By Ashley Weaver
12 October 1846, 9:52 a.m.
Today Mother hired a new governess. Though she is younger than my former governess, Hilda, something about her feels old. She always dons her head in a black bonnet trimmed in silky blue lace and her face holds a pale, thin complexion.
But why did Hilda quit? She has been my governess ever since I was born, and then she flies from our home without so much as a “farewell”? Where had she gone?
Although I have yet to discover why Hilda quit, I find there is something strange about this new governess. In my history lesson today, when I asked her about King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s downfall, she commented, “If Antoinette had taken my advice, then she would have limited her spending habits,” followed by, “… I mean to say, if someone would have told her that, then maybe she would have kept her head…”
13 October 1846, 12:40 a.m.
I have awakened from a nightmare. It is not one after which I can fall so easily back to sleep. And so, I write.
In my dream, a woman led me down a long shadowy corridor. Her thin body, ashen face, and black bonnet trimmed in blue lace resembled that of my governess. I took her cold hand as she led me through an aging wooden door at the end of the hallway. It opened at neither of our touches.
The door creaked open to reveal a bare room, its walls painted onyx black. In the middle of the space, the only object that lay before us was a small coffin. To my horror, it was opened. And empty.
I gasped as I realized its silk lining matched the blue lace of my governess’s bonnet. “Get in,” her haunting voice echoed.
I was soon back in the comfort of my own bed, though it was at the moment anything but comfortable. My pillow soaked with the sweat of my trembling brow and my blanket had been strewn from my body in the night, leaving my 12-year-old body shaking in the cold. Never had a nightmare shaken me so deeply. It felt so genuine, but it could not have been real…could it have?
16 October 1846, 5:00 p.m.
My governess and I were in a carriage accident today. Dare I say that I saw my governess die—or at least, she should have. Ever since that awful moment, thoughts of who—or what—my governess truly is have lingered in the recesses of my imagination.
We had just finished some errands she wished to complete before the weather got too torrential. How she knew what the weather would be like after the sunny morning we had experienced; I can scarcely imagine. The rain beat violently down on the dirt before us making the ground so slick that the horse staggered, causing our carriage to tumble sideways into the muddy street. My governess was flung from the carriage shortly before the demise, her body trampled under the steed’s heavy hooves. Then, a giant thump of the carriage wheel caused me to nearly fly from the vehicle as well.
Once the carriage had finally stilled, laying sideways in the sludge, I poked my head out of the left door window to see my governess’s mangled body behind the carriage. Struggling out of the vehicle, I approached the ghastly scene.
Her eyes lay wide open, her neck twisted against her blue-laced bonnet and her waist flattened against one of her arms. Hesitantly, I poked one of her white cheeks. It was dead to the touch.
Suddenly, I recoiled in horror as a gasp of air escaped my governess’s mouth and her eyelashes fluttered. My heart nearly stopped at the sight of it. In a horrible mangle of thrashing limbs, her body twisted back to its rightful frame followed by a sickening cracking noise.
Panicked, I looked around for help and could see the carriage-driver and a shopkeeper rushing toward us, the same shudder in their eyes.
“Y-you’re all right, Miss?” came the carriage-driver’s stuttering inquiry to my governess.
“Well of course I am all right!” She answered in her light tone, laughing off the whole incident like she had tripped on her skirt instead of suffering a crushing blow from a carriage wheel.
“Luckily I was thrown from the buggy before the horse could trample me,” she lied. Then her eyes turned on me, as if daring me to tell the man what I had seen. “Are you alright, sweetie?”
“I do not know,” I answered truthfully.
She did not speak of how she had survived this wretched death; she instead demanded that I do not relay to Mother and Father or anyone else what had occurred this day. But as I sit here scribbling, I know that I cannot remain quiet. And so, I put my pen to paper, hoping that by doing so, I may somehow erase this haunting incident from my memory.
20 October 1846, 5:36 p.m.
My governess fell down the stairs today. Before the occurrence, I was writing “I will not let my imagination run away with me” two-hundred times in my notebook after I accidentally made the remark to my governess that she could have died in the carriage accident. Apparently, my tongue is a dangerous instrument against her; and here I was thinking that nothing could hurt this woman.
I was writing this line somewhere in the fifties when a heavy tumble against our wooden steps alerted me to the hallway. By the time I got to the top of the stairwell, I saw my governess lying on the downstairs landing. The sight of her ankles twisted against her boots at that unnatural angle returned to me the gruesome details of what had happened three days before.
But I hesitated this time. Peeing over the ledge, I waited until I heard the same cracking of bones and flailing of limbs that had occurred after the carriage accident. After my governess snapped back to her full frame once again, I ducked out of sight before she could see my horrified gawking. She would not have been able to lie about her strange ability twice in one week.
