The old church smelled of dust and forgotten hymns. Faint sunlight filtered through stained glass windows, casting fragmented rainbows across empty pews. I pushed the creaking door open, unsure why I felt drawn to this abandoned place—only that something had pulled me off the road, through the iron gate, and inside.
That’s when I saw her.
She stood at the altar, perfectly still.
A woman in a black wedding dress.
Her gown flowed like smoke around her feet, heavy with velvet and age. A delicate black veil covered her face, and in her gloved hands, she held a bouquet of wilted white lilies. For a moment, I thought she was a statue. She didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. The silence in the church wrapped around us like a shroud.
I cleared my throat. “Hello?”
Her head turned, slowly, but she didn’t speak. Just stared.
“I… didn’t mean to intrude,” I said, suddenly feeling foolish. “I was just passing through.”
She nodded once, gently. As if she understood. As if she’d been waiting.
“You’re… getting married?” I asked, though the words sounded ridiculous.
Her voice was a whisper, barely louder than the wind through broken panes: “I was.”
She walked toward one of the pews and sat, smoothing the folds of her dress like she had done it countless times before. The light caught her veil just right, and for a brief second, I saw her eyes—hollow, red-rimmed, tired.
“He never showed,” she said. “They said his carriage overturned on the way. Or maybe he changed his mind. No one ever knew.”
She looked down at the flowers. “I wore black for mourning. I never changed out of it.”
There was no bitterness in her voice. Just a sadness too old for tears.
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to comfort her, but it felt like interrupting a ritual. A moment suspended in time.
“I come back every year,” she said, lifting her face toward the altar. “Same day. Same hour. Just in case he changes his mind.”
Something inside me ached.
“Has he?”
She turned to me, and for the first time, she smiled—a soft, weary thing that broke my heart.
“No. But hope… is a stubborn guest.”
And then, as if the moment had passed, she stood again.
I blinked. The church was empty.
The pew where she sat held only dust.
And the bouquet?
Gone.
