I used to live in a quiet town in Devon with my parents. Our nearest neighbour lived almost 5 miles away. It was the most perfect house ever, thatched with a beautiful garden with all kinds of wild flowers. I was happy there you know, it was just a normal place. I went to a small school in on of the nearby villages; I had quite a few friends there, but my best friend was a girl called Jackie. She was a lot prettier than me, curly blonde hair, deep blue eyes and she was as thin as a rake. She was one of those people that would always stick up for you in a fight, who would believe you even if you were talking total garbage.
Jackie always used to have a fascination with ghosts and anything like that. She used to go on websites like these and just read the ghost stories all day. She really believed in them, it was like they were as real as the sun is hot. I never really believed, but I used to find it amazing how she could believe in anything so passionately. Jackie never claimed to have seen a ghost, but any weird noises in her house would immediately be a poltergeist or phantom.
I was at a sleepover at her house one night. If you have ever watched the Grudge just before you go to sleep you’ll know it makes you kind of jumpy. We were just talking normally, about stuff that girls talk about. At about 3 in the morning we started hearing these noises. Jackie’s house was big; a basement, first floor, second floor and an attic. The noises were coming from the first floor. It was like a gargling noise, and what sounded like whispering. Jackie was so excited telling me all these bogus ghosts stories about her house, she could just pull them out of her head. I told her that it was just the heating.
Over the next few days we didn’t bring it up, it wasn’t really relevant. About a week later at 8 in the morning there was a knock on my door. It wasn’t a polite knock; it was almost a desperate knock, if knocking can be desperate. I am an insomniac, so I was already up and dressed. Jackie was there shaking all over when I answered. She was pale, her hair wasn’t brushed, and she looked like she was having withdrawal symptoms or something. She began telling me about the noises. She said that she had tried to ignore them, but they had been getting worse. The whisperings had gotten louder until you could make out words. She had said all this in a rush on the doorstep. Even though I didn’t really believe in what she was saying I could see she was upset, so in brought her inside and made her some kind of hot drink, coffee I think.
When she had finished it, Jackie gave me this look. She looked genuinely frightened. I had never seen her like that. Then she began telling me that she went to bed at 12-ish, she had been on the computer doing homework. She said she woke up around 3 and heard the noises and whisperings. She caught the odd words, things like, ‘children’, ‘menace’, ‘burned’, and things like that. She put some music on and went back to sleep. She said she woke up about 6, she didn’t know why. Jackie rolled up her sleeves and there were scratches all up her arm. I began shouting at her, how could she not tell me her parents were doing that to her. I didn’t understand. Have you ever had an icy pain in your chest or stomach when you are shocked, so it is like you heart flutters? I remembered that her parents had gone away. Jackie was hysterical, but she still managed to sputter out something like, ‘I think it was a ghost’.
She stayed at my place that night and we talked about anything but the ghosts. Actually when I think back, Jackie kept bringing it up; I just kept changing the subject. Her parents were back the next day so she went home. I don’t think I was ready to accept the concept that ghosts might actually be real, so I avoided Jackie for about a week. I wish I hadn’t but I can’t change anything now. I didn’t return her calls, even though she left me messages, describing the noises and whisperings, she was saying they were getting more intense. Her bed sheets kept being pulled off her, doors opened by themselves, and objects kept moving from place to place. I only listened to the first of her messages, I deleted the rest. It sounded so cliché, how could it be real? How could people who are dead come back? Once you're gone you’re gone.
Like I said, I avoided Jackie for about a week. Then I realised that if I were coming out with all this rubbish about haunting, noises and moving objects, Jackie would have been there for me. So the next day, I went over to Jackie’s. I apologised, she understood and forgave me. Jackie was a very black and white person. She started telling me about how she had researched the history of our village.
"In the 17 hundreds there was a pair of old women the used to live on the Moors. They used to come into the village each week to buy supplies. They both also used to buy strange herbs and spices. People used to gossip, saying about how they were witches, and all the children became afraid of them. One day, four children went missing from the village. Their mothers went into their rooms to wake them up, but they were gone. The town's miller swore he saw the two old women lingering about the village that night. That very night the men of the village dragged these two women from their home onto the village green. They were burned to death for practicing witchcraft and kidnapping. Two days later, the four children returned to the village. They had just gone exploring in the woods, and they had stolen food from the old ladies' cottage. The old women were innocent."
Jackie had also found that where her house was built, was where the old village green was. So she reckoned that it was these women that were haunting her house. I began to believe her. It sounded convincing, I mean if I was killed for a crime I didn’t commit, I would be really annoyed. I told her this and she agreed. She said that she didn’t think they would really hurt her though, as they never hurt those children when they were alive. I shouldn’t have let her spent another night in that house but I still wasn’t really a believer.
* * *
The next morning I walked down to Jackie’s house, hoping to talk to her more about her findings. As I walked, there was the distinct smell of smoke in the air. I didn’t give it a second thought until I walked into the lane where Jackie lived. There were fire engines everywhere and a few police cars.
Everything from there is a blur. I found out that a fire had begun in Jackie’s bedroom at around 3 in the morning. Everyone in that house died in their sleep. The police never found out what caused the fire, it had them stumped. There was nothing in Jackie’s room that could have started the fire. I am not asking you to believe my story, because I know myself that I lost a good friend. It could have been anything that started that fire. But Jackie’s next-door neighbour said that he saw two figures leave the house just after the fire had started. I’m not saying it was ghosts, because honestly I don’t know what killed my friend that night. But I am living in a newly built house, and I checked that there was no grisly history to the land it was built on. That is how much I believe that something wasn’t right about that fire.
I’m not a strong believer in ghosts, even after everything that has happened. I don’t know, I might still be in shock or denial. Just don’t do what I did, be in denial for so long, that it is too late.
