The Mysterious Painting of The Haunted Girl...
Copyright Gemma Louise 2013
The Mysterious Painting of the Haunted Girl...
“Go on Ben, you go first!” Kirsty, who was dressed as a purple witch, said to her twin brother.
Ben narrowed his eyes at her, “Why me? Why can’t Emily go first?”
I gulped as the twins turned to look at me, I shook my head fiercely. “No way,”
“It was your idea to come here.” Jackie piped up.
I stood in front of my three friends staring up Terror Tree Manor. It was a typical gothic Manor House; it was a long dark building covered in dying ivy and sitting on the roof where gargoyles of dragons and demons. The only source of light was the full moon that was gazing down on us. I shook my head as I cautiously made my way to the big steel gates that protected the house. Touching it I shuddered, the night air was blowing and howling and a storm was approaching, meaning the gates were frozen and incredibly heavy. Slowly I pushed the gates open and they groaned at the sudden movement.
“Come on then!” I hissed at my friends as I took a step inside the garden.
They quickly shuffled behind me following my footsteps and holding onto one another. The garden was dead and silent. The grass, that was no longer alive, was covered in weltering trees and statues. Trees with not an owl or bird in sight and statues of people and creatures... the garden was gloomy and sad... lonely almost.
Before I knew it I’d banged into something hard and cold: The door that would lead you inside the Manor. The door was big and dark with a large knocked in the shape of a snake in the centre.
Well here goes nothing.
With a deep breath I took hold of the knocker and let it fall against the door creating a large bang that made us all shudder.
“I don’t like this...” Jackie whined as she clutched onto the big white Ghost sheet that covered her body in an attempt to retrieve some comfort.
I bit my lip, “I can’t believe we were late- none of this would have happened if we weren’t late.”
“It was Ben’s fault; he was too busy trying to get snacks and we missed the school bus!” Kirsty quickly said piling the blame on her brother.
Jackie trembled, “N-no it was our parent’s faults for making us go on this stupid school trip.”
I nodded my head in agreement. We were on a school trip to Terror Tree Manor, all dressed up and ready to have fun when we stopped for petrol on the way. Ben had taken it as a chance to buy some snacks and we’d left the mini bus to retrieve some. By the time we’d gotten back to the mini bus it had left... without us. Good teachers? I think not. Anyway we found instructions to get to the Manor but it was now nightfall and this didn’t seem like the right place...
“What are you kids doing here at this time of the night?!” A loud voice bellowed causing us all to jump and fall silent.
We slowly looked up to see a large very butch man with red eyes and a big frown that covered most of his face. He was wearing all black with spiked boots and wristbands, his head was shinny from the lack of hair yet his chin was covered in a spiky beard. He looked cross... mad in fact.
Ben shoved me forward and I froze.
My brain clicked as I realised I had to say something, ignoring the blush that was forming on my cheeks, the words tumbled out, “We... got lost... and apparently have to come here for a school trip sir.”
The man looked down at me, his frown pressed on his face grew bigger as the seconds passed, “You kids shouldn’t bother me so late.”
I gulped and took a deep breath, “I’m terribly sorry sir but is our school-”
“Did I ask you to speak?” He said in a frightfully low whisper.
We shook our heads.
“Good then don’t talk unless I ask you to,” He snapped and opened the door wider, pointing for us to head inside, “Come on then. It has to be your school in here; it’s the first guests we’ve had in 30 years.”
I looked around to stare at my friends; worried expressions coated our faces as we followed the man inside clinging onto each other.
“You are so dead when we get out of here Ben!” I hissed as we trudged through the narrow black halls. They had nothing in them apart from a few knights uniforms covered in cobwebs dotted here and there and a deep blood red carpet ran through the room.
Ben tried to snicker to cover his nerves, “That’s if we get out of this place alive!”
“Oh shut up!” Jackie whined as her hand clutched mine tighter stopping the flow of blood.
The man’s loud voice boomed and echoed through the house, “Did I ask you to talk!?”
We all froze and mentally told ourselves to be quite.
“Well here you go girls,” He pointed to a small room, “That is where you shall sleep; there are already 2 girls in there. Boy I’ll take you to your room now.”
Ben shot us a frightened look as he was dragged away from us and down the corridor. I took a deep breath and opened the door but relief engulfed me as Tara and Olivia, two girls from our school, came running to greet us.
“Emily, Jackie, and Kirsty- you’re finally here!” They exclaimed pulling us inside the room.
“Yeah we had a bit of trouble,” I explained.
“Is this place creepy or what!” Kirsty said examining the room.
The room was long and rectangular with 5 single beds lined up in a row. The walls were a stained white colour and the room contained only one small old wardrobe that was covered in silver cobwebs.
“You can take the bed next to the wall Emily...” Tara instructed as I nodded and went to sit at the end of the bed. It moaned in frustration as I placed my bag down.
Right next to me I noticed a large painting with a caption: 1845-1858 ‘Lady Mary’. The painting was of a pale girl with golden locks walking through a dark cold garden. She was wearing a white trailing dress which looked to have been ripped in places, she had scratches up her arm and a dirty white bonnet lay on the top of her head. She looked almost dead and sad and her eyes were a bright piercing blood red that matched her lips. I shuddered.