22 October 1846, 8:42 p.m.
I have found myself becoming far more of a snoop as of late. I have also found myself becoming desperate as to exactly how or why this woman seems indestructible.
Today after my governess went home, I managed to steal a peek at her desk. All the books inside the top drawer seemed normal enough: Advanced Mathematics, English for Beginners, Teaching Latin. I then opened the bottom drawer to find one book that was not so normal.
Necromancy was all the title read. Is this how she disposed of my former governess: casting a spell on her so she would leave? And did she wish to teach me this forbidden art or use it against me in retribution for an incident I was not supposed to have witnessed?
Afraid of what nasty spell might come upon me if I were to even touch the book, I slammed the desk drawer shut, hoping that no traces of what I had seen remained.
29 October 1846, 2:15 p.m.
I find it curious that before Hilda left, she had lived and slept in my home, yet this governess refuses to do so. To gather more insight on this inconsistency, I spoke with my friend Mildred today, who said that her governess also lives in her home. Strange.
“Do you mean she has never stayed overnight?” she inquired.
“I do not believe so,” I answered. Come to think of it, I had never seen her in our home past six o’clock. She never even stayed for dinner, but simply came for morning lessons, ran errands in the afternoon, and then left us before the sun went down.
Tomorrow after she leaves, I will follow her. Perhaps by doing so, I may not only discover where this Being lives, but also shed more light on her curious nature.
30 October 1846, 10:45 p.m.
Donned in my black overcoat, bonnet, and rain boots, I followed my governess into the night. Strangely, she set out on foot. She must not have lived far. She crossed the street past the bakery and stopped at the gate to Père Lachaise Cemetery.
I gulped. I had never set foot in that graveyard before, but I had heard stories of the ghosts and demons within the graves that rested above the ground. What was she doing there after dusk?
My governess unlatched the chain that encased the rusty iron gate. The hinges squeaked as she entered the dark neighborhood of the dead. Mustering any resolve left within me, I followed.
In the darkness, I could just make out the gothic shapes of sorrowful statues standing guard at the entrances of old family crypts, decaying from time and neglect. But I did not linger on these shapes for long, for my governess was nearly out of sight; soon I would be doomed to roam among the dead until morning.
She turned down one of the cobblestoned conduits that led away from the main path. Down an alleyway of crypts at least six feet high she briskly walked, as if this place were her own neighborhood.
Amidst the black night, my senses heightened. Sounds of crackling leaves behind me led my gaze away from the path I was pursuing, only to leave me guessing which way my governess had headed. As I squinted against the dark, it was as if the statues of grief-stricken angels and crumbling gargoyles had grown five times larger and were set on blocking my escape. I struggled hard against the decision of whether I should let out a cry but thought better of it. I refused to take this venture again, so I could not let my governess find me following her.
Suddenly, I heard the subtle squeak of—the opening of a second gate? Yes. I shuffled over to where I heard the noise and saw the shadow of my governess again. She approached a large mausoleum that contained a single candle flickering in one of the stone-encased stain-glass windows. Above the flickering light the words Vivi Ex Mortuis glistened in the crimson glass.
A few moments after she had entered the strange crypt, my curiosity took over. I entered the structure. Inside the crypt, five relatively new mahogany coffins were positioned a circle, each labelled with a date from this year. Hesitantly, I grabbed the candle set in the sill of the stained-glass window and peered closer at one of the coffins until I could read the newly plated inscription. I nearly dropped the candle at the sight of it: Hilda Franz, died 1846.
A gasp built in my throat, and I bit my gloved hand, fearing that the gasp would evolve into a scream. So, my new governess did get rid of Hilda.
But where was my new governess now? Pondering the possibility that she might have evaporated into the air; I felt a small sense of relief. But it was soon dashed by the echo of a sliding noise below my feet. Was there another floor below this landing?
Raising the candle higher, I saw lined against the far wall of the mausoleum were stone steps that led downward. Down. I gulped, and with a courage I did not know I still possessed, I started down the passage.
Once at the bottom, I gagged against the smell of rotting flesh. My governess was nowhere to be seen, but rotting coffins, much older than the ones I saw above ground, lined the walls. Dust caked the lids of each one and rusty brass handles hung from each side. Engraved under the stone slabs of each were no names, just dates. The oldest I saw still visible belonged to the year 1213. While the date suggested it was the oldest coffin in the crypt, the inch of dust that caked the other tombs’ lids was strangely absent from this one. And there, on a rusty nail protruding out of the side of it, hung a familiar, blue-laced bonnet.
The End.