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Dear friends,
My Lady Díanë has written a short story that she wishes to share. Here it is:
Dear Miss Woodhouse,
It was the grand year of 1868 and the Woodhouse family was recently moved into a house in Hastings, Minnesota, on the shore of the Mississippi River. Eliza Woodhouse, a woman of 18, was engaged to be married to one Sean Braxton. He was the love of her life, but her parents didn't approve. He would have to make more money to provide adequately for their daughter. Sean would go to the sun and back for Eliza, so he agreed to their conditions. He would go down the river to bigger cities and make a proper living.
One night, months later, Eliza was sitting in front of the hearth , reading Sean's last letter to her. She had a box full of letters from him up in her room.
There was a knock on the door. One of the maids answered it, then came into the parlor. "A letter for you, Miss Woodhouse," she said. Eliza took the letter. The seal on it's back gave her a foreboding. Hesitantly, she opened it. Dear Miss Woodhouse, it began. We regret to inform you that there has been an accident on the Mississippi River. Mr. Sean Braxton was found dead near the bridge..... Eliza couldn't read any more.
"No!" she cried. "Sean!" She frightened the cat and it knocked over a candle on a desk. With a shattered heart, Eliza ran outside. She stopped when the water of the river was above her ankles. Tears streamed down her cheeks, blurring her vision. As she continued screaming Sean's name as if he could hear here, she thought she heard a noise behind her. Voices; loud, frightened voices. And something else, too. Hissing and crackling, like flames. She turned. The house was on fire! The letters, Eliza thought. She quickly ran back into the burning house. She had to save Sean's letters. She never made it to the box, but instead, died in the attempt. The house was saved from burning completely and her family mourned Eliza for a long time. But it was said that at midnight, you could still hear her crying out for her love to return to her......
140 years passed and a family bought the Woodhouse's land. The eldest child of the family, James by name, claimed the room closest to the river. The first day of moving passed. James went to bed and fell asleep quickly. Suddenly, just at midnight, he woke to the sound of a woman’s voice calling a name. He didn’t recognize the voice and it came from outside. James got up and went to the window. There, on the beach, was the shape of a woman. She was white and wispy, as if made from smoke. She wore an old-fashioned dress and one of her gloved hands reached out towards the river. A ghost? thought James. No, that’s insane. Ghosts aren’t real.
“It’s just a dream,” he said to himself. “I’ll just ignore it.”
And so he did, that night and the next three. On the fourth day, James worked up the courage to tell his father; it was getting annoying.
“Dad?” he asked.
“Yes, son?”
“Um....There’s a ghost outside at night.“ James confessed, then waited for the reply. His father didn’t even put down his newspaper.
“Very funny, James. Just don’t say that around your sister.”
“I’m serious, Dad! Every night at midnight it screams ’Sean’ at the river! It’s a woman from like, the Middle Ages or something!”
“James, that’s-”
“Stay up with me tonight! You’ll see!”
He sighed. “If I do, do you promise not to tell your sister? You know how superstitious she is.”
“Yeah, I promise.”
Standing up, his father said, “Good. Midnight you say?” At a nod from his son, he left the room. James stood there moodily. “Why doesn’t anyone ever believe anything I say?”
That night, James and his father stood at his window, waiting. Then the ghost came and started calling “Sean” in her pleading, airy voice.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, son. It doesn’t seem like she’s hurting anything, other than your sleep. Just try to ignore it.” He turned to leave. At the door he turned and said, “Oh, and by the way. She’s from the 1800s, not the Middle Ages.”
“Whatever,” was James’ reply and he got into bed and went to sleep.
School started and life went on as normal as was possible. His father started teaching James to fish and about boats. James also tried to find out who the ghost woman was. From historical records as well as a biography about her, He found that she was most likely Miss Eliza Woodhouse, who died in a house fire after learning that her fiancé, Sean, was dead.
One day, after school, James’ mother asked him to dig a hole in the back yard for her gardening. After digging a foot or two down, his shovel his something hard. He continued to dig until he unearthed a locked chest. He tried breaking the lock, but it refused his attempts. He kept it in his room, not telling anyone it was there.
The next few nights instead of trying to sleep through the wailing of Sean’s name, James decided to go outside. One night, as he stood on the beach watching Eliza who was oblivious to his presence, his attention was drawn to the opposite shore. There was a man there. He was just as smoke-like as Eliza and he called her name, too.
It must be Sean, he thought. It looks like he can’t come over here. Then he saw the boat. It was laying on the sand, just waiting for him. What if I go over to him?
James set the boat in the water and began rowing himself to the other side. The wind was blowing fiercely and it began to rain. Rough waves rocked the boat as though they meant to kill him. But James stubbornly continued on, the rain pounding on his head. He was only about half-way when a surge of water finally tipped his boat completely over. It flung him into the frigid water. He couldn’t tell which way was up, everything was moving around him so fast. He tried reaching for the surface but found only more water. He couldn’t breathe; it felt like there was an elephant on his chest. What little vision he had was fading. James was sinking farther down.
I’m going to die, he thought. I’m going to die for a ghost! He almost blacked out and barely felt it when two strong hands pulled him out of the water.
Back in the upright boat, he hacked and cough the water from his lungs. When the world became normal colours and stopped spinning so much, he looked up to see the ghost standing there, looking down at him. Sean held something out in his hand, offering it to James; it was a key. James took it, confused and watched in amazement as Sean ran over the river to Eliza.
James looked down at the key in his hand. It was big and old. The designs on it matched the ones on the chest he had found. He looked back up at Sean and Eliza, but they were gone. Simply disappeared as though they’d never been.
James rapidly rowed himself to shore and ran straight for his room. He kneeled down next to the chest and opened it. It was filled with old-fashioned letters. They were all addressed to Miss Eliza Woodhouse from Sean Braxton. They all told her how much he missed her and that he would be home soon to marry her. One letter stood out among the rest. It’s edges were burnt and blackened, and it was hardly readable. In a slanted handwriting, different from that on the rest, it began, “Dear Miss Woodhouse...”.
My Lady Díanë thanks Lady Luthien for her help!
Thank you for talking the time to read this. Please comment what you think of it.
May your swords stay sharp!
Mark the Scribe
 BeliedBeauty · Fri Oct 24, 2008 @ 02:26am · 0 Comments |
