I glanced at the painting of the “Lady in White” as I went downstairs in the sixteenth century house we had rented for our holiday. “That’s strange”, I said, “I’m sure she was wearing a pearl necklace last night.”
“I thought so too”, said Janet, my roommate.
What a night it had been. We had been warned that the house was haunted, but had just laughed it off. That was before we were kept awake most of the night by creaking floorboards, rattling door handles and tapping noises on our windows.
As we walked into the dining room where all the others were gathered, Mary said “I’m sure there was a man in my room last night. I sensed him standing there looking down on me. Did you all hear the creaking and rattling noises? Do you suppose that was the ghost?”
“It was probably the wind”, I said.
Just then in came Paula. “Anyone lost a pearl necklace?” she asked. “I found it on the floor on the landing upstairs.” No-one had lost it. No-one even owned a pearl necklace. Paula left the necklace on the hall table, and we all went out for the day.
That night floorboards creaked and door handles rattled twice as much. Then came a muffled crash, which seemed to come from the heart of the house. We lay there in terror, too scared to investigate. After a few minutes the noises all stopped and everything became quiet again. We somehow managed to get back to sleep.
Next morning, on our way downstairs, I looked at the painting again and gasped “She’s wearing a pearl necklace again, look! How can that happen? It must be a trick of the light or something.”
Paula then said “That pearl necklace that I found on the floor yesterday has gone. Someone must have taken it in the night. It was still there when we went to bed. I checked.”
“Maybe there IS a ghost then, because the Lady in White in the painting upstairs is now wearing that necklace”, I said. “Either that or someone is playing tricks on us.” Then we all noticed the huge tapestry on the wall in the hall had fallen to the ground.
“There’s something very strange going on here!” I said.
An article written for Helium.com – rejected
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