Day 31: a ghost story for All Hallows' Eve

Day 31: a ghost story for All Hallows' Eve

Bright and early today, haha! That's because I am sharing a story that has already been written. If you are still reading, thank you! If you are new to the blog, hello! This is the last day of Blogtober, and I will try to write blog posts regularly, but unlikely to be every day...they call it a challenge, and it is quite hard - to remember to do it, for starters!

Anyway, here is a ghost story I wrote. I have had it in my mind for weeks - I mentioned earlier in the blog that I sit in the cemetery most days, and a particular tree inspired this story. I thought I would write it then hone it in time for my radio show yesterday...of course I dashed it off on Tuesday night and did a bit of basic editing, but it's in need of a lot of work! Was fun to do though, and the bare bones are there, so I am sharing it, with a photo of the tree that inspired it. Might try to get a better photo today. What follows is currently called The Cemetery Tree...may work on the title too!

If you are in Kenilworth cemetery at midnight on Halloween, be conscious that you might meet the spirit of Jack Whitaker. Or so I have been told. I often sit in the cemetery, it is a peaceful, beautiful place. I like to think about the lives of the people whose names are on the gravestones.

One autumn morning, a man sat next to me and asked if I believed the story of Jack Whitaker. I told him I didn’t know it. He looked at me, a little taken aback, then proceeded to relate the following tale.

Jack Whitaker was a lad about town, a young man always ready to defy rules and question what anyone told him. So when he heard tell that in the cemetery at midnight on Halloween, the spirits of the dead rise, he laughed it off. The dead have no spirits, people are just afraid of the dark, and open to suggestion.

These days the gates are locked well before midnight, so it is difficult to walk there any night, but it hasn’t always been the case, and when Jack was a lad you could walk in at any time.

So he decided to show people how pathetic their fears were. At midnight on Halloween, he was in the cemetery, walking among the graves.

It was dark, but the moon shone and gave enough light to see the paths and highlight some of the graves.  Jack was full of confidence as he wandered.

A mist started to form – nothing unusual in that on a cold, damp autumn night, moon or not. But then the fallen leaves started rustle even though there was no wind.

Jack walked more slowly as the mist started to thicken around him. Overhead the sky was patchy with cloud while the mist was at ground level. He looked at the moon, still shining clearly…he talked to the moon, telling it that he was not afraid…he was not afraid…he was not afraid.

Then he heard someone walking through the leaves, and he turned; the mist made everything indistinct, but the silvery moonlight made things still visible, and he could see no one.

‘I know you’re there, I know you’re trying to frighten me.’

Silence.

Jack walked more tentatively, and there was the rustling again.

He spun round, sure that if he moved fast enough he would see his companion. But nothing, only silence.

The mist started to swirl slightly, and leaves started to swirl up too, forming a shape in the mist. The swirling column of mist and leaves moved towards him.

Jack started to breathe more quickly, and turned away from the column of leaves and tried to hurry but the leaves and mist swirled around him, and the air became icy.

Jack threw his arms around a chestnut sapling standing at a corner of the path and buried his head in the cleft of its branches. The rustling of leaves grew louder but now he refused to look.

He flung his arms wide and tried to run, but the tree somehow had hold of him. The leaves and the mist continued to envelop him.

Next morning, a man walking his dog came across the chestnut sapling with its two lower branches reaching out, its trunk slightly twisted as if trying to turn, the cleft of the branches a dark hollow in which he could almost see a face.

Jack Whitaker was never seen again, but it’s said that if you walk in the cemetery at midnight on Halloween, the chestnut sapling – now a full-grown tree – will sometimes moan and the dark hollow in the cleft of its branches will seem to be looking at you. Don’t meet its gaze.

Victoria Mier, 31 October 2024