”

” You have no soul Experience. ”

The sisters turned back and looked down the street at the undisturbed drifts of snow that they had crossed.

” Yes I do.” Experience said.

The  shadowy wisps of two girls who had died at the house at the end of the road of tuberculosis and found themselves walking home in the dark and the snow just before Christmas every year considered their situation and pressed on.

Because every year Patience and Experience hoped they would make it home for Christmas- and they always thought that one day, they might.

Just as a sidenote- in researching my family history I found out I did have Aunts named Patience and Experience and their Father was named Lancelot. Seriously. You can’t make stuff like that up.

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