Manfred Hall

• Isabella Osborn, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2018

Once there was a little girl called Milly. She had blonde hair and inquisitive blue eyes. She lived in an old mansion called Manfred Hall. Milly knew all the goings on in the place. She heard all the secret whispers of the maids to the scuttling of the rats in the roof. At night, she heard her parents going to bed, but after that it was never silent. She heard a moaning sound sweeping through the empty corridors. She had asked her parents about this before, but they said it was just the wind. Milly had never been allowed in the south wing of the house before, and her parents were very secretive about it. The only thing she knew was from when she had heard her parents speaking in hushed tones at night, just before they went to bed. “We need to close the south wing of the house for good” her mother cried. “It is just getting too dangerous! With Milly getting older she’ll want to explore down there, and you don’t know what might happen!”
“You’re right, but we need to do it without her noticing, otherwise she will try to find out what happened! We still don’t know if it is haunted or not!” said her father. Since then, Milly had always wanted to find out what was happening, but she was always too scared. The only time she could explore was at night, but she didn’t want to go because of the strange howling noise she always heard. One night, the howling noise wasn’t there. Milly decided that if she was ever going to explore the south wing, tonight was the night. She slipped out of bed and put on her dressing gown. She crept down the corridor and past the out of order sign, into the south wing. A pearlescent figure floated towards her out of the gloom wailing and throwing its arms around, making the howling noise it made every night. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out except for a wail not unlike the ghosts. She ran heading for her bedroom. She got in and slammed the door. That didn’t stop the ghost. It floated right through the door and promptly sat down on the bed, which was what Milly was hiding in. The ghost said “Hello,” and waited for a response. Milly just whimpered. “There’s no need to be afraid of me you know, even if I did want to hurt you, I would just go right through you!” This comforted Milly somewhat and she worked up the courage to talk to him. “I’ve never met a ghost before,” she said.
“Not many people have, that is why they tried to exterminate me, and also why I cry at night,” said the ghost sadly.
“Well, you won’t have to cry anymore, because I can visit you every night.” From that night on, Milly visited the ghost every night and they became great friends. The end