The Girl

The Girl

I walked into the room and saw her weeping silently, with her head on the knees and her arms around herself. I walked as silently as I could into the room but she still heard me, lifting up her head to look at me with red puffy eyes. I have lived at my uncles house long enough to know this wasn’t one of his house maids so I approached her cautiously. She stood up and at first she looked at me with confusion which then quickly changed to fear, probably when she realised I was James Tenton’s niece. I stopped walking and said quietly “I wont hurt you, please tell me what’s wrong”. She still looked at me a little scared but she sat down on the plush blue velvet couch behind her. I was about to ask her again what was wrong when she looked at something behind me and started to shake violently and screamed loudly. I quickly turned around to see who it was when a blinding pain in my head overcame me and everything turned black.

I woke up, looked around, feeling disorientated and I blinked twice before my eyes focused on the people standing on the side of my bed. It was my uncle James, my aunt Laura and my 15 year old cousin Amelia. There was also another man who I didn’t know there, he was looking at me in a strange way but his expression changed to concern when he saw me grimacing as he started to run his hands around my head. I don’t know what happened but everything seemed to hurt and I couldn’t even talk without my head feeling as though it’s going to explode. “Uncle James, what happened” I asked, my voice sounding so hoarse that I didn’t recognise it. “I don’t know Jane, we all ran into the guest room when we heard you scream” uncle James said looking at bit frightened. I was about to ask what happened to the girl in my room when the strange man, who I realised was a doctor because he started to talk about my injury and my medicines to my uncle so I kept quiet.

He finally left and so did everyone else except Amelia after giving me some medicine for my headache. I looked at Amelia who looked so much like me with long wavy brown/black hair, dark blue eyes and was a bit fairer than me. She was always one of my best friends since I was small because I was only a couple of months older than her and we went to the same high school. She looked at me in concern and I realised suddenly that I was crying but I didn’t even know before, so I tried to stop and gave her a weak smile which she returned but still looking a bit worried. “Millie, where’s that girl who was in the room before I fainted” I asked her curiously because I didn’t see her till now. “What are you talking about Jane, there was no-one else in the room when we found you, are you sure you didn’t imagine things?” she said in return looking a little surprised. I was surprised myself because I clearly remembered the girl who was crying in the attic. “I walked into the guest room because I heard this girl crying but just as she was about to tell me what wrong she saw something behind me and started to shake and scream and the next thing I know is waking up here” I said. She looked at me intrigued and said “Oh Jane, that’s so strange because there is only one door into that room and we all came as soon as you screamed so where would she have gone?!” I was still thinking about that when 10 minutes later, my aunt came in to check on me and take Millie away so I can get some sleep.

I woke up the next day feeling well enough to get up so I got out of bed and got ready. I went downstairs to find everyone in their usual places; my uncle at the table drinking coffee while reading the newspaper, my aunt in the kitchen and my cousin on the couch in front of the TV eating breakfast. Everyone looked up when they heard me walk in and my aunt rushed to me and hugged me saying “Jane, I’m so glad you’re alright now, sit and have breakfast, what would you like?”. “Just toast thanks Aunt Laura” I said and turned to Uncle James who was looking at me and I decided to ask him what happened to me that other night. He quickly glanced at the doctor, who I found out was Dr Norton from Millie, and said “Sure Jane, why don’t you sit down.”

“Well you were upstairs in your room after the party and then about 10 minutes later, we heard you scream so we all ran upstairs. What were you doing in the guest room anyway?” my uncle said. I didn’t really want to tell him about the girl so I just made up some excuse about how I was looking for my jewellery box. I caught Millie’s eye and gestured her to come upstairs. I was just checking my email when she came in. I got up and hugged her, glad to see her.

“Ok. Jane, what is going on with all this? I just don’t get it; I mean where did that girl come from, where