Please Don't Forget Me

A howling wind outside the mansion did nothing to get rid of Caroline’s anxiety, as she stumbled over something cold and clammy and not moving. - A body, not breathing, dead, or so she thought. She crawled away from it, whimpering, touching the wall. She curled up in fetal position. A voice from somewhere in the room said, “You’ll be next, young one,” laughing wickedly like an old witch in some made up fairy tale from long ago, that didn’t end so well.

“What, what do you want?” Caroline retorted back, “I’ve done nothing to you. Nothing at all.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. You did indeed do something… think about it for a while and then we shall talk again.”

Caroline was cold. She felt wet from the rain, that pelted her skin from an open window. She felt fabric from what might be curtains touching her face. The hairs on her arm stood up. She thought why did I have to take the dare to come into this place? What was I thinking? She stood up, the silence now was making her worry. She felt a feather tickle her nose. She sneezed. As she felt a hand on her shoulder, she jumped.  More laughing from out of nowhere. She couldn’t see. “Do you remember now what you did?” No, she didn’t, but she was determined to get out of the house alive. She felt her way, touching what felt like books, some of which fell on the floor, and then a doorknob, she turned it and walked through one room to the next. 

“I like your hair,” said a young girl’s voice. She seemed calm and had an English accent.

“Well thank you,” said Caroline, “Forgive me, but I can’t see you. How do we get out of here?”

“We don’t,” the young girl said sadly, “At least, I didn’t.

Caroline tensed up, but then thought, “I will make it.” Just then, a chainsaw buzzed behind her, she jumped away from it and bumped into what felt like a pile of stuffed animals and fell over them. A whoosh of perhaps a metal tool, an ax maybe, hit the wall above her, barely missing her. She got up and ran stumbling over whatever else was in the room that she could not see. She hit the corner of a large piece of furniture. She put a hand on her aching side, and as she did so, the floor gave way from underneath her. She had fallen and landed in a room full of slithering snakes but had no clue that none of them were poisonous. She screamed. She fainted.

Cold water splashed against Caroline’s face. “Wake up!” the young girl’s voice sadly cried out next to her. “Hurry, she is coming!”

“What is going on?” Caroline slurred as she remembered where she was. She heard small footsteps running away from her. The young voice said, “Follow me,” but it was too late.

The old witch’s voice was back,” Are you ready to admit what you did now? Or do I need to get it out of you by any means?” she cackled.

“All I did was come into this house on a dare. What’s wrong with that?” Caroline retorted.

“Oh, you think you can just walk into my house unannounced and uninvited and get away with it. Do you?” said the old witch’s voice. “I shall teach you different.” She snarled.

Just as Caroline tried to get up from the bed someone had placed her on, a giant lobster claw reached out to her. Many flashlights flicked on and the word, “Surprise!” rang in her ears.  A group of friends from school surrounded her in costumes. From sure panic to relief Caroline smiled, “Oh you got me good.”

Henry was dressed up as a wizard. Jocelyn was a witch. Thomas was a dragon. Carl was a race car driver. Her best friend, Samantha, was a princess. They laughed. They helped her get to her feet. Carl touched a button on the boom box he held in his hand. He sat it down on the ground.  Music filled the room.

“Let’s Dance!” Joycelyn called out. Caroline jointed the group, swaying back and forth to the old classic, “Monster Mash.”   They danced for a while and then around one o’clock in the morning, after eating loads of candy, and popcorn, they had brought from home, they left the mansion as a group. Caroline shivered as a gentle breeze blew past her hand, “Please, don’t forget about me,” said the young girl, that only Caroline could hear, “I have waited here far too long. Someone needs to know.”

Caroline looked around her, a beautiful girl in a light blue dress looked sadly towards her, and Caroline touched Joycelyn’s arm. “Do you see her?” she asked her friend. Joycelyn was startled, “I don’t see anyone. Are you just trying to get us back.” She laughed.

“No.” Caroline whispered to herself. Maybe she had imagined it, but she didn’t think so. She would sleep on it.

The next morning after Halloween, Caroline woke up and decided to take a trip to the library in her old town, that had been around since before the 1800’s. She asked the librarian where the history section was. She went up to the third floor and started looking through all the books to see if there was anything about the old mansion she had been to the previous night. She had thumbed through what she thought had been all of them for several hours, and not finding one clue as to what had happened the night before when a newspaper on the table next to her blew open from a breeze blowing through a nearby window.  She got up and read it out of curiosity.

“A young girl from London went missing while visiting her aunt here in our little town of Salem, Massachusetts. She was last seen on a Friday night. We are sad to inform the public after informing her parents that she has not been found. Please be on the lookout for her and notify the town constable if you have anything.”

The article had been dated long before Caroline had even existed. The only update written in a few more papers on the floor near her, read, “The girl had never been found.”

Clearly, someone else was looking for the young girl. Caroline did not believe that the papers had just magically appeared, after she had searched most of the history aisles in the library to find something about the young girl that no one seemed to know about, except for her.

As Caroline turned the corner, an old woman was sitting at the table, she was mumbling under her breath, “I got to find her. I know she didn’t run away. I believe in mother. She said, great grandmother knew her sister well. She said something happened to her.” 

Caroline stared down at her. She saw a photo of the young blond girl she had talked to the night before staring back at her. A chill ran up her spine. “Madam, I uh, am so sorry.”

The old lady looked up at her. “Oh, it was so very long ago. I am just an old lady. I wanted to solve this family mystery for so long, because I thought I saw her once as a young girl up on that hill, but I never saw her again afterwards.  I forgot about her until recently, I started having nightmares about her. Someone did something horrible to her. I can feel it.”

Caroline stared at the old woman and then got up the courage to say what needed to be said. She whispered, “I saw her too. Last night.” She didn’t look away.

The old woman cried back, “Please don’t play with me, young lady. I’m old.”

“I am not. I swear,” Caroline sighed.

The elderly lady got up from her seat with the help of her old wooden cane. “Where?!”

Caroline explained to her elder what had happened the night before. Together, they both went to the police station and told the police what they knew about the girl’s whereabouts.

Now, the police chief just so happened to be a member of the old woman’s family. He had heard as a child all her stories, and he thought she was a bit crazy. He loved his aunt though, and so he decided to take a gamble and gathered up a few of his men and investigate the closed case to satisfy his curiosity and put the case to bed once and for all.

While Mrs. Jones and Caroline waited on a bench outside the mansion, the police searched it. It was around three o’clock in the afternoon, that the police chief was just about to come outside and announce that no one was found, when he heard one of his men, cry, “Chief over here!” He ran to where the young officer was bent over and looking into a door, that he had found behind a button he had accidentally bumped into. A skeleton of what could only be a young girl, had the withered remains of a dress covering it, laid on the floor. 

The young police chief walked out the front door and went to the bench where his aunt sat with Caroline. “I don’t know how, but we found her, after all this time.” He walked away back to his crew, calling an ambulance to the scene.

Mrs. Jones gave Caroline a hug. “Thank you, young woman.”

Caroline smiled sadly, and looked over Mrs. Jones’ shoulder, a young girl was smiling. In her light blue dressed she waved and laughed and faded into the light.