Bessie
By James Steeves
Some people say the place is haunted, but I don’t believe it. I mean, who doesn’t like a good ghost story and all, but come on; a story is just a story.
Dad is volunteering at this museum along the Grand River called Ruthven Park, so I decided to tag along for the evening while he gets his keys. He’s been reading up on it and says there used to be a whole town with mills and shops along the river. But now only the house and the family cemetery remain. “Ghost town” is the term Dad uses to describe it, but I know that just means the town is gone.
After a long drive through the countryside, Dad turns onto a tree-lined lane which curves down towards the river. Streaks of colour from the fading sunset dance on the rippling water.
We drive past a stone sculpture of a girl in a wide-brimmed hat and park the car in front of the museum. Four tall columns support the peaked roof covering a two-storey porch at the top of a wide stone stairway. The stone shimmers pink in the light of the sunset.
“Mr. Sampson?” A young woman with curly brown hair and glasses stands at the top of the stairs.
“And Master Sampson,” Dad says with a wink. “I brought my son, Wil, if that’s all right.”
“Of course! Welcome, Wil. I’m Mrs. Cunningham, Director of the museum.” She descends the stairs and joins us at the bottom. “It’s getting dark, so I’ll show you where the family cemetery is first. Then I need you to sign a few things inside so you can get started with the tours tomorrow.”
Dad and I follow Mrs. Cunningham past the stone statue and across a field. The colours of the flowers slowly fade to shades of gray in the twilight. At the edge of the meadow is a small cemetery nestled under the trees, protected by a metal fence. The iron gate creaks as we step into the mossy clearing.
Tombstones of different shapes and sizes stand in tidy rows. “That one belongs to David Thompson, the patriarch of the family,” says Mrs. Cunningham, pointing at a tall stone obelisk near the back. “He built the mansion in the 1840s. And beside him are his wife and children.” Another smaller obelisk stands to the right of the taller one, and a wide, lichen-covered stone rests horizontally on a platform to the left.
I immediately feel a weird vibe coming from the far right of the two obelisks, making my skin crawl. I brush my arms with my hands and walk slowly towards the edge of the cemetery, stopping in front of a small stone. It looks like it’s made of rough fieldstones, and it has a curious tilt to the left.
“That’s the grave of Mr. Thompson’s granddaughter,” says Mrs. Cunningham. “She fell ill when she was only ten.” The shadows in the fading light make it too dark to read the epitaph carved in the center.
“Come on,” says Mrs. Cunningham to Dad. “You can take a closer look tomorrow. There are some things I need to show you back at the house.” She turns towards the gate and guides us back across the meadow.
We walk quietly towards the museum. The moon begins its ascent across the night sky, and the crickets break the silence with their chirping. As we walk past the girl statue, I feel like she is watching me.
We climb the stairs and enter a large front hallway. A long wooden staircase curves elegantly upwards to the second floor, and high above, past the shadows of the upper level, slivers of moonlight stream down from a skylight and glisten on the wooden banister.
“Are you okay for a bit?” Dad pats my shoulder and smiles. “I just need to go to the office with Mrs. Cunningham for a minute. Then we can go.”
“Sure,” I say. I watch as he follows Mrs. Cunningham towards the back of the hallway and through a small door. I linger in the hall for a moment, taking in the antique mirror and framed photographs on the wall.
I explore the main level for a bit, the muffled sound of Dad’s and Mrs. Cunningham’s voices echoing from the back of the house. The only light comes from the lamp in the hallway and the bits of moonlight from the skylight upstairs. All the windows are covered by thick curtains or wooden shutters.
I walk carefully through the main rooms, trying to avoid toppling any of the antique tables and chairs which, in the dim light, cast strange shadows on the walls. On one side of the hall, I discover a large parlour with a fireplace and elaborate pillars. On the other side, a long, mahogany table runs the length of a dining room, with dinner plates safely stored behind glass doors of large wooden cabinets.
When I return to the hall, I squint my eyes in the light. I get a funny feeling that something is different. One of the photographs is crooked now, and the reflection of a faint orb of light flickers in the ornate mirror.
I walk to the foot of the stairs and take a step, my sweaty hands gripping the banister. The stairs creak under my weight, but something seems off. I stop mid-step and hear a creak from above. My eyes follow the banister up to the shadows at the top. And there, standing on the landing, is a little girl.
