Story

Under the shadow of a big mountain there was once a castle. It was as beautiful as any fairy castle, except that no fairies or princesses lived there. It was home to only ghosts, who had been there for so long that they couldn’t remember what they had been before they were ghosts, or where they had lived.

The ghosts loved their castle, except in the day when they were asleep. Sometimes they heard footsteps and laughter, and they were scared. It didn’t matter how tightly they tucked themselves under the bricks, and into the holes in the walls; it didn’t matter how hard they closed their eyes. They could still hear little people clattering around the castle, and they were too frightened to sleep.

After many days and many nights, the ghosts went to the mountain to ask for help.

“We are too frightened of these things they call children,” sobbed the smallest of the ghosts. “They are noisy and they throw things and they are awake when they should be asleep. We cannot live where they are.”

So the mountain agreed, and sent the ghosts up to the sky, where there were no children and nobody ever threw anything apart from a few birds, and now and then an aeroplane. From far away the ghosts found that they could be brave, and they watched the children in their castle. They watched and they watched, until they realised that they weren’t scared anymore. That the children just wanted to play, like they did.

And so the nights passed, and the days, and the ghosts gathered at the top of the mountain and asked her if they could go home again.“I cannot undo what has been done,” the mountain said sadly. “I’m sorry, but your home is in the sky now.”

But the ghosts were so sad – for the sky was too big, and too lonely – that the mountain relented.

“When the sun is out,” she said kindly, “and the warmth heats the snow from the top of me into rivers, you may go home to your castle and play with the children. But as soon as it gets cold again you must come back.”

And the ghosts promised and kissed the mountain, and went to play in their castle, for it was a sunny day and the sky was as blue as the sea underneath it. When it was cold again, they left the castle and went back to the sky, where they cried because they were homesick, and they had found they loved the children after all.

The children never knew about the ghosts, though they played in the castle every day. But they knew that when the sun was out, the clouds would kiss the top of the mountain and disappear, and warm air would sparkle on the castle ground in the light. They did not know that this was the ghosts saying thankyou, and playing with them.

And, when the sun went away and the clouds returned to the sky, the children did not know that the wetness they felt on them was tears.