Arthur Kipps Diary (The woman in black)

Arthur Kipps Diary

March 7th 1983

Dear Diary,

The journey to Crythin Gifford was long and uncomfortable. I met a man who I later found was named Samuel Daily. I told him why I was going to Crythin Gifford and after notcing my brown envelope with Mrs.Drablows name on it, he told me a little about Mrs.Drablow, how she'd no friends nor family.

I arrived at Crythin Gifford. The town was old fashioned with cobbled streets and old looking houses. People selling mulled wine, pottery and other things. The towns people where kind, down to earth folk but as soon as I mentioned Mrs.Drablow they became hesitant and weary. They all sternly told me to never stay over night at Eel Marsh House.

Later at the funeral of Mrs.Drablow. There was only me and Mr.Jerome at her funeral. I thought that it was a shame to live til old age and have only two men connected my nothing more than business at their funeral. Yet I glanced back for nothing more than a second and saw another mourner, a woman. She was dressed in the deepest black, her clothing a little out-dated. A bonnet shaded her face but I could make out that she was so thin, mysterious, skin so pale and fragile. She looked like she was dying from a wasting disease, like soon her time would come too.

A man by the name of Keckwick took me to Eel Marsh House by pony and trap. At first I thought the house was a rare beauty, I loved the nature of the place. I was fascinated by it, I wanted Keckwick to be gone so I could wander the place freely and slowly. I felt a sense of tranquility with the place. I wanted to live there, I'd take up bird watching, Stella would love it. I walked from the house towards the direction of the field, across it and towards a ruin. I sauntred into a small burial ground, I was astonished, there where perhaps fifty old grave stones, most leaned over or where completely fallen. I suddenly noticed the damp chill in the air and decided to walk back to the house to work on Mrs.Drablows papers and warm myself up. But as I turned away, I glanced back once again and then I saw again the woman with the wasted face, who'd been at the funeral of Mrs.Drablow. Her eyes sunken into their sockets. Her expression a desperate yearning malevolence, it was although she was searching for something, something she desperately needed, wanted, must have - more than life itself, which had been taken away from her.  I wanted to run but I couldn't, I was frozen, scared stiff looking at her wretched face. She finally went, slipped behind a gravestone and keeping close to the shadow of the wall, went through one of the broken gaps in the wall and out of sight. The very second she'd gone relif washed over me and the sense of movement flooded back to me. I dashed back to Eel Marsh House locked the door and lit every fire in the house. I was furious, yes, furious at her for causing me such fear. That fear soon turned into determination, to follow her, to stop her and to do everything I can to dig to the bottom of this. I burst out the door and rushed the broken crack in the wall that she mysteriously slipped through. I came out, at my feet, the grass gave was within a yard or two then shallow water. I could see for miles but there was no sign at all of the woman in black nor any place she could've concealed herself. Who or what she was, she'd vanished without a trace.