A Writer's Wonderland [PDF] - University of Portsmouth

that brought in the shady afternoon gloom. It lingered at the far end, like a child hiding from its
monster. I found myself looking at that chair for what seemed like hours. It brought with it a
sense of melancholy; as if its purpose hadn’t quite been fulfilled yet, as if it was waiting for
something...
Stuart startled me back to reality.
‘This is perfect.’ he whispered, breaking the silence.
‘Why? Isn’t it just a chair?’ I wasn’t really sure myself.
‘Well, isn’t it obvious? We take a few shots of this corridor, run it next to some human interest
story about the people who lived here. “Who sat in this chair? What would they think of today?”
etc.’
‘I’m not sure that’s really in the spirit of the event, mate.’
‘In the spirit, exactly; in the spirit. We can play up this ghost thing, you know. You could be the
next Derek Acorah, my friend.’
‘Not even Derek Acorah wants to be the next Derek Acorah.’ We joked, but the unease was still
there, the same unease that had kicked me at the door and in the lingering silence.
‘Well, better get yourself prepared’ he said, holding up the camera to his still damp face, ‘Agent
Scully, I hope you’re ready to believe.’ The camera flashed and I winced.
That’s when everything changed. Stuart was right; the press did lap it up. He and I came to
cherish the girl in the chair as the thing that made us successful and wealthy, but all the while,
we, and the whole world, could never put finger on why she scared us so much. Because she
had been there, ready for collection with the rest of the photographs. Stuart’s chronological
account of that day ended with the picture of the chair. And it had hit me with the same
creeping sense that the world was not at peace; the same lingering feeling that had set my blood
on edge back in the house. Not a monster or a demon, but a girl. A girl in that quaint little chair,
staring out of the window with her white eyes, her hazy, frail figure patiently sat there. And we
never found out who she was. Historians and investigators were brought in but it transpired
that there never was such a girl that lived in that house, the lords and barons who made up the
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