You know that moment when the softness of the night fades and the day peeks open to the rise of the sun? There is a fleeting time between the darkness and the dawn. What if, in that sliver of light, the past could shutter open? What would you experience? What glimmering shadows would you see?
My latest short story Between the Darkness and the Dawn is now published live on the Whistling Shade Literary Journal web site. This is a ghost story set in the Old Manse, the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne in Concord, Massachusetts.
I hope you’ll read this historical supernatural mystery with literary flavor and ghostly atmospherics; I would so love a comment or a review:
Between the Darkness and the Dawn by Paula Cappa
Paula Cappa 
Thank you, Jay. This was a story that not only challenged me to write but also gave me a great deal of enjoyment to discover. I let the story unfold through the characters, which of course were real people in history so I had a deep sense of reality as the action moved forward.
The Haunted Mind is my favorite Hawthorne short story. It’s one of those stories you can read again and again and still discover a new nugget. And it’s so short, rereading is a pleasure.
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Hi Paula,
I reread The Haunted Mind in my quiet pre-work time at the coffee shop this morning. Well, I assume I read it before during my “Hawthorne Phase” of the early 90s where I thought I read “everything” of his, but I’m not 100% sure. I was total blown away by it. So quotable and in my opinion it has also aged very well. Everyone can likely identify with the many sensations described.
I can easily see how it could inspire creativity and be your favorite. That narrow realm between sleep and wakefulness is fcertainly fertile ground for fiction.
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Your point, Jay, that the story has “aged well” is a good one. He wrote it some 180 years ago and it still penetrates deeply.
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Great story, Paula! I really enjoyed that. Now I’m going not have to revisit “A Haunted Mind.”
-Jay
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