Hometown Girl - BFF prompt

Gill dragged back from lunch. The school-yard heaved, laughter and screams, heckles and pounding footfalls echoing off the brick walls. A car horn blasted her out of her miserable contemplation.

“Stay or go, I don't care, but get out of the road, child.”

Mr Graham, class 3B teacher. Some people were born to their jobs, a calling. Mr Graham hated kids and had found the perfect job to allow him to abuse them.

Gill crept to the kerb, forced into the car park by Graham's advance. Unable to loiter, herded by teacher and time, she crossed the threshold into the alien landscape beyond. Gill's playground times were split. Either  general bullying because she never had time to stay, play, make friends, or alone, sat in a corner with her nose in a book, hiding. With ten minutes left until afternoon bell she skirted the edges of the sea, children ebbing and flowing, crashing occasionally against the pier of dinner nannies.

Rounding the corner of the crumbling Victorian building which housed Oliver Goldsmith primary school, her eyes alighted on the forbidden territory of the back staircase. The wide, deep, concrete steps led up to an entrance, giving egress to the internal stairwell, off limits to all children unless during fire drill. The deep recess with its pair of decrepit columns and carved wooden doors, adorned with a bulky, rusty padlock, served for a perfect hidey hole. Gill crept up the stairs, hugging the wall to hide her furtive movements from the ever vigilant nannies and prefects, slipping into the shadows of the door and settling to her book. Call of the Wild, speaking to the wolf who longed to be free in her timid heart.

Shade fell across her book and she smiled; a thing of fleeting brightness, rarely shown. Daisy grinned back, pretty much the only person Gill considered a friend.

“Can you hang round after school tonight?”

Gill knew better. Somewhere deep in her heart a little voice screamed about how much trouble she was storing up for herself, but sometimes she couldn't take it any more. She needed to break free, be a child. Ten was too young to be carrying so many burdens. She nodded slowly.

“Sure?” Daisy asked, sometimes uncomfortably perceptive, although never breaking through the shroud of silence which surrounded abuse, unhappy home lives. Gill shrugged.

“What's happening?”

“Tell you later” Daisy called over the bell, kids streaming into regimental lines ready for afternoon battles with Romans, long division and country dancing.

Gill knew a moment of terrified doubt when the final bell sounded and children streamed onto the streets. Some ran to parents sporting tape and glue monstrosities which were received with loving bemusement. Others grouped, walked together, nonchalant in their independence. She almost bolted but, approaching the car park gates, she spotted Daisy chatting to Daniel. Too young to recognise the strange flutters in her stomach, the increase in heart-rate, Gill only knew that she wished Daniel would notice her, be her friend. Again, the urge to run from the unknown situation flared, but Daisy called her by name, waved her over. Gill noticed another couple of boys heading their way, joining the growing group. She stuck around the edges, listening.

It was an old story, one known to every community, big or small. Next to the school ran a terrace of houses. They were crumbling, old, overgrown in gardens and cracked in panes. In short they were the perfect setting for 'The Ghost Story'. Every child comes across the story, usually just before adolescence, and Peckham was no different. The story always appeared replete with capital letters in the title, hushed, even awed tones in the telling and ended with uneasy laughter and not a few sleepless nights for the audience. It didn't surprise Gill when Daniel took up the telling. He was confident and intelligent, top of the class, the only thing she shared with him.

The group retired to wooden benches against the wall which adjoined the 'haunted' houses. Daniel took a dramatic breath, scanned them all for attention levels and launched into a fairly standard, 'girl meets handsome man, marries him, dies in mysterious circumstances and haunts the house forever with evil intent' story. Gill, ever an observer, surreptitiously surveyed the faces, noting how rapt each face had become, how intent, deep in suspension of disbelief, hesitant glances flicking to the darkening gardens over the low wall. By the time Daniel rose to his feet, paused for dramatic effect and then swept an accusatory hand toward the houses, it was almost full dark, the winter night chill and perfect cover for scared shivers.

