The Yuletide Haunting
a taste of this short, all-ages, Christmas ghost story
As we walked along the cobblestone streets the cobbles made me think about the tumbled stone beaches of Seaford, and I thought about how even though places could feel different, there was often a common thread that tied us together. I glanced at Noah and thought about saying something about families, but his stiff back and brisk pace made me change my mind.
The walk down to the castle didn’t take long anyway, so Noah and I made it in silence. They had tried hard to light the castle nicely for the festivities, and there were people walking around, but because of the gloomy sky, slate grey and cold, and the scratchy wind, all fidgety and curious, everything just felt a little desolate. We stood for a moment looking at the castle, and Noah waved his arm towards it, as if presenting it to me.
“Gripsholms Slott,” he said. “I think it’s only open in December for Christmas dinners, so we can’t go in.”
“That’s okay,” I replied. “We went last time I was here. It was nice. Lots of old pictures. I don’t think I need to go inside again though.”
“No. I haven’t been inside for a long time either. When you live here…” His voice trailed off and we stood in awkward silence again, neither of us having anything to say to one another.
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Families could be strange sometimes. You were meant to get on, meant to be connected in some way, but sometimes it just felt like you were standing in the wrong house, wearing the wrong clothes and not knowing whether the stones under your feet were street or beach.
“It’s haunted you know,” Noah said, and it felt like he just wanted to fill the emptiness between us. “The Grey Lady. You can see her sometimes, they say, gliding just above the floor, along the corridors, by the paintings, and up there, in that tower, looking out of the window. They say that if she looks at you, and you hear the sound of bells, then you only have a short time left before you die.”
“Spooky,” I replied. “But every place has a ghost story. Even my little town. Have you heard about the Seaford hitchhiker?”
He shook his head, and turned to look at me, with that slightly bored, aloof look on his face. I hesitated, but anything was better than standing there in strained silence, so I started telling the story.
“As you drive out of Seaford, towards Brighton, there’s a very dark, twisty bit, with no houses or streetlights, just empty fields, either side of the road. Some nights, especially if there’s no moon, and the weather is bad, windy and rainy, you can see a young woman hitchhiking. People have stopped to pick her up, and when she gets in the car it seems that she is in a real state. Distraught, soaked through, crying, saying how she really needs to get home, how her parents will be worried about her. She’s always at exactly the same spot of the A259, between Seaford and Newhaven, where the road is at its darkest, right on a bend.”
“Is the road number important?” interrupted Noah. “Why do I need to know the road number?” I looked at him and sighed.
“I’m giving you local colour. And the bend is important. Listen.” I looked at him to make sure he was paying proper attention, and then I continued.
“She’s so upset that most of the drivers who pick her up agree to drive her right to her parent’s house, just down from Brighton Station. But when they get there, she has just…gone. Disappeared into thin air, but the seat still damp from where she was sitting. Some drivers can’t believe their own eyes, and think that she must have slipped out without them realizing, and they go and knock on the door of the address she gave, but when they ask the man who opens the door if a young woman has just come in, he goes all quiet and strange, and tells them that his daughter died in a motorcycle accident on the Seaford road years ago, she was a pillion passenger, and she came off, right at the bend where she was picked up. The accident happened on a wet, moonless night, and the father explains that this isn’t the first time that someone has picked her up and brought her home, only for her to vanish. It’s her ghost trying to get home. She always disappears just as the car pulls up at their door.”
Noah was quiet for a moment, and then did an exaggerated shiver. “I liked my ghost story better,” he said. “Yours is too sad.” He waited a beat, and then carried on. “And too detailed.”
