The Spirit of the Manor

(Trigger warning: Suicide)

Ellie, stood in the great hall of the old, creaky manor. The chill from outside coating her with goosebumps. Her breath created clouds in the air before her, the grand-daddy clock rang angrily in the distance startling her. A rapid, rhythmic thumping inside her chest. Where the hell was that child of hers? Of all places for her child James, to run off to… She needed to find that boy before he got himself hurt, Ellie could only imagine the number of code violations this building had after decades of abandonment and she needed no assistance in catastrophizing scenarios of how her precious boy could be injured. She ignored the eerie atmosphere and called him “James!”. 

To her right, a study. She entered the room with quick steps, the dust infiltrating her sinuses, she sneezed, again, and again. This is not the time for allergies. Her heart still pounding in her chest, he mouth dry as if all the liquid had traveled to her palms. No sign of James in the study, in fact there was no sign of anyone on the ground level at all. 

Beneath her flip flops, the wooden steps squeaked, as she made her way to the second level. The first bedroom straight ahead was enormous, a canopy bed centered the room and a vanity sat against the northern wall covered with a white sheet. Ellie, called James once again, this time getting a response. The door hurled shut causing her to abruptly contort her body to face the door, cramping pain in her side. A woman’s shrieky voice echoed her call, “JAMES!!!”. The woman cackled. Wide eyed, Ellie searched for who the voice had belonged to but she appeared to be alone in the bedroom. Now disoriented with ringing in her ears, she rushed to the door trying to escape. Twisting and turning the knob did nothing to release the door. She backed up away from the door trying not to panic, eyes closed, she repeated slow deep breaths in, hold, out. When she opened her eyes again a woman figure inches from her face, pale skin, blonde hair, and red lipped, a black dress clinging to her shape, with a rope tied around her neck flashed before her. A wift of swamp water hit her nose, her stomach turned. She stood panting before the door contemplating her options and suddenly the door clicked open on its own. She ran out to the hall in a panic remembering what she had been doing in the house initially. James. She had to find James. Afraid now to call out for him she whispered into each room searching, wide eyed. Her heart was going to explode for sure. She entered each bedroom only enough to see in and whisper but not letting go of the door. In the hall, something dark in the corner of her eye drifted by. Terrified of what it might be, but hopeful it might have been James, she followed whispering his name. Around the corner, whatever it was she saw moving was now gone. A weakness in her chest and tears welling in her eyes, the desire to just fall to her knees and sob  tempted her. Determined, she fought the feelings and continued on down the hallway hand on the shiny cold railing. Paintings hung on the wall of animal carcasses opened up, a Raven’s heart and rib cage with black feathers spread on the ground near it, a deer’s abdomen ripped open with maggots feeding on it and a fox’s head detached from its body, half decayed and eyes closed. The smell of rot came and went as she moved through the manor. She came to a dead end in the hallway with a window. She approached the window, looking out over the courtyard only to see James playing in a fountain down below. Relief hit her, as she raced around back to the grand staircase, her heart still pounding hard and quick now matching her feet. Ellie turned a corner and immediately stopped mid stride nearly tripping over herself. The woman from the bedroom blocked her way to the stairs. The ghost stood there smiling eerily, teeth and all. Ellie’s eyes searched the woman, her feet not hitting the floor just hovering. She had two choices but only one of them got her to her boy. She pushed off her feet and charged as fast and hard as she could make her body go, screaming as loud as her lungs would allow and bolted through the woman and down the stairs. Half way down the steps she missed a step and tripped catching herself on the banister. Ellie made it down the steps not daring to look behind her, she grabbed for the brass handle of the front door to escape but the door wouldn’t budge. Her mind was dizzy, this is where she came from how could it be locked? Ellie turned to find another exit only to be face to face with the woman in the black dress still smiling, neck broken and head tilting with the rope around her. Suddenly the rope appeared to pull her up into the air until she was dangling from the banister on the top floor. Ellie stared for a moment, then raced to the study again to break a window. She picked up the heavy chair at the desk and threw it hard at the glass. Shards covered the floor both inside and outside, crunching under her as she climbed to her freedom. There he was, James playing in the grass now. She called for him one last time and he turned to her and smiled “Mama!” as he ran toward her. She climbed over the porch railing ignoring the steps to her right, wasting no time. It was then Ellie realized James was playing with something in his grip. What is that? It’s white and smooth… A sphere almost. A ball? No. He turned his hand. A skull. A very small skull. A child’s?