“Ha … hello?” I squeak. I clear my throat and try again. “Who are you?”
The girl looks curiously down at me from the top step. She’s a bit shorter and younger than me with a cute, round face, long hair, and is wearing a white dress.
“Did I startle you?” Her voice is quiet and gentle, like the sound of a bell.
I shake my head. I can feel my neck getting warm and my cheeks starting to flush. “No. I mean, I’m fine. I'm Wil. And you are?”
She turns away from me and gestures for me to follow. “Come on,” she says.
I shrug and start to climb the stairs. “So, are you, um, Mrs. Cunningham’s daughter or something?”
The girl ignores my question and leads me across the dark hallway and into a large bedroom. It’s hard to see with only the light from downstairs and the skylight, but I can make out from the shadows a bed and a small desk and shelves with antique toys and porcelain dolls. "Let's play!" says the girl. She walks over to what looks like a shuttered window and then–
The lights go out. In the whole house. Even the moonlight from the skylight vanishes, likely blocked by a cloud. We fall into total darkness. From below I can hear a faint shriek followed by a commotion.
I bump into something–the bed, most likely–and look up to where the girl had been. A small orb of light hovers in the air in front of me. The girls’ laughter fills the darkness as the orb spins in the air creating a whirlwind, the force of the air pushing me back against the bed.
“Ah, Dad?” I try to shout, but my voice is stifled by the wind and drowned out by the girl’s laughter. My heart beats loudly in my ears. The orb spins faster and faster in front of me, and then, in the blink of an eye, it shoots to the right and vanishes, the laughter lingering for a moment, then fading into a heavy silence.
I squint my eyes and gasp for breath. At first, I can’t move, but then I find the power to force my heavy feet forward towards the door, waving my arms in the darkness in front of me, trying to avoid the furniture and the walls. The air is stuffy and suffocating.
My heartbeat kicks into overdrive at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. I stop suddenly, realizing I have nowhere to go. The footsteps get louder and closer. The lamp in the hallway flickers on and off. The footsteps get closer, reaching the landing, then slowly crossing the hallway towards the room, the old floor creaking under the weight of whoever–or whatever—approaches. I back away from the door and gasp.
“Wil? Are you in here?” Dad steps through the door as the lamp downstairs comes on. He looks towards the stairs and smiles. “Oh good! She fixed it.”
I've never been so happy to hear his voice and see him, but I resist the urge to run over and hug him. I just stand there, clutching my stomach and trying to catch my breath.
“Mr. Sampson? Wil?” Mrs. Cunningham joins Dad at the door with a flashlight. “Just a fuse. Is everyone okay?”
“Ah, Sure,” I say.
I look down at the floor. Two sets of footprints disturb the dusty floor: the larger set stops at the bed and returns to where I’m standing; the other set, much smaller than mine, stops abruptly at the shuttered window.
I look back at Mrs. Cunningham and take a deep breath. “Whose room am I in?” I ask. But I already know the answer.
“Why, this was Bessie’s room. Mr. Thompson’s granddaughter.”
Ruthven Park Museum stands on the eastern shore of the Grand River near Cayuga, Ontario. It was built in the 1840s by David Thompson, a prominent entrepreneur and financial backer of the Grand River Navigation Company. Thompson founded the town of Indiana, Ontario, which at one point was home to several mills and small businesses and which marked the starting point of a long series of locks and canals along the river. The house remained in the family for five generations and is now a National Historical Site of Canada.
Beside the house is a small cemetery where David now lies with his wife and family. Near the perimeter of the cemetery is the small, dark tombstone of David’s granddaughter, Bessie, who died at the young age of ten in 1876. Some people claim to have seen her at night in the mansion, waiting at the top of the stairs for somebody to play with her.
James Steeves is a teacher librarian in Mississauga, Ontario. His ghost stories for children have appeared in previous issues of Forget Me Not Press. He is a member of SCBWI and a friend of CANSCAIP. When he’s not in his library or teaching children about the War of 1812, he can often be found exploring old cemeteries for story ideas. He is pretty sure that his house in Hamilton, Ontario isn’t haunted, but he does have an ancestor’s memorial stone in his backyard that was relocated from England, and it may have moved slightly on its own from time to time. You never know.
Twitter: @jsteeves71
Image 1: Ruthven
Image 2: Ruthven Cemetery
Image 3: Bessie’s Grave