The Mystery of Shadow Blackwood

Chapter 1

15th September 1814

The clock tower stopped on the hour, the raven settled on the green tinted ivy. Everywhere she turned was curiosity and fear. It was then that she found herself alone. She just kept walking. Past her street, past the corner shop and finally past the rotten welcome sign of the Oakhill Cemetery. The trees towered above her and rustled in the night breeze, making her hair fall neatly behind her. She could almost feel the breath of the dead each time she dared to go too close to the rotting gravestones. Then it happened again. She could not move. Her feet were glued to the cobbled street beneath her. She heard a calling. "Shadow". It echoed in her mind like an empty room, full of dust and wooden framed windows. No air to breath, no light to see, no nothing. Then the sound of crumpling leaves and a laboured breath took over her senses.

 She just managed to turn around to witness the disturbance but it was too late. Silence. To her amazement, the leaves that she so surely heard were never there at all, just the cobbled path that she so harshly tried to move from. She managed to gain control of her body once again and she continued her journey of discovery. There it was. The rusted door knob of the 6th century Church that she tried to go in almost every day after school. She placed her hand on it, turned it one way, and then the other. She then felt a harsh tug of her shoulder and she gasped and turned around.

"Shadow! What have I told you about wandering around! You come straight home on dark nights, darling we have spoken about this!"

"I'm sorry mummy I just had to..."

"No! I have warned you about this! Just because your name is Shadow it doesn't mean you can stay out in the dark! You are 6 years old for Christ sake!"

The child was reluctantly dragged back down the path of Oakhill Avenue to the family home of Blackwood. As they walked together through the garden gate, Shadow could not help but fix her eyes on the sign that said "Blackwood" right outside the front door of her home. It had been something of interest to her ever since she helped to clean it a few years back. The Blackwood family home was modest in size, but it was obvious that they got by quite comfortably. The husband worked most days as a blacksmith and the wife spent her days gossiping with the neighbours, shopping and doing whatever she felt like. "There you are Shelley, where have you been!" the man of the house asked, slamming his two day old newspaper down onto the worn couch. Shelley drew her breath and placed the child onto the spare seat in the corner of the room. Shadow did nothing but place her head down towards the worn wood of the floorboards below her. "Why do you question everything I do! My dear Ellis Blackwood, do you not trust me yet?" The lady said as she placed her basket of shopping on the brown counter. Ellis stood up from his seat and went over to his daughter. 

"One of our neighbours said they saw you in that cemetery again, why do you keep going there my sweet Shadow?" He asked ever so calmly, but Shadow did not respond. She continued to listen to her own mind rather than those of the people around her. Her eyes were drawn to the beige curtains that hung in the living room window. She always thought the slight pattern resembled that of ghostly features. She smiled brightly at the curtains, turning her head to stare from different angles but the smile never faded. "Oh don't bother, you'll get no sense out of her!" The mother exclaimed, storming around the kitchen. Ellis glared at his daughter in a frightened way, as though he wanted to know exactly what was on her mind. He eventually left his daughter's side and joined his wife in the kitchen.

"Is she always like this while I am working as well?" he asked, still staring his daughter out through the tiny gap in the kitchen door that led to the living room. Shelley sighed and rearranged her hair slightly. "She will laugh to herself, smile at objects. She even claimed to have heard voices" Shelley replied as she began to put the fresh vegetables away. Ellis let one of his buttons loose on his crumpled white blouse that had blackened over time and he had just not replaced. He folded his arms and continued to stare at his peculiar daughter. "I believe it is nothing more than an imaginary friend. All children have them. I remember speaking to a wooden doll when I was her age." Shelley rolled her eyes at his words and spent quite a few seconds standing in silence before she replied "that's what everyone says but I am keeping my eye on her. Nobody else wanders into a graveyard and tries to break into a church." 

An uncontrollable laughter slipped from Ellis' throat and made its way out into the open. "She wasn't trying to break in" he cleared his throat from laughing, "she was just exploring all children like that." He declared heading back into the living room. "The minute you realise the whole town thinks she's just as strange as I do, the minute you will take me seriously!" Shelley managed to shout through the kitchen, just loud enough for Ellis to hear as he walked through the door. He watched his daughter once again. Nodding. Shaking her head. Laughing. Whispering. He knelt beside her and sighed. She didn't turn to look at him; she just stared at the darkness outside the window. "Shadow Blackwood, you are a mystery..." he muttered under his breath as the kitchen door began to creak.

END OF CHAPTER 1