"Wraith 'o the Riverbank" by Blitz Salamander

(Written for a scary stories event)

In a town in France, around the size and population of this one, everyone knew everyone else. So when a new face arrived in town, everyone fell over themselves to get to know him. Pierre was his name, a handsome man with a charming way with words. He sat at their firesides and sang ballads about the places he had seen and the amazing adventures that had befallen him. He was a very interesing chap.

Naturally, all the local girls were very interested in Pierre. But he had eyes only for Evelda, a buxom lass with curly blonde hair and a raucous sense of humour. He took her out walking every evening and delivered her safely home an hour later, which impressed her parents - in fact, all the local daughters' parents, including the local policeman Guillem, who was himself tired of waiting on the doorstep most evenings, tapping his foot and watching for his own daughter's unmolested return home with her beau George. Pierre, in the opinion of many, was a good example of what a young man should be.

But Pierre and Evelda's happiness was short-lived. One morning her mother went to waken her, only to find her bed was empty, her window off the latch. Of course, Guillem went straight around to the home of Madame Flaubert, where Pierre was renting a room. Pierre went white at the news his sweetheart had gone missing and did not stop Guillem from searching his room. No sign of Evelda.

So, the fathers and brothers of the town began combing the town for her. When she could not be found, they looked beyond the town limits. Some poked and prodded the bushes down Lovers Lane while others trampled through the fields. In the end, however, it was the ones who walked down by the river who found her, face down on the bank with a posey of buttercups clenched in her cold fist, her long curls drawn straight by the river's current as her neck lolled her head over the edge of the bank at a very peculiar angle.

Guillem was called and he heard his men struggling to hold back Evelda's frantic father as he crouched beside the girl. Her nightclothes were dew-damp, her skin felt cold and wet as he felt under her hair for a pulse. Nothing. He beckoned to one of his men and together they very carefully turned her over, supporting her head as best the could.

The entire front of her was a shroud of mud, scattered with crushed, bruised leaves and flowers from the river bank. Evelda's neck was broken. Guillem's deputy tried to align her head with her body but it lolled to the side again, her dark tongue protruding from her pink face where cyanosis had taken place, her eyes staring into the void that lies beyond life.

The poor girl was buried in the town's graveyard by her devastated parents. Footmarks on the river bank had suggested she had slipped, perhaps sleepwalking by herself. Her mother confirmed her daughter had been besotted with Pierre, and though Evelda had never sleepwalked before, there was an assumption she had been going a-walking there with him in her dreams. Pierre laid a small posey of buttercups on her grave, every Sunday, on his way to church.

Several weeks later, Pierre asked after taking another sweetheart walking. Her name was Claire and, after all her was a young man, and had to move on - so her father, a widower, said yes. Pierre took her for a stroll after church on a Sunday, across the fields and towards the river, though not up to it.

They lingered for some moments under the shade of a low-hanging tