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"Here I Am Again"
Having written about Lord Halifax's Ghost Book the other day I thought it would be nice to own a copy. It arrived yesterday. Mary, who is seven, was interested in it.
"Alright if I read Mary a creepy story?" I asked Wendy- because one mustn't reduce other people's kids to jelly without their permission.
Wendy said, "Fine."
So I read her "The Bordeaux Diligence". First I explained what a diligence was because at her age- when I first encountered the story- I hadn't known- and the not knowing had made the story even more uncanny than it already is. Mary doesn't give much away. Was she entertained? Was she scarified? "
She asked for another.
So I read her the one about the man who spends the night in an old house in Deal and wakes to find a hideous old woman leaning over him. Twenty years later he visits the house again and guess what...
"Turning round, I saw in the corner of the room facing me a curious column of light revolving spirally like a whirlwind of dust on a windy day. It was white, and as I gazed , it slowly drew near to me.
'Here I am again!' the thing kept repeating..."
I think M.R, James would have been happy with that effect. And what is more, unlike his stuff, it happens to be true....
"Alright if I read Mary a creepy story?" I asked Wendy- because one mustn't reduce other people's kids to jelly without their permission.
Wendy said, "Fine."
So I read her "The Bordeaux Diligence". First I explained what a diligence was because at her age- when I first encountered the story- I hadn't known- and the not knowing had made the story even more uncanny than it already is. Mary doesn't give much away. Was she entertained? Was she scarified? "
She asked for another.
So I read her the one about the man who spends the night in an old house in Deal and wakes to find a hideous old woman leaning over him. Twenty years later he visits the house again and guess what...
"Turning round, I saw in the corner of the room facing me a curious column of light revolving spirally like a whirlwind of dust on a windy day. It was white, and as I gazed , it slowly drew near to me.
'Here I am again!' the thing kept repeating..."
I think M.R, James would have been happy with that effect. And what is more, unlike his stuff, it happens to be true....