Zodwa was now so old she had forgotten she once had a family. So when the full moon shone over the Zulu kingdom the amadlozi, the spirits of her ancestors, returned to remind her of their existence.
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Here the séance turned violent. The table shook. The windows flung open. And the medium started talking in tongues. I had been sceptical at first but there was no denying something otherworldly was afoot.
“Don’t let go,” the medium shouted. “Whatever you do, don’t break the circle.”
The girl to my left squeezed my hand firmly as did the old lady on the right. Even if I wanted to break free, there was no escaping now.
“Reveal yourself,” the medium yelled. “Reveal your true form. And speak!”
The table and the chairs rotated counter-clockwise. And as a fierce wind engulfed us all, a force I had no control over compelled me to answer “I am here”.
“Reveal you name.”
“I am Jeffrey Archibald Forsyth, the third Duke of Elmsworth.”
“You are the same Jeffrey Archibald Forsyth who was murdered in this room, on June 22nd 1903?”
“I am he,” my vocal chords said.
“Why do you still roam the netherworld?”
“I am not at peace.”
“With whom is your quarrel that you cannot rest?”
There was no immediate reply.
“With whom is your quarrel?” the medium shouted.
Still no reply. Just an abrupt shattering of the windows.
“With whom is your quarrel?” the medium repeated.
“With Elizabeth Montgomery,” I said. “My wife. My lover. My murderer.”
The room was quiet now. The wind was gone. The table had stopped shaking.
The medium opened her eyes, as did the other guests. They opened their eyes and turned them towards the old lady that had been holding my hand seconds earlier. The young girl could not stand touching the fingers of a murderer and broke the circle.
They are gone now, the people from the other world. And I, my murderer known to them, will not haunt them any more.
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Take a walk among the ghosts, her husband suggests.
So she walks onto the street where she is greeted by the ghost of every dead resident of the small miner’s town.
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The marble statues were silent witnesses of the tragedy that had just occurred. On the grass the governess cradled the lifeless young boy in her arms. Her salty tears dripped on his closed eyelids. The rage that had slowly been building in her heart now escaped her mouth in full force.
“Show yourself, you demon! Show yourself!”
The woods surrounding the estate did not answer. The ghost of Glennis Aldershot, so vicious in ripping the life from the boy moments earlier, did not make himself heard or seen.
The governess stood up, still holding the boy in her arms. She shook his body, hoping to wake him from his sleep. But despair made way for resignation: his spirit had most definitely crossed the threshold to the afterlife.
How would she bring the devastating news to the boy’s little sister? It was her soul the ghost had seemed most intent on. Aldershot had been prying upon her, haunting her day and night, ever since the children had set foot into the mansion. Falling chandeliers had missed her by an inch. The runaway carriage had only bruised her. But it was her protective older brother who had now paid the ultimate price.
The governess consoled her aching heart with thoughts of all the preparations that the funeral would entail. Those would keep her occupied. Those would keep her mind off the death of an innocent child. Those would perhaps erase her own guilt.
As long as she stuck to the ghost story she had cunningly fed the children from the beginning, just in case something like this would happen.
Did you enjoy this story? Then why not try the 101 stories in 300 words or less in YOU’RE GETTING SLEEPY, THE HYPNOTIST’S APPRENTICE YAWNED.
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300 stories 