“Hey guys?” I asked, my eyes not leaving the painting, “What’s the picture of?”
Tara and Olivia gasped and ushered for us to come and sit by my bed.
“Well earlier when we arrived...” Olivia started to speak holding a torch up to her chin.
“Mr Burns, the man you met, told us a story.” Tara continued, “It was of a girl... her name was Mary. She lived a sad and dull life as no one was around to help her. She lived in this castle you see and she was so depressed she used to take walks in the beautiful gardens but one day she found a statue. It was of an angel but instead of having lovely kind features it was menacing, dark and cruel. Mary immediately fell in love with the statue and would talk to it every day as it would remind her of all the cruel people and she loved to rant about it to the statue as it couldn’t talk.”
Tara shivered so Olivia took over, “It was October 31st the day that was feared by all: The Day a Demon would return from the dead. A demon was like an angel but one that had turned on heaven and become bad. On this day Mary was talking to the statue again when she made a wish... a wish that all the people she hated could be ripped apart, that these lies could be thrown away, that she could be like the statue. And that was enough to shaken the spirit of the demon and on the morning of October 31st the Demon woke and the statue came alive destroying everything in its reach. It took young Mary’s words and did as she asked but worse, he made the Manor die and everything in it including the people and the objects and the garden. Everything turned to dust. As for Mary the Demon marked her with the scars to sh
ow that she was now bad and she fell in to an even deeper feeling of sadness and loss as she realised what she’d done. She knew the only way to stop the Demon from reaching anyone else was to sacrifice herself... And that was the end of thirteen year old Mary.”
I sat there gob smacked and shaken at the story that was now in my mind. Thoughts whirled around as I shivered and looked at Tara.
She smiled at me weakly, “They say the Ghost of Mary still lives within these Manor walls.”
“Whoa...” Jackie said, “That’s a lot to process; pretty good story there.”
Kirsty laughed nervously, “Yeah well I’m going to get some sleep now... that’s if I can sleep at all.”
Without anymore words we all made our way to our beds and curled up under the duvets in hope to forget about the scary thoughts that were floating in our minds like boats in a storm.
Talking about storms I was drifting in and out of sleep at the constant thunder of rain that was hammering down on the roof. I shivered and looked up at the painting next to me. Slowly I could see it clearer and the room started to get lighter. Suddenly it clicked that this wasn’t right and I turned to investigate the source of the light.
There standing in the doorway of my room stood a girl with lips as red as blood, skin as pale as ice and eyes so piercing you couldn’t focus on them. The girl was in a white ripped dress that clung to her scarred body. Her hat was almost falling of her golden locks.
Standing in front of me was the Ghost of Mary...
I tried to scream but I choked and words refused to leave my mouth. My heartbeat sped up in fear as I quickly at up and shuffled back onto my pillow against the wall in an attempt to move as far away from her as possible. Tears started to pour from my eyes as I shot a look to my friend’s beds to get them to help when I saw the beds were empty and untouched... as if they’d disappeared... once the story had been said.
“N-no please!” I started to beg as the figure came slowly creeping towards me her frown was replaced with an evil smile as a faint laugh escaped her lips.
She walked into my bed as I noticed she couldn’t get any closer. One of her ice cold fingers reached out to stroke my cheek as I lifted my head to see her pull out a sharp knife from her other hand.
And then my screams were muffled.
My heart stopped...
.......
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” The girl suddenly sung out loud as a load of people jumped out from under the beds all dressed up in their Halloween costume’s smiling.
I looked around shocked and studied them. All of my class were here... and Mary? I looked up at her, a grin was plastered on her face and the knife had been lowered which she was sticking it out to me.
“Here,” She said, “Take it- you’ll need it to cut your cake.”
Before I could respond in ran my teacher and the man, known as Mr Burns, carrying a large orange cake. He was now in normal jeans and a t-shirt with no beard and a full head of hair. His spikes where also gone and replaced with some trainers.
“W-what?” I asked.
Kirsty stepped forward and chuckled, “It was all a trick Emily. Mary,” She pointed to the girl, “Never existed this is just Bella who lives here. Every year people forget your birthday as it’s on Halloween and you forget it to so this year we wanted to make it something to remember... and I’m pretty sure it was. So we spoke to Mrs Todd [The teacher] before we came and asked if we could do this little stunt. Ben pretended to want to get food so we could get lost and be late. I mean what teacher would forget their students?”
I thought for a second processing it all, “So you were all acting... none of you were really scared in the garden?”
“Nope.” Ben said popping the ‘P’.
My lips turned upwards, “Well you’d all get an A in drama then.”
Kirsty continued, “Mr Burns and his niece dressed up for us and Olivia and Tara wrote that story. Yes a Mary did live here but the story wasn’t the same and we covered up the dates on the picture and changed them. She actually died at the age of fifty four not sixteen.”
“So this is all a joke?”
Mr Burns chuckled, “Yes dear I’m not that mean and we decorated the castle. Now as it’s midnight why don’t we all have a midnight feast with Emily’s Halloween Birthday Cake!”
Everyone cheered and grinned as I took the knife off ‘Mary’ and cut the cake.
And that was how the story of the haunted girl was created. By my friends. On my Birthday. What a day. Happy 13th birthday to me...
And Mary...