Ghost story II

Task for the week: to write a ghost story based on the group plot idea. The bones:
• Farm workers cottages are being converted/modernised/refurbished.
• An object is found under the threshold of one of the doors.
• The object is kept by the owners but harbours a ghost.
• The ghost is a child from the 1850’s.
• The ghost appears to the children in the house.
• The ghost died in suspicious circumstances even though his parents didn’t suspect this.
• The incident/death was at harvest time.

At the time having the builders in had seemed like a good idea, but the cottage was old and for every problem put right, another problem seemed only to be around the corner. Progress had been slow and Melissa was not a patient person. With each unforeseen extra she could see the pound signs flashing before the builders’ eyes and she was seriously wishing she had agreed a price in advance. She saw now that she had ventured into the build naively, being more obsessed with the end vision than realising all the upheaval it required in between. All she wanted was a place fit for her growing family; traditional cottage meets modern convenience. They had been remodelling and extending an old farm worker’s cottage and insanely were trying to live in the house at the same time. With two young children this had not, with hindsight, been a great plan. The dust seemed to get into every pore of the house. Even bits untouched by the building works seemed to be covered in a thin film of grime. It was impossible to keep on top of things no matter how much dusting or vacuuming Melissa did. Thankfully they were on the home straight now; there was little left that could go wrong as the builders were due to finish today.

The build had had its up sides though. It had uncovered a number of artefacts, signs of the cottage’s past, which intrigued Melissa. She had already decided that these would go on display in their remodelled home. Her favourite item had to be a horseshoe. They had found it nailed above the threshold and she wondered if it had been put there for luck. It had been tacked in place with three nails, with the open end facing downwards, which research had told her was supposed to ward off evil.

By dinner time Melissa had said goodbye to the builders and, supported by her extended family, they had cleaned the place down and got it shipshape. The finishing touches still needed to be put in place, but everything was clean and tidy. They ordered in some pizzas to celebrate the completion of the work and popped open a bottle of Prosecco to raise a toast to getting their house back. With the extended family departed, the kids tucked up in bed and being read a bedtime story by her partner, Dan, Melissa could not rest, overtired from the days’ exertions and the stresses and strains of the past few months. She decided to start the process of finishing touches by nailing the horseshoe in the hallway next to the new front door. In her haste and fatigue she hung it with the open end facing upwards, a perfect U, or a smiley face.

Melissa found herself being roused up in the early hours of the morning by her son Sam’s calls. Annoyed that she’d finally managed to find the land of nod after much tossing and turning, she rolled over and nudged Dan awake. He could attend to Sam. She must have dropped back off to sleep as the next thing she knew she was roused up, feeling a presence nearby. Sam was hovering by the side of the bed asking if he could climb in. This was unusual; Sam had not been in their bed for a few years now. It transpired he had been disturbed by a ghost in his room. Melissa was keen to press home to him that it would just have been a dream, but he was not buying it, so she lifted the covers and let him clamber in next to her. She needed some sleep, not a discussion.

The following morning over breakfast Sam was keen to share his experiences with his slightly older sister, Claire. Melissa expected Claire to dismiss his sighting as a dream. After all, Claire was not one for believing in such fantasies; both Santa Claus and the tooth fairy had been given short shrift. But to her surprise Claire said that on getting up to go to the toilet she had thought she had glimpsed an apparition stood outside Sam’s bedroom door. They both agreed that it was a little boy, wearing a long shirt or smock, which came down below his knees, over trousers. Melissa was at a loss what to say to her two insistent children so tried to move the conversation on. But it seemed the children could not be deterred from the subject, speculating as to who the boy might be. Melissa put her foot down: there would be no more talk of ghosts as they were not real. She had to admit though that her interest had been piqued: what if she was wrong.

As the weeks passed, the children seemed only to be gaining interest in the ghost, seeing the boy more and more, and not only at night. Family meals times, and indeed most of the time in between, were caught up with discussion about the ghost. The children were adamant he was following them around and whilst nothing sinister had happened, Sam reported feeling unsettled. He was losing his confidence in playing on his own and was certainly becoming something of a regular in their bed, night on night. Whilst Melissa tried to encourage him back to his room, she was not very successful at getting him resettled in his own bed as he would just return again to their room and keep waking her up. Claire seemed to be coping with the sightings better, figuring the boy ghost was not out to harm them. But the family home Melissa had worked hard for seemed to be turning into a ghost house, not their dream house. Even she was beginning to feel spooked, sensing a chill every time she entered the house.

Finally Melissa decided enough was enough and if she could not lay the ghost to rest in the minds of her children, she would subscribe to the idea and do some research into ghosts. She might turn something up after all; something that would get things back to normal. She was not surprised to find plenty of articles on ghosts, after all the web was a mine of information these days. It was whilst skimming one piece that she wondered if the young boy was appearing as he had unfinished business or some sort of message to communicate. She had never encouraged the children to talk to him, but she wondered now if that might be the best solution; maybe they could find out what he wanted. She shouted out to the children to join her in the lounge and was astonished to discover that instead of her two children, she now had three. She too could see the boy ghost. She blinked hard, still not quite believing her eyes, but he did not disappear. If anything he seemed to be growing brighter and stronger. She let on to the children that she too could see the ghost and took charge of the situation. She would try talking to the ghost; see if he had anything to say.

Before she could utter a word, the boy ghost turned around and headed for the lounge door, beckoning to her to follow him. She followed him through to the hall. He lifted down the horseshoe from its nails at the side of the front door and stretched out his arm towards her. She lifted her hand to take the horseshoe from him, but as her fingers brushed it, she found she now held a newspaper. The date on it was 1852. As she looked around she could well believe it. It seemed the ghost had dragged her back in time. Indeed he was now stood before them in the flesh, no longer a ghostly outline but a real boy and it was her who seemed to be slightly transparent. She panicked slightly, wondering what had happened to the kids and how she would get back to them, but there was no time to worry; the boy was running down the lane towards the fields.

Not wanting to lose the boy, she picked up her pace to follow him. He was now stood in a field of corn. In about half the field the corn had been cut and there were people gathering it into sheaves by hand. A trio of horses pulling a reaping machine were engaged in cutting the corn in the rest of the field. The boy was bending over gathering the corn near where the horses were turning to make their return journey back across the field, but then they veered off course slightly. Time seemed to slow down as she saw the man driving the horses and reaper towards the boy. The boy was trampled by the horses. With her heart in her mouth, she watched as people rushed over to try to keep him alive, but it was not to be. The farm workers were all gossiping about the freak accident, trying to make sense of it; no-one but her and the man driving the reaper knew the true tale that he had driven towards the boy on purpose.

Melissa found herself growing steadily more solid and the country scene melted away around her, placing her firmly back in her own hallway. She was once again holding the horseshoe in her hand but now there was no sign of the boy ghost. Sam and Claire rushed towards her out of the lounge. She knelt down and hugged them tightly to her; they were so precious. They were still talking about the ghost, adamant it had just appeared in the living room, and worried about when it would appear again. Melissa smiled knowingly; they didn’t need to know what she had found out. Now the boy ghost had shared the circumstances of his death, she felt certain he wouldn’t be appearing again any time soon. She rehung the horseshoe at the side of the door; this time the open end was facing down. No evil would hurt her children; it was just very sad that evil had driven the boy ghost’s appearance in their house.