By Rachel Matthews

The eerie old Cromwell Manor sat atop the hill, a beacon of darkness that blended against the setting sun in the distance. The Victorian-esque estate seemed to ooze the aura of another time, a Gothic creation from years passed. Paint peeled from the walls of the outside and the lone door remained locked, no one entered and no one left. If you were to venture inside though, you would be greeted with an equally ghastly sight.

The house had once been the picture of elegance, this was clear. However, those days were long gone. What used to be a grand spiral staircase was now cracked and crumbling beyond repair, making access to the top story impossible. The rotting floor seemed to sag under the weight of the rats that scuttled across the hardwood. The whole building was in decay. If you were to give it a casual glance, it would appear that there wasn’t a single salvageable item. Though, if you let your eyes wander to the old fireplace, you would see a dusty, framed,
photograph.

Now, in this portrait was the Cromwell family. Three brooding individuals, each with cold, dark, gazes and smiles didn’t seem genuine. One stood out from the others though, a small girl that couldn’t be older than eleven. Her skin was a stark white and appeared to be as thin as paper, and the hollows of her cheeks seemed to sink into her skull like weights. Lifeless, thin, black hair fell down her shoulders and blended with her dark dress that swallowed her whole. She simply looked ill, as if she’d never been well in the entirety of her life.

All life seemed to shy away from the house. The forest in which it sat was filled with dead trees and not even weeds dared to grows. However, it was at a perfect vantage point to look down on the bustling town below, whose residents never dared to venture near the ghastly mansion. The villagers all told tales, tales of sorcery and death. Some went so far as to say the previous residents had belonged to the occult. It seemed one specific rumor always managed to
rise above the countless others, though, and that was the belief the little girl had a sinister secret. The Cromwell family were not known to be loving people, so one can only imagine what life was like for the poor girl who grew up in that household. The majority of nights she spent alone, but that was a luxury compared to the time she spent with her parents. They were cold and unloving people who barely tolerated one another, and only God himself knew why they had a child. They barely ever spoke to her, and when they did it was a string of unkind words, sewn together with insults and orders. Life at school for the girl was no better, for the school children wouldn’t even come near enough to tease or bother her. The parents of those children all warned their kids to beware the sickly Cromwell girl, she would bring nothing but trouble. Of course, Valerie was not aware of this. Even if she had been, she could do nothing to change it for when she approached her peers they ran in the opposite direction.

As you can imagine, this eventually became too much to bear. As she got older, it became worse. Being isolated from the rest of the world takes its toll on you, especially when you have a poor family life as well. On one cold, autumn day, she was walking up the hill from school as she always did. It was quite the chore, considering the Cromwell Manor sat far, far away from the village. It was boring and tiresome, for she had nothing to entertain herself with
or anyone to talk to. She was feeling particularly down on this day, which is why when a strange old woman approached her she did not run. Maybe she should have run away as soon as the woman started speaking about the girl’s mother, or when she told her about how her life could become so much better, or when she reached under her cloak and handed her a leather-bound tome with faded, gold lettering scrawled on the front cover. Maybe she should have, but she did not.

She raced home, excited for the first time since she could remember. Desperation often leads to poor choices, and she had been beyond desperate. Life had dealt her a bad hand, but eleven years of suffering were now over. The woman had granted her what she had been wishing for relentlessly. She never once stopped to consider that the woman might have ulterior motives, which is odd being as no one had ever truly shown her kindness before this occasion. She was just so ecstatic that something good had finally come from her tiresome existence. What a
tragedy, for she had no way to know what this blessing in disguise would cost her. The book was filled with words in a language she couldn’t identify, much less translate. All the same, it was easy to identify the stanzas she needed to recite, she was drawn to them. It was unexplainable, the odd sensation of reading the ancient words off of the yellowing pages. The next morning, the sun seemed to shine a little brighter. For the first time in her life, she skipped all the way down to the one-room schoolhouse with excitement gleaming in her eyes. Today was going to be different and she knew it. And she was right, for when she sat down next to a girl in her class she did not run. She continued laughing and carrying on as she had been doing previously, even spoke to Valerie a time or two. After this day, she continued reciting the verses out of her magical book, and her life steadily continued to improve.

It wasn’t until some time later that the young girl noticed it was no longer the same person looking back at her in the mirror. The color had permanently left her cheeks, her eyes, her skin. She had lost a considerable amount of weight, leaving behind clothes that were far too big and a girl that was far too thin. Each time she recited lines from her otherworldly book, a piece of her was lost. She knew this, but nothing was worse than the life she had previously endured. She had become addicted to the magic and would pay the ultimate price. Shortly after this, she fell ill. She was weak, and she had been so drained from the book that she had no hope of recovery. Her soul and health had both been lost, leaving a hollow shell of a young girl. It wasn’t long before her mother and father contracted her illness.

The Cromwell family had ended, but they were not forgotten. The house eventually went up for sale, but no one wanted anything to do with the darkness that was the Cromwell Manor. Maybe it was the dark magic or maybe it was the three small crosses that were placed halfheartedly in the ground, marked only by a date. It sat empty, never seeing another resident.