SPOOKTOBER STORY #1.
Dinner was most satisfactory, the squab and rarebit that are a well-known specialty of our staff. The afters, however, an Eve’s pudding which proved much too sweet for our modest palates, perhaps yet another dreary experiment by Mlle. Garniere, set uneasily, and thusly we all removed to the parlor for a smoke and a digestif to settle our stomachs.
Mr. Phip was the first to speak, as we sat around puffing our smoke into the air and enjoying glasses of something exotic which Mr. Demme had returned from his travels to the Orient, and he began a story I had enjoyed before but most present had not, and I admired the adjustments and embellishments which set it apart from the previous telling. Was this to be another of our much-discussed nights of taleweaving? I certainly hoped so, as the esteemed Mrs. Hopperly was in attendance, and her prowess at the form was second-to-none in the social circles in which we revolved, though I had yet to hear one.
Mr. Phip’s story ended with an exuberant crash of terror which startled all in attendance, and set the tone for the evening. This was to be a night of ghost stories!
As the host, I took the next spot, and told (with an expert wickedness, in my esteem) the tale of a blind old woman I had happened across during my service. I elaborated with some great pleasure on the actual event, which had began and ended practically within the same quarter-hour, and turned it instead into a month of creeping evil against my person, from which I barely made it away with my life and sanity intact.
When I finished, a climax of terror and blood that I spun from wholecloth, there were several ejaculations of fright from the ladies in attendance, and swallowed harrumphs from the men, who stared into their glasses with feigned bravery. However, Mrs. Hopperly, her hands folded, remained unmoved. I turned to her.
“Perhaps Mrs. Hopperly would be so kind as to tell the next story,” I said, slightly wounded, “As she appears unaffected by the ghastly tales put forth by Mr. Phip and myself.”
She steadied herself, gazing upon me thoughtfully, appraising my person in a way I had not felt since I was a boy in shortpants, caught red-handed with a purloined biscuit. “Misters Phip and Epherton will excuse me. It is not that I do not appreciate the expertness with which their tales are told, nor the theatrical flourish of their telling. However, once one has been face to face with real, true, unfathomable horror, the parlor games of fictional ghost stories hold less sway than they once did.”
“Tell us,” begged Mrs. Demme, who was caught up in the fever of the taleweaving, a flush still on her cheeks from the fright the previous two stories had brought her. “A true tale of horror? We must hear it!”
There were nods all around the parlor. I, too, wanted to hear this story, if only so that I could publically scrutinize it afterwards; at the time, I found the thought that she would build legitimacy for her own story by tearing down the previous two quite unsportsmanlike. “Yes, yes,” I told her, a sourness in my tone. “Tell us this very true tale of oogy-boogys.”
She looked up at us, through half-closed lids, the glint of the fire against her spectacles obscuring her eyes.
“Very well,” she intoned. “However, I must warn you. Once I begin, I will permit no interruptions. It is not a brief tale, nor one that allows for questions; it must be told as it is told, and when it is finished, it is done.”
“Fine, fine,” I growled. “Get on with it, at your leisure, for we are only young but once.”
Her voice had lowered its timbre, as she seemed to disappear within herself, returning to it.
She began: “It was the second day in the month of October, and I was taking the first of my twice-daily constitutionals through the garden, where the delphiniums had begun to bloom. It was as I was admiring these that I saw a strange scrap of paper, which seemed cut from an old manuscript, yellowed, cracked at the edges. It was wedged between two stones which made up a wall.
I turned from the delphiniums and approached it. The wind caused it to wave, slightly, as if it were inviting me to pull it out, but the thought caused me a great chill, which penetrated through my body and caused me to nearly cry out.
However, I was alone, and so I dismissed the feeling as a result of the autumn breeze. I reached out, took hold of one corner of the scrap, and pulled. It came loose in my hand. I turned it about, and saw some faint words, only visible in shadow, as the sunlight washed them to invisibility against the page. I covered it from the sun with my other hand, used the cap of my bonnet as well, and with some great effort was able to make out the words.”
“What were they!” begged Mrs. Demme, enraptured.
Mrs. Hopperly glanced up at her, shaken from her reverie, the fire reflected in her spectacles mirroring the anger in her eyes. “I said I would permit no questions, and I kindly ask you to be silent as I tell my tale. However, since I was about to tell you regardless, I will answer this one, final, question.
The scrap said…
WELCOME TO SPOOKTOBER STORIES, YEAR SEVEN.”
