Ghost story: The Glowing Shadow

The Glowing Shadow

By Willow Skidmore

PHS Staff member

    It all started with a walk in the woods. Natasha had gone out to avoid having to do her chores. She and the dog Agatha went further and further into the woods until she started to feel a growing unease. “Just a bit further; then we’ll turn back,” she told herself. They came to an abandoned cabin in the woods and curiosity overcame fear. They went in. 

Natasha first noticed something strange when she saw shadows in the dark. The windows were boarded up, but she could still see lots of them as though the room was filled with sunlight. Then she noticed the shadows were doing things that the owners were not. She shifted uneasily.

         “Agatha, maybe we should go back,” she told the dog. Natasha started to hear words. She looked around the room, but there was no one else there. The words steadily rose to an eerie chant. The shadows started swirling and glowing brighter and brighter until they solidified into one creature. Ghost, Man, Beast? She couldn’t tell. Its shape changed with every shift of either Natasha or Agatha. It spoke in an echoing, clanging voice. “State your purpose!” Natasha couldn’t speak for awhile. Then she steeled herself and said, “I was just going for a walk.” The Shape rose menacingly. “A walk?! In the holy places?! Why?!” With each word it grew. “I didn’t know!” she shouted bravely. The Shape disappeared in a puff of smoke. Natasha fell into a trance.

          When she woke up she was in her bedroom with her mother calling, “Natasha, can you come mop the floor?” As soon as she could get away she went to find the cabin. Even the clearing had disappeared. She never forgot that day. She could never shake the clinging cobwebs of the past.