The Ghostly Past

Chapter 5

She was being walked home then. Leo, Jess, James and Max had insisted with an intensity that was almost disturbing, though she wasn't sure how they would be saved from freak weather phenomenon just by travelling in a group.

As they left the pub, they seemed to move according to some kind of unknown signal, Leo and James stepping forward, Max and Jess taking a step back, so that Clara found herself quite suddenly in the middle of a protective diamond. She opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again.

They were all pulling flashlights from jackets and bags. It seemed an odd thing to carry when there were streetlights, even if they did seem to be constantly on the fritz. One by one they switched them on, sweeping around in all directions like a military unit.

"Erm...what's going on?" She finally said, feeling almost left out.

"Just checking the area." Leo said calmly. "It's safe to move for now."

"Safe from what?" She asked, getting nervous. "Why do you all have torches? Did the local hardware store have a sale? And what's with the street lights? Is it the weird phenomena interfering with them?"

"Does she always talk this much at inappropriate moments?" Leo asked, both amused and irritated.

"So it would seem." Max's smile took the sting from his words.

"They told everyone to get them at the town meeting." James took pity on her. "Like you say, the streetlights are often problematic."

"Let's go already." Jess looked nervous, tying her hair into a knot on her head. "I just want my bed now."

For the first few minutes, nothing happened. Everyone seemed incredibly keyed up, and their anxiety rubbed off on Clara but the walk was silent, peaceful even. "You know, you don't all have to get me to my house." She offered again. "It's not far now."

"No!" James protested again. "It's only five minutes out of the way."

"It feels cold." Jess pointed out. She was right. Clara pulled her jacket tighter around herself. The air seemed to have dropped several degrees in a matter of moments. "We should hurry."

Glancing around, Clara spotted what seemed to be a little girl in a long dress. She was skipping along alone, apparently entirely unconcerned with the apparent danger. She couldn't see her properly, she was too far away down the street, always on the fringe of the streetlights, and never caught by them.

"Do you see that?" She asked.

No one answered her, still striding on at their relentless pace. Clara felt uneasy. It wasn't right to let a little child wander alone and the others clearly hadn't seen her.

"Hey!" She called out, breaking from their careful formation, jogging towards the girl who seemed to be turning towards her. "Don't be scared. Do you need help getting home?"

It felt colder. She was shaking as she ran. Something felt horribly wrong.

Strong hands grabbed her from behind, pulling her backwards and she almost tripped. Max's arms were firm around her waist as he yanked her back. "Stop!" He shouted as she struggled.

"Is she okay?" James called.

"It's a little girl." Clara protested. "She needs our help. She shouldn't be out here."

"It's not a girl." Max said nervously beneath his breath.

"What is it?" Leo called out as the others closed in around her again. He swept his torch in the direction of the girl.

She blinked. There was no one there. It was, like the strange robed man from the night before, as if no one had ever been there.

"I'm going crazy." She said softly. It was the only logical explanation. The others were looking at one another but said nothing.

James squeezed her arm, "Let's just get you home, alright."

The next day, she headed to work. She felt groggy after a sleepless night thinking about what she had seen. Max had been scared of that girl, she just knew it. And she knew he had seen it too. It wasn't just her.

She had a full morning of piano students, working on a couple of Chopin etudes and a Mozart sonata before she could grab her lunch. Harriet dragged her down to eat with some of her friends, but Clara ate quickly and retreated to her classroom with an apologetic smile.

Switching on her laptop, she started googling ghosts. She felt silly doing it, expecting links about Halloween, and ghost tours of various cities and a few paranormal societies. Most links she looked at couldn't agree and it felt like a fruitless endeavour until she knew more.

So she started searching for information on Gloomsdale instead. Immediately she started hitting dead ends. There were train sites with the timetable for the station and bus routes. It got a mention of one sentence on a forestry website and another on a camping website.

'Gloomsdale, despite its unfortunate name is a peaceful village on the edge of the forest. Isolated, and picturesque, it's a hidden gem for tourists and campers passing through.' That was it.

The village's own website had a little more. It mentioned local pubs and shops and conveniences but there was a single page named 'History'.

'The village of Gloomsdale was founded in 1682 by Italian Architect Frederico Vella, who emigrated with his family and several others from the small island nation of Malta. As a community, they purchased the land from the Duke of York and set about constructing the village you see today. While it has expanded and modernised since then, much remains of its past.'

So it was old then.

She tried searching for little girls who died in the village. There was a single hit but when she clicked the link it said that it was from the local newspaper and those hadn't been digitised yet. She would have to go into the next town or maybe the Town Hall to find it. Maybe she'd go at the weekend.

"I've not seen you today." James knocked once on her classroom door as he walked in anyway. "Are you hiding?" His eyes fell on her laptop screen. "You working on a history project?"

"Something like that." Clara replied, closing the laptop's lid. "You'll think I'm being silly. I just wanted to look into the village's past. I bet somewhere like this has a lot of interesting stories but there's nothing online."

"There's nothing that interesting here." James said instantly.

"Do you think the town hall might have something?" She pressed, "Newspapers, census records, baptisms and deaths, that kind of thing?"

"Maybe." James said reluctantly. "I don't know if they'd give you access." He was acting weird, seeming uncomfortable at her questions, "Why are you so desperate to dig into it anyway?"

"You can't think this is normal!" She burst out, "Curfews, and freak cold spots and running around with torches and people who seem to be there one moment and gone the next."

"We've told you already." James insisted. "There are scientists looking into it.

"Why would campers have gone missing?" She asked, "Because of the freak cold spots?"

"How do you know about...?" He frowned, "It doesn't matter. Stop looking for conspiracies. Also Warren needs you in the hall." The conversation was over, apparently.

Burning with embarrassment, she left the classroom, the first stirrings of anger at his insinuations that she was crazy starting to rise. She got halfway down the corridor and then turned back. Why, she wasn't quite sure, perhaps to confront him, despite her anxiety.

He had his back to her, his phone to his ear. "Look just get Leo on the phone alright? It's important."

She froze, backing up a step.

"It's Clara." James said. "Max said he didn't think she'd let it go and he was right. She's been asking all sorts, trying to do all kinds of investigation. What should I do?" He paused, listening. "Okay. Okay."

She'd heard enough, fleeing before he turned around.