The Caroler at the Gate

Short story

1

Snow fell in lazy, lopsided spirals, drifting down onto the hedgerows that flanked the long drive to Larkspur House. Holly Davies stood at the tall iron gates with her suitcase, shivering. She had not been back in seventeen years.

The house beyond the trees still looked like something from an illustration in a Victorian ghost story: gables cutting into the December sky, windows reflecting only a faint candle-glow.

Holly’s brother, David, had invited her—or begged her, really. It’s our last Christmas here before it’s sold. You should come back, Hol.

She had nearly said no. But some guilt, sharpened by the season, made her board the train from London.

A shape appeared at the top of the drive. Not David.

It was a woman in a tattered shawl, holding a lantern. Her face was pale as snow, her mouth blue, as though she had been standing out in the cold too long. She raised her lantern in greeting, and when she spoke, her voice had a strange, sing-song lilt.

“God rest ye merry, gentle friend…”

A carol. Just one line, then silence.

Holly blinked, and the figure was gone.

She tightened her scarf and wheeled her suitcase forward. Maybe the season was already playing tricks on her.

2

David hugged her at the front steps. He looked tired, heavier than she remembered. His new girlfriend, Emily, welcomed Holly inside, flushed from the kitchen and smelling of mulled wine.

The house was exactly as she had left it, down to the crooked wreath on the banister. Their parents had died within these walls—years apart, but both gone before their time. Holly had sworn she’d never return.

And yet, here she was.

Dinner was warm, the fire cheerful. But Holly kept glancing at the frost-clouded window, where she thought she saw movement in the garden. A flicker of lantern-light.

After pudding, Emily suggested carols. She had a pretty voice, bright and modern. Holly tried to join in, but her throat closed on the words.

Because just under Emily’s voice, there came another. Faint, but there: a second melody, low and mournful, following the notes like a shadow.

“Did you hear that?” Holly whispered.

“Hear what?” David frowned.

“The other voice.”

But Emily only laughed, strumming her guitar again. “Maybe the house is singing with us.”

3

Holly dreamed of snow pressing against the windows, piling higher and higher, until the house was buried. In the dream, someone knocked at the door, again and again, until she opened it.

The woman in the shawl stood there, skin the colour of wax, eyes like melted candle stubs. Her lips moved:

“Sing with me, Holly… sing with me in the snow…”

Holly woke gasping.

Downstairs, the clock struck three.

She went to the window. At the gates, a lantern burned. The figure waited, shoulders hunched, head tilted, as though listening.

4

The next day, she asked David about it.

“Do you remember—when we were little—Mum used to tell that story? The caroler at the gate?”

David frowned. “Yeah. Creepy old folktale. Poor girl froze to death in a snowstorm, waiting for someone to let her in. She goes from house to house now, singing for shelter.”

“She used to scare us with it.” Holly sipped her tea. “But last night… I saw her.”

David gave her a look. “Hol. You’ve always been… sensitive.”

“I’m not making it up.”

Emily piped up cheerfully: “Well, if she wants to sing, let her sing. It’s Christmas.”

But later, when Holly walked past the mirror in the hall, she saw her reflection wasn’t alone. Over her shoulder, faint as frost: the caroler’s hollow-eyed face.

5

On Christmas Eve, the house filled with relatives: uncles, cousins, children running wild. The smell of pine and cloves covered the house’s faint dampness.

They played games, poured drinks. At midnight, someone suggested they all sing outside by the tree.

They gathered, coats pulled tight, breath steaming. Voices rose: “Silent night, holy night…”

And then—another voice.

Holly froze.

It was louder now, not faint, not hidden. A woman’s voice, clear and cold, threading through the harmonies with aching beauty.

Everyone stopped singing. The night rang with the sound of it—until the last note stretched and snapped into silence.

“Which one of you was that?” asked a cousin.

No one answered.

David tried to laugh it off. “Echo, maybe. The snow carries sound.”

But Holly saw movement at the gate. The caroler, waiting, lantern swaying.

6

The storm came Christmas morning. By afternoon, the drifts were high against the house. The phone lines were dead.

Trapped.

Emily tried to make the best of it, serving turkey by candlelight. But the atmosphere had curdled. Every reflective surface showed a flicker of movement: lantern-glow in the glass, a figure on the stairs.

When Holly went to fetch more wood, she heard whispering in the hall.

The caroler’s voice.

“You left me out in the snow, child. You left me singing, and I froze…”

The firelight guttered. Holly clutched the poker.

“I don’t know you,” she whispered.

The whisper grew colder. “You do.”

7

That night, she remembered.

A different Christmas. She and David had been small. Their parents had been drunk. Someone had knocked at the door, a thin reedy voice singing.

Their father had snarled: Ignore it. Don’t let her in.

But Holly had crept to the window. She remembered a girl outside, maybe only sixteen, wrapped in a thin shawl, singing through chattering teeth.

And Holly had been afraid. Too afraid to open the door.

The girl had sunk to her knees in the snow.

And the next morning, the road had been blocked by police. An accident, they’d said. A vagrant found frozen.

Holly had pushed the memory so deep she’d convinced herself it was just a story.

Until now.

8

The knocking started at midnight.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Not at the door, but at the windows, at the walls, as if the whole house were being tested for weakness.

The children cried. The adults muttered.

And then came the singing.

A whole choir now, it seemed. Dozens of voices in harmony, outside in the storm, circling the house.

“Let us in, let us in, let us in from the snow…”

David shouted, “Stop it! Who’s doing this?”

But Holly knew. The caroler had come to claim what had been denied her.

9

Holly went to the door.

David tried to stop her. “Don’t be stupid. That’s not real.”

“It’s real enough.”

She opened the door. Snow howled in, stinging her face. The caroler stood at the threshold, shawl ragged, lantern blazing like a star.

Her mouth opened, and the song poured out, sweet and terrible, full of hunger.

Holly stepped forward. “I remember you.”

The ghost’s eyes lit with recognition.

“You sang,” Holly whispered. “I should have answered. I should have let you in. I’m sorry.”

For a moment, the figure trembled, song faltering.

Then, slowly, she reached out a hand.

Her fingers were ice.

Holly took them.

10

The others found the door open in the morning, snow blowing into the hall. Holly was gone. No footprints, no trail—just smooth white drifts, as though she had walked into the storm and vanished.

David searched for days after the thaw. Nothing.

But sometimes, on Christmas Eve, when the wind sings through the trees by Larkspur House, you can hear her voice in the carol.

Softer than the others.

Almost human.