Ghost Story?

I’m more comfortable accepting chaos and happen-chance rather than in some divine hand or grand design. In my reality, we’re nothing more than irrelevant flotsam floating on an ocean of indifference. But there is a dangerous arrogance in any belief. This story happened to me last weekend. It’s bothering me.

The evening was filled with the sort of autumnal sadness that can descend on the world, the air chill with the threat of winter. Taking a turn off the main road I was soon driving through dark forests. But like flash fired from a camera, the gloom was startlingly broken by a series of open glades.

I stopped by the side of one of these vistas, locked the car and walked across a field towards a solitary church by the edge of the wood. A rotting gate within the church gatehouse hung from its hinges, supported by cracked and mould covered brick.

Inside the churchyard, the neglect was echoed by rows of headstones; those not already fallen, sagged and drooped in the weeds. No paths through the growth to betray visiting mourners. Here, the dead slept undisturbed.

Clearly the church was abandoned; within the empty sockets of its windows, a skeletal tracery held broken panes of stained glass. Around the base, fencing formed a skirt of steel hung with signs in lurid red announcing ‘Danger! Keep Out!’

Finding a gap in the fence, I squeezed through, gashing the palm of my hand on a jag of metal. Cursing, I startled a crow into the air. It circled once, then returned irritably to sit on a tombstone and watch. Walking around the side, I found the entrance; only half a door remained. Inside it smells of rot and damp. The flagstones are uneven and covered in filth and detritus. Walls have been spray-signed by local gangs. Piles of broken wood lean against the stone walls. Fires have been lit, syringes discarded.

But there is beauty; through broken windows sunlight streams and dust-motes dance. One beam – imbued with the colours of shatered stained-glass – pools on the dirty floor. I toe away the filth and dust to reveal a shattered flagstone, riven by cracks and worn by centuries. Carved upon it are words. I take a picture with some difficulty; the gash on my palm ugly and painful. The click of the camera’s shutter echoes off the walls.

‘What are you doing?’

I jump at the words. Having been engrossed in my photography, I hadn’t noticed or heard the girl, a teenager, approach. She was standing no more than two meters from me.

‘Taking a picture,’ I snap, annoyed at being startled so easily.

‘But there’s no picture to take.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ she repeats with exasperation, ‘there’s no picture to take. There’s nothing here to take away.’

I’m confused until the penny drops. She’s a little simple. I can see it now. Her face is rounded, slightly Mongoloid, her expression puzzled yet certain. She’s not dressed like a normal teenager either. Instead of jeans and a t-shirt, she’s wearing a smock. I shrug. Teenagers are weird. At least she’s not a Goth.

‘No, I mean I’m making a picture, with my camera,’ I explain.

‘If you’re making a picture, don’t you need paintbrushes?’

‘If I was painting, yes.’

She considers this, her face blank, then smiles, letting out a small giggle.

‘You’re funny, not like the others, I don’t like them. I like you. I’m Emma.’

‘Nice to meet you Emma, I’m Dan. What others?

‘The others that come here, I watch them but I don’t talk to them, they do bad things. Sometimes I shout at them to leave.’

‘How old are you Emma?’ I ask, growing a little uncomfortable.

‘I’m fourteen. Well, nearly.’

‘Don’t you think it’s a little dangerous to be in here, especially on your own?’

‘Oh, I’ve lived here all my life, I know how to keep out of the way of people I don’t like. Did you know you’re standing on my granddad?’

‘Pardon’?

‘That’s my granddad’s gravestone. And my mother’s. But not my Dad’s. They took him away.’

I quickly step off the tombstone.

‘I’m sorry. Took him away? Where to?’

Her head drops, her smile vanishes and she shakes her head. Then she looks at me and I imagine I can actually feel her sadness when she says: ‘I have to go. Is your hand better?’

‘What?’

‘Your hand, you cut it when you came in.’

‘Oh that,’ Automatically I check my palm and stare at the cut. ‘No, it’s … fine.’ I mutter, staring dumbly at my palm. The pain and bleeding had stopped. It was already healing.

‘How …’

When I look up, she’s gone.

‘Emma?’

I stare into the shadows and listen. Nothing. Except for a beat of wings. Looking up, a crow alights on a window ledge above me. The same crow I disturbed outside? It’s eyes glint at me for a second, then it’s gone, flying out into the dusk. The hair on my neck prickles. I stare at the words on the tombstone at my feet. Half convinced I’d see the words ‘Emma’ written there. But of course there was nothing. You see, I still don’t believe in ghosts, but I admit I left that abandoned church feeling uncomfortably shaken. I’ll let you decide what happened to me that day.

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Tags:

church, death, ghosts, henvestone, story and tombstones