‘Ring
a ring a roses. A pocket full of posies. A tissue, a tissue. We all fall down’…
You could hear their soft
voices singing slowly, eerily. Children, playing together, skipping round and
round. Then falling to the ground. A happy tune? Not at all.
London, 1665. Disaster had
struck. It was the Black Death. It swept through the land like an inhumane
killing machine. So many dead or dying. But that was not all: children had
begun disappearing mysteriously. They were seen playing with others, or with
their parents, and then, a little while longer, they vanished without a trace.
Fires had been started, spreading from house to house, often killing people. No
cause was ever found.
She wanted to know what
had happened to all the children. Her friend was one of those who had
disappeared, leaving no trail behind, and she was trying desperately to find
her. She hid, melted away in the shadows, following an old, evil-looking woman.
It was dangerous but she was curious as well as scared. She could
be the next child to go missing. As if her thoughts had been heard, the old
woman slowly turned around and looked right at her, like she had known the girl
was there all along. Their eyes locked for a few moments. Then, the old woman
turned back round and continued walking like nothing had happened.
The girl’s heart thumped in
her chest and she was frozen with terror. Her body shook like a leaf, and she
was so close to turning and running for her life, but she had to keep going. She
crept cautiously although she had already been seen, to where the old woman had
entered. Her lair looked old and dark. Dust covered the walls and windows, spider
webs hung from the roof populated by gigantic, menacing spiders and their
prey. Paint peeled off the walls like bits of dry, flaking skin. A shiver
ran down her spine. Even the cat, who had just appeared from the house, looked
miserable and neglected!
Just before entering the
house, she looked up, and she could have sworn she saw a face staring out of the window, but
when she looked back up there was no face, just a window covered in red dust.
She was in a small room, as
miserable inside as it was outside, with dust lining every piece of furniture.
Although nothing else stirred in the room, she could hear voices all around
her, coming from every direction. But they came from nowhere, it was like they
were just in her head, some voices were whispering, others screaming or sobbing.
In front of her there was a half-open door, so she reached for the handle, her hand
trembling. It was extremely dark and at first she could see nothing. She could
just make out a shape right in front of her, and as her eyes grew accustomed to
the dark, what she was looking at slowly dawned on her. She just stared at it
in shock, terror and panic seeping through her body. It was inhumane. Her blood
ran cold. Her mind was racing. The more she looked at it the more she wanted to
die where she stood. Tears streamed down her face and she opened her mouth to
scream; but no sound came out. She desperately wanted to look away but every
limb in her body was paralyzed with fear, and her eyes kept staring ahead.
It hung from the ceiling, a head cut off at the neck, attached to a string,
spinning slowly around. She had recognised it instantly. It was her friend. Her
face was frozen with sadness and dread, the last emotions she would have felt.
In the corner, a bundle of
materials the girl had seen earlier started to stir, and she turned at last to
look at it. Her face was as pale as death. As it stood up, she realized it
wasn’t so much a bundle of materials as the old woman. She had been hiding
there, probably staring at her, mocking her silently. She started to make her
way towards the girl but it was like she was avoiding the table in the centre
of the room. The girl noticed and picked up the only object on the table: a
small bottle. As she did so she saw the old woman take a step back, eyeing her
warily. She fumbled with the bottle for a while, trying to open it. The air was
suddenly filled with an ear-piercing scream, she looked up at the old woman,
who was being dragged away from where she stood. Without warning the bottle,
which she had succeeded in opening, gave a jolt in the girl’s hands, and the
old woman disappeared. The girl gaped at the small bottle. The old woman - the one who had probably kidnapped all the children and
killed them, the one who had started all the fires - was trapped inside…
by Sandra Brinster
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