The woman appeared again between Ellie and James, stopping her in her tracks. The woman picked James up and hugged him tight to her chest. The skull crashed to the ground. A sound filled Ellie’s ears, it was loud and hoarse, her ears rang again and she realized it was her own scream. A scream for her baby boy, to be released from this horrific monster who now held him. Ellie marched toward the woman, afraid to blink in case they vanished. The woman turned away from Ellie, walking away with James, they vanished. A child’s cry echoed in the distance. Ellie knew that cry, that was James. “James!!!” she screamed her throat raw. The crying faded until she heard nothing. 

Where the hell had she taken him? Head spinning, Ellie didn’t know what to do. Her foot nudged something on the ground, she looked, it was the skull James had been holding. Where did he get this? Whose skull was this? Did ghost lady have a child when she lived? Ellie, picked up the skull examining it. It was definitely smaller than her own, must have been a child. She held it as she walked around the manor to the fountain she had seen James playing in. Despite the manor being abandoned for decades, the fountain still flowed water. Coins blanketed the bottom. She circled the fountain, there it was. Something whitish and blurry below the surface camouflaging under the bubbles of the fountain. She stuck her hand in and pulled out the object. It was more bone, a clavicle she would guess, with a shiny silver chain wrapped around it. The pendant on the chain was a circle, with a single red gem. Ellie, unwrapped the chain from the clavicle letting that fall to the water along with the skull. 

Ellie made her way back inside the manor to look for the spirit and her son but also focusing on the photos displayed for a little child wearing a necklace. In the study, she lifted the white sheet off the desk. Minuscule bits created a cloud above the desk causing her to sneeze once again. She tossed the sheet to the floor and picked up the picture frame from the desk. A wooden frame encircled a black and white photograph of a family. A tall man in a vest and tie, hat and mustache with his arm around a woman. Ellie recognized the woman in the photo, blonde, red lips, smiling. But it was the boy that gave Ellie shivers down her spine and back up again and caused her stomach to knot and turn. The boy in the photo was identical to her James. Same blonde hair, same face shape, same blue eyes, same age, height, weight, right down to the blue slacks and white shirt and tie he wore that day… Sweat now dripped down Ellie’s upper lip and her shirt was damp under her arms. She dropped the picture unable to steady her hands now. She ran to the great hall calling out once more for her son. She searched every room again but the woman and James were gone. She stepped out to the courtyard and screamed his name again and again. “Bring me back my SON!!!” she screamed. Her voice raspy now and her throat on fire. Ellie sunk down on the front steps and sobbed for hours. Exhaustion took over her body but she fought sleep. She stumbled back into the house and crawled up the stairs. She entered one of the bedrooms again considering rest. There on the king sized bed lay a rope with a noose already prepared and a red lipstick. Ellie, so fatigued she could barely stand, considered the rope. She took it in her hands, running her fingers across the rough, stubbly material. She dragged the rope to the banister above the great hall passing a large mirror hanging on the wall, a black blob motioning in the corner of her eye. She looked out to the ground floor. Unable to yell anymore she whispered his name again “James”. Tears streamed down her red lips, her eyes closed. She tied the rope to the top of the banister, the noose around her neck… When Ellie fell, her flip flops fell to the ground, her blonde hair cascaded over her face, as her body swayed in the air.