On the First of November, the Ghosts Arrive

This is the first installment of Nina MacLaughlin’s Novemberance column, which will run every Wednesday this month. 

All Saints’ Day in Stockholm

November is a hinge in the year, and the door gets opened to ghosts.

It was a late fall weekend some years ago and lunch had gone long. A Spanish tortilla sat in the center of the table like a golden sun eclipsed as slices were put onto plates. A fire, lit that morning, threw heat from the other room. There was wine, maybe more than usual. Conversation rolled. After the meal, by the fire, the sun well into its descent, time moved at a different pace, a slower throb in the cheek-warmed flush from the wine, in the dimming light and hearth-warmed room. The fire glowed and spit, released its quiet hiss, and made that quieter high hum: the sound of the tree not in pain but in shift from one state to another.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”