Haunted

• Nayana Kiernan, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

Ravenously consuming the elegant moon the charcoal clouds ate away all in its path leaving nothing but darkness to lead Nigelina on her unforseen journey. A cold breeze tickled her gloved hands making her flinch at every swing of the derelict gate with sharp spined edges and rusted teeth. Seething wind ushered her into the graveyard of trees and once beautiful statues leading beyond to more spine-chilling and hair-raising horrors. Step by step Nigelina’s naked feet felt the cold embrace of stone, an old path leading to the frozen iron gate and, as she pushed its screeching hinges out of the way, an eerie wind crawled up Nigelina’s spine whispering and laughing in her ears. Pushing the serpentine gate back into place, a murder of crows lunged down in a dark mass and as their yelling stung her ears they knocked her off the rotten path. She was sent in a stumbling heap into something like a cold frigid hand. Nigelina’s heart stopped. The world went still. Sharp fingers guided their way up her spine, she spun around her dark brown eyes a maelstrom of emotions searched for the cause of her distress. Mossen eyes met hers, beckoning to Nigelina with a reaching stone hand. The hand was damaged due to years of neglect. Breathing heavily, Nigelina found herself among thousands or forsaken trees scrutinising her every move. Nigelina took one step with her sore covered feet crumpling deceased leaves alerting the shadows of their next victim and making her realise she was no longer on the distraught path. The trees seemed to have sprouted from nowhere and the statue with mossen eyes seemed to have also disappeared from sight, as if it had been blown away by the wind. Thumping in her chest her heart did summersaults as she ran franticly around searching for a way out of these haunted woods. The wind laughed at her disorientation. The trees cackled at her flustered thoughts and the grass snickered at their sinister hoax. Nigelina’s midnight black hair flowed in the seething wind as she attempted to manoeuvre her thoughts out of her scared frenzy. Her thoughts finally settled on the fact that she could not go back not after what they did. Not after what she saw. Nigelina moved forward. She slowly found her way back to the abandoned path relieved that she had the ghostly mansion back in sight but still the excruciating feeling of horrendous things to come. Each step felt terminal but the images of her dead friends kept Nigelina moving. The mansion looked long since deserted and sent a shadow of harshness across the whole estate. Three storeys of dishevelled dread sent piercing cold shivers up her spine reminding her of her first days in the orphanage though her memories were blurred with tall frightening teachers and dark corridors full of creepy pictures of past students. Nigelina did not know then was that it was all lies. These were the memories of a little girl who was scared of the dark but the images that haunted Nigelina’s days were what kept her moving. The steps squealed underfoot, the unease of her intuition only began as a whisper but each step that drew Nigelina closer to this old-fashioned abomination made her intuition screech louder and louder until it was almost unbearable. She stopped. She turned. And took her first step away and then suddenly the malevolent door squealed open revealing . . . . . . . . . . . Nigelina passed out.