Darkness

• Bridget Carson, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2014

The walls of the manor were cold and hard. Altogether uninviting. Quiet as a mouse, I made my way down the upper hallway, the cold floor biting at my bare feet. I shivered slightly, my thin cotton nightgown betraying me and releasing any warmth my body had previously held.
The manor was silent. No calls of the servants as they bustled around, no quiet chatter between members of the land lord’s family, my family.
But, there was one, one inconsistent scraping sound. It had always been there, niggling into the backs of our minds, but no one talked about it, and certainly no one ever tried to find the source. It was ignored, and it remained. The elephant in the room, so to-speak.
But see, I was one of those inquisitive young people, who wouldn’t stop until I had looked under every rock and stone, not leaving one unturned. Ever since I was a small child, the youngest of four, I remember begging my siblings to help me too come and look for the source. But tonight was my chance, and it would not slip away from me like water through my fingers.
But oh I wish I hadn’t tried.
I wish I had been a normal child, doing as my parents told, growing up to become a proper lady, instead of being curious and having a thirst for adventure, and an intense dislike for the proper society talk of women.
That’s what I had thought this all was. An adventure. I wish I had been ignorant.
At the end of the hallway were the spiral stairs, which spiralled down through two levels and down to the cellar entrance. Moonlight filtered through the windows, bathing the house in a soft silver light. I glanced over my shoulder, hoping no one could see or hear me, then, deftly and silently, I jumped onto the banister, sliding down the three flights of stairs, arms outstretched, a picture of childish glee.
Once I reached the bottom floor, I stopped in front of the cellar door, rubbing my hands together, excited at the prospect of finding out what was down there. Carefully, I flicked the lock and pushed open the door, lighting a candle before the darkness swallowed me.
I smiled sadly. It felt strange watching myself as I had been many years ago. Now I was but a pale form in the night air, see through, made of moonlight and shadows, always changing.
Carefully, I followed my younger self down into the cellar, a sudden sadness overcoming me as I felt sympathy for the child who would be torn away from her world, who would become naught but a memory in the eyes of her family and friends.
The cellar stank of decay and something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Now I realised, that it was the smell of death. I stepped off the bottom stair, not realising it would be my last time really touching the dying wood beneath my toes.
All of a sudden, out of no where, a hidden force seized my former self's body, making it twist this way and that, violently jerking and shuddering. As soon as it began, it ended, the body crumpling to the ground.
My ethereal form drifted over to the girl, holding her in my arms and I watched the light leave her eyes and she faded slowly into death.