Sweet & Sour

Sweet & Sour

B. Capes - The Marble Hands

This short story is the narration of what happened to a young man while he was in a churchyard with his friend Heriot, who was almost frightened by a solitary tomb. The narrator approaches and sees two marble hands coming out from the dirt. He has been so shocked by this that he couldn’t tell anything to his friend. Heriot, then, tells the narrator a story that he heard from his Aunt: those hands used to be the epitaph of a woman who died young, and that had very beautiful hands, so beautiful that she was extremely proud of it, they were her obsession, so she asked for a reproduction in marble.

Some years later, Heriot went to the churchyard because his Aunt told him that the hands were removed from the tomb, but he still saw them there. As he touched them, he felt horror and darkness in his mind, and he’s still confused about this, wondering if it’s all imagination or not…

W. W. Jacobs - The Monkey’s Paw

The narration begins at night, when Sergeant-Major Morris comes to the White’s house, while Mr. White and his son Herbert were playing chess. Morris is welcomed, and he sits by the fire, telling the story of a monkey’s paw that he came across in India. He tells the incredulous family that this mummified paw has spells in it that grants three wishes, but he doesn’t seem to be happy about this, and he tries to throw it in the fire; Mr. White catches it and asks Morris if he could keep it. The Sergeant-Major reluctantly agrees.

Some time afterwards, Herbert, the son, suggests asking for some money to the paw: no effect comes until the next day. This day, some time after Herbert went away to school, Mrs. White sees a stranger trying to find a way to enter the house; he then succeeds and meets the family. He sadly tells the two about their son’s death, and he gives them a refund of 200 Pounds, that is, the money that they asked for to the paw.

Such a tragic event caused eventually Mrs. White to wish for her son to live again one night, and then knocks at the door began to be heard; but Mr. White, scared, spent his third wish and the knocks ceased.

V. Alcock - The Rivals

John Pearce, whose parents have bought a house next to a mansion that is told to be haunted, is a very clever guy, but he doesn’t actually believe in ghosts, so he laughs at the milkman when trying to convince him that the house had something strange. After breakfast, he decided to have a look at the other side of the wall that divided the two houses: he saw a pretty girl there, Lucy Wilkins, and they began to chat, even if John didn’t usually like pretty girls because they try to avoid him.

It all looked like the same old story until the subject fell on the house. Lucy was terrified about icy draughts, footsteps, and strange cries on full moon nights: being that night one of those, John proposed Lucy to stay in the house to see if this ghost was true or just imagination. The girl, admired for such braveness, agreed.

That night the two went to the room that was told to be haunted together, and they waited until midnight: suddenly the door opened, and a grey and horrible figure motioned towards John. He wasn’t scared and began to talk with the ghost: it (actually, it was a lady ghost) tried to tell its story, but John wouldn’t listen; she needed his fear to survive, but the boy would never admit the existence of a ghost. The ghost eventually escapes, but then something really strange happens: Lucy, happy for John to have defeated the other ghost, revealed herself as a phantom too. She told him that she loved him before disappearing. John was actually loved by a pretty girl.

A. Lurie - The Highboy

When Aunt Betsy died, she left Buffy and Jack some valuable...