White Ghost Lady

Legend says the village of Heaven's Breath has a white ghost lady. A spirit to rival Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare's bad ambitious woman, who instead of spilling others blood uses tea to achieve immortal greatness.
This lady, it is said, is the perfect hostess; always smiling as she attends to guests, but vague when asked why they were invited. She pours cups of tea and listens patiently to their confidences; their burdens, their fears, their hopes and dreams. She draws them out then imprisons these guests in her cloudy house for her own evil purposes. For the same evil that befalls all mankind: power borne from loneliness. A hunger, a greed and a need for attention and company.
A widow, she purposely set out to crowd her house with lively guests. She didn't realise she had died in unusual circumstances or that her poisonous plot to avenge her husband's murder had been foiled. Some said she suffered a heart attack when her accomplice refused to follow through; others, that in undertaking the deed, she mistakenly drank the deadly brew, but the lady herself simply did not remember. She only knew that she had woken from a sweet slumber to a cold and seemingly empty house.
Dizzy and perspiring with fever she had explored the grounds, but her desperate calls had gone unanswered. Never before had her commands been ignored. Never before had she been abandoned. Even her feet resisted and would not carry her beyond the gated garden walls. Pale with exhaustion, she was subdued, but not defeated.
Each day she grew physically stronger. The dizziness stopped and the fever abated. The mountain air revived her and she found she could conjure mist: light wisps, low-hanging or high sweeping clouds, or heavy fog. She cloaked her stately house with these until it appeared to the villagers all the more eerie and sinister, but this lonely new way of life made her grieve so she perfected the art of making tea from vaporous clouds said to be God's breath. Then she waited patiently at the garden gate for passers-by.
At first her attempts to lure were feeble until one day her patience was rewarded by an old army truck that she could hear was obviously breaking down. She heard its engine spluttering as it laboured its way up the winding pass, then it's hiss and final cough before she saw the dark plumes of smoke. High-pitched tones of dismay and frustrated murmurings followed shortly after, then there was the sound of feet kicking dust and laughter. These voices, to her, seemed to be getting closer, so in her best musical note she called, a note like a cooling breeze or a chilling whisper.
Fearlessly, the group, two boisterous men with two nervy, giggling women, approached her. She offered them tea and a bed for the advancing night, which after hesitation and a little persuasion they gladly accepted. Tired and thirsty, it took just one sip of tea for them to relinquish all their desires. They drank her delicious tea until their eyes were glazed and their heads were vacant. They forgot who they were, how they came to be here, and where they were meant to be going. In this house of cloudy thinking, they told this lady everything and desired nothing.
The lady was victorious – she'd succeeded! And with this her confidence grew. She compelled more people to pull off the road, to confide and forget; at times she made the winds cry and concealed the mountain and the village with thick clouds. She believed she was omnipotent and the deserted donkeys, horses, hand-carts, cars and trucks on the winding pass fuelled these rumours. The villagers were wise to and enthralled by her ghostly presence.
No other village had a white ghost lady who could detain people from their paths and murder worldly instincts.

*A legend inspired from The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan

Boat & Sea Monster

A retired sailor with mournful eyes looked out to sea. A vicious, stormy sea. The cold spray from the waves made him turn up the collar of his pea coat as he smoked his seaman's pipe. It was just like that night he thought. The night they'd been saved.
Saved. By a miracle. By the benevolence of the Gods. By a myth. It had been wonderful to survive, but a part of him wished he'd died because he hadn't realised the hold it would have on him. As he focused his eyes on the crashing tide he recalled that eventful day and night.

