Haunted UK - The story of Emma - Part One - A short story written by Bruno Bernard in 2016
It all started one lazy summer afternoon. I was eight years old and the six week summer break wound slowly as the sun basked the land with a golden glow. The days were hot but come the afternoons, by four o’clock, Mummy had already prepared some chilled cucumber sandwiches and some lovely fresh lemonade for the afternoon trip. After lunch, I usually rested with my magazines in bed. But no sooner than the clock would chime four in the hall I was up and out and waiting by the door for Mummy to fetch the basket for our usual trip. The summer days were languid and as soon as we were out of the house we were slowly making our way together through the woody country lane, up and up for two miles towards the churchyard on the top of the hill. Mummy walked behind me as I sauntered ahead looking for wild berries along the hedges. She loved to savor the fragrance of wild honey-suckle and roses along the country lane.
The sun flitted through the greens and yellows of a leafy canopy sheltering the road from the heat of an English summer. It took us about forty minutes to get to the top of the hill but by the time we got to the churchyard Mummy would pick her favorite spot beneath a twisted and rugged oak tree and she would lay a towel on the unkempt grassy floor and open the basket and recline gently against the trunk of the tree to enjoy the rest of the afternoon with a book. Of course it was at that moment that I could run about as much as I liked and I did not waste any time about it as I sought an adventure in a leafy long-forgotten and disused churchyard. We rarely came across the groundsman in the summer. The lonely churchyard was neglected and over-run by under-growth but seemed blissfully inviting as the birds chirped from the leaf-tops and the grasshoppers sang to the tune of the summer sun. Time erases all memories eventually. As I wondered through the sprawling ivy I tried to read a few indistinct etchings on the mossy grave stones that the rains had all but washed away. Mummy was peace in her own world of books as she reposed beneath the tree sipping lemonade for the rest of the lazy summer afternoon. As for me, I would watch the ants on the ground scurry along in elongated lines or spiders hanging from gossamer thin threads of silk; a bumble bee often drifted by in search of wild rose and honeysuckle and he occasional squirrel watched me keenly as I sat in the grass playing with a large twig lost in my own world of make-believe.
Mummy loved to take the flowers back home and then place them in the middle of thick heavy books. After a month she would open the book and take out the pressed and dried flower and make pretty pictures with pressed grasses and wild flowers. The sun shone on through the leaves of the trees an when I had let my daydreams run their course I would sometimes get up from the grass and go out and away from Mummy’s sight in search of wild flowers for Mummy to press in her books at home. Mummy loved the wild white and gold oxeye daisies and the tall fluffy flowers that sprang above the grass, carpets of yellow Anethum and Echinacea added to the sleepy drama of a silent graveyard that was teeming with wildlife.
One afternoon I was treading through the grass by the old graves in search of flowers when I saw a young girl in a blue frock smiling at me. She was standing behind an old and large, arching yew tree with a smile to match the golden setting sun over the tree tops. Her hair was bright red and her eyes glistened and sparkled with radiating a warmth that drew me closer. As I approached her I smiled back in response to her welcome. I had never met another child in the abandoned churchyard. She must have been six years old as she was smaller than me. As she smiled at me I noticed she had an expanse of brown freckles under her eyes which complimented her orange eyebrows. We smiled at each other for a good minute before she spoke first and asked me my name. Then I learned that her name was Emma and that she hailed from the village across the other side of the hill and that she too would come sometimes with her mother for country walks in the afternoon. Our friendship grew through the silence as our eyes danced in happiness as we smiled at each other. Then she held out her small white hands and offered me a pink rose. Emma said that she had picked the rose from near an old gravestone and she turned her head and pointed in a direction behind her, behind a group of trees. I tried to peer over her shoulder in the direction she was pointing but instantly became enveloped by an awareness of her long wavy red hair that flowed down from a center parting. She turned back at me and smiled and told me she needed to go and would see me again. I could only smile back a thousand words tried to surge out at once but became stilled by her smile. The girl by the tree smiled back at me before I could say anything more and then she vanished behind the yew tree and a thick of ivy covering a large grey mausoleum.
The sun was setting. I found Mummy by the oak making a daisy chain into a loop. I held out my hand and offered her the pink rose and she smiled back at me and drew me to sit beside her. She folded her arms around me and put the daisy crown on my head with a kiss. ‘Time to go back home my little prince’ she said as she woke from her listless dreamy world. I smiled as we both watched the reddish glow of the sun through the leaves. It was now after seven in the evening. It was time to go home and the birds were singing louder. Perhaps I would tell Mummy that I had found a new friend.
Emma …