“This very house is where the ghost lived. They say she was driven insane by the strange death of her sister, eventually dying by poison and her ghost comes out to consume wandering souls on nights with a full moon!”

Even Gill found herself looking up, uneasy smiles appearing on faces lighted by the moon sailing majestically through the wisps of cloud above. The story session over, small groups were forming, readying for the walk home. As they clambered over the locked gates, contemplating the pools of orange lamp-light, fearing the darkness between each glowing island, Daniel and Daisy formed up beside Gill. The groups began to part, voices tremulous or too loud, hiding internal unease. The three were alone in heading toward Dalwood Street. Daniel and Daisy fell into easy chatter about the current class project but Gill found herself watching the scarred windows of the houses.

The house closest to the school was by far the most dilapidated. The garden wall had fallen into the basement stairwell, ivy tendrils all that held it together. The stone steps leading to its battered front door were lost under thick drifts of leaves, giving off a pungent, earthy aroma. The door hung inward, a single hinge all that stood between it and the fall into oblivion. The very bricks seemed ancient, decayed beyond their true age. She wondered how such a building could still stand, how not fall into the rubble it yearned to be.

Her steady concentration meant she did not at first recognise what she was seeing. It took several flickers, wavery, misty, before she realised a flame was feathering light on the boarded upper windows.

“Guys, hey!”

Her sudden interruption stopped the chattering pair in their tracks, heads turning in curiosity. She pointed to the red glow, deepening rapidly.

“I think there's a fire. Should we get the fire brigade?”

The local station was at the top of the road and would arrive in less than a minute.

Daniel stared and then yelled.

“There's someone in there. A kid!”

Before the girls could speak or move, Daniel vaulted the rusted iron gate and hared around the side of the house.

Daisy hesitated, looked from the house to Gill and took off running.

“Help him! I'll get the fire guys.”

Gill paused, watched the upper windows and saw a brief shadow within the fire glow. It looked like no child. Rather it was tall, thin, decidedly feminine, and seemed to be heading deeper into the house, perhaps searching for stairs. Tramps, of both genders, were a common feature of London life and they often slept in abandoned buildings. Gill gave up on thinking and ran into the garden, her eyes searching the dim, weed clogged grounds for any sign that Daniel had passed through. She swore furiously, bending to rub her barked shin, vaguely making out an upturned barrow in the tangle of grass. Turning her attention back up, to the house, her breath froze in her chest, her eyes so wide they ached for days after.

Daniel stood, knee deep in scrubby bushes and bindweed, transfixed. Gill tried to move her limbs but got no response, her voice as stilled as her body. She watched in helpless horror as a pale figure billowed from the rear door of the house. It drifted, ghost white, ephemeral, more rippling rags than substance, gradually enveloping the petrified boy. As he disappeared from view, absorbed, obliterated without a murmur, an exultant shriek issued from the rags. A face exploded forth, screeching toward Gill, her legs becoming jelly, dropping her into the undergrowth. The stench of mould, earth, damp and the rust of blood swirled around her prone form. An image lingered, rotted teeth, bleeding eyes and matted hair held in place by a rusted, garnet and pearl encrusted tiara. The weight of its passing forced her down, mind collapsing, thought impossible. Flames licked out of the windows, glass, wood and brick detonating in every direction.

In the final seconds before Gill passed out she saw an image which would stay with her forever. Daniel's body floated clear of the enshrouding rags, a dry husk, wrinkled, aged and barely recognisable. Slender arms dumped his corpse into the raging fire taking hold of the garden foliage, arms wrapped in red silk, arms attached to a young woman, whose flaming red hair was held in place by a delicate tiara set with garnets and pearls. She grinned and disappeared around the side of the building.

Author's notes - Ok, this is semi-autobiographical. All the locations, in Peckham, London, are real and the pictures of the places are taken directly from Google Maps. Little has changed on this side of the school (although the front is very different.) I will allow my readers to wonder which details are real and which fantasy. Have fun pondering *wink*