*

Under a clear blue sky, their small fishing vessel left the harbour. Light winds filled the sail and the air was warm. The placid sea allowed them to glide gracefully into open waters until they were surrounded by only blue sky and sea.
Waves had lapped hypnotically as he with another inexperienced youth had begun to dredge a fishing net from the bottom of the sea. What was usually a two man job took all three as the net felt surprisingly heavy, as if it were weighted down by rocks; a weightiness that turned out to be caught fish. A huge haul of fish! More fish than they'd ever seen! Their shiny bodies slapped the floor and gently rocked their tiny vessel, and as they gasped their scales glistened in the midday sun. Heaving nets and sorting fish was sweaty, back-breaking, relentless work, but a fisherman's life was a gamble and this kind of luck was rare.
All that hot afternoon, more fish were magically drawn from their nets, so that as the sun begun its slow descent into the sea they had argued about heading home. With their tempers raised, the climate changed. A change that was sudden and total. The sky that had been blue turned dark grey, then black, and the wind blew. Rain beat down and the sea grew choppy; the sky came alive with flashes of lightening and rumbles of thunder.
Marooned on this angry sea, they clung desperately to their vessel as it bobbed violently and prayed it would pass. How long could such a storm last? He had asked himself.
At that point the belly of the sea had seemed to grumble ominously and the waters had stilled around them. He was fearful and saw that same look mirrored on the faces of his fellow fishermen. Something was encircling them. Something that wasn't entirely visible yet, but which appeared to have a monstrous head and a writhing snake-like body. Could this 'something' be the Sea Monster that as a boy he'd heard tales about? Was he about to see his boyish fantasy made flesh?
The others by now were cowering at the stern, further unbalancing their vessel, but not he. He stood upright in the middle, his feet planted firmly, as the serpent, with effort broke the surface with its huge dragon head and apprised them with its glass bead eyes. It snorted, misting their boat in its puffed breath and launched its red coral body out of the sea. It gently grabbed hold of the mast with its mouth and coiled itself around the whole boat so that its tail was a roof, a shelter from the tempest that still raged.
What would it do now? Would it drag them down? To the Underworld, the realm of the dead? But no, they stayed that way on top of the tempestuous sea contained like a fossilized creature. And gradually his companions, like he, were lulled by this security from the pounding heart beats of the sea.
The Sea Monster kept its large, unblinking eyes on the skies until the overhead darkness cleared and the beating waves subsided, then it loosened its curled grip and with a huge splash and puffed sigh sank into the depths of the emerald sea. 

*

As he now smoked his pipe, he remembered the moment the serpent had left: jubilant that they hadn't capsized, but still possessed by those glass bead eyes. A feeling that throughout his sea-faring years had caused him much distress.

The Proposal

He was down on bended knee, “Will you marry me?”
“I suppose so.” She replied looking into his beseeching eyes with a half-hearted smile.
Who was he? What was she to him? She'd met him a handful of times and only been alone with him twice; both of which had been awkward as she'd had to excessively talk to cover his notable and lengthy pauses. She couldn't stand men who were self-consciously quiet! But oh she was tired of chasing suitable men and avoiding marriage to unsuitable others. She'd refused on one too many occasions; flirted outrageously and given little thought to the consequences or the poor fellows she'd disappointed. It was all sport wasn't it? She'd never cared for any of those she jilted, except Tom who was a cad and now even he was married!
Why had nobody met her exacting standards? A confident and likeable personality, a good profession, handsome, tall and athletic...
Instead here she was at twenty-eight forced to accept this man before her: a serious medical student who was a little wet behind the ears and her junior by six years. And he was a few inches shorter.
What did he think he was doing professing his love for her? Letting himself be overcome by his own emotion? What did she care about that! Marriage wasn't love, it was a bargain. Nobody sensible talked about undying love; harmless compliments and flattery, but not ardent love. She almost wished he'd go back to being silent and wondered if in private she'd be able to take these sudden passionate bursts of his.
No, it was too much! Once married, these could not continue. She wouldn't hurt the dear boy, but she'd have to cool his fervent expressions and divert them to his chosen profession. What could a medical student rise to? Possibly a renowned doctor or an eminent researcher? She'd have to make some inquiries... A distinguished husband would certainly be worth the sacrifice she was now having to make.
At least she could stop congratulating friends on their new husbands or gushing over their new babies. That had been insufferable!
And wouldn't her mother be thrilled at her rash news! Getting married at this late stage, even if she didn't marry well, was the most important thing a girl could do. Her mother would take charge of course and put the announcement in the papers. As for her father, well he wouldn't care as long as she was happy and the chap was a decent sort.
Was he though? The decent sort?
Apart from when he was declaring his love, she remembered him as dry, socially uncomfortable and an extremely poor dancer, which wasn't a lot to go on. He wasn't someone you'd choose to converse with at parties as his casual remarks often seemed sarcastic. What if she found she couldn't live with his intense manner and without the banter she was accustomed to?
She brushed the thought aside for even she could see how in becoming his bride she would complement his social ineptitude. Perhaps on further acquaintance he would improve?
Seconds before, she'd felt strangely elated by his unexpected proposal, but now having accepted she felt a slight twinge of remorse: Was it fair to marry a man who was so madly in love he was blind to her indifference? Should she let his love run its course?

*An idea taken from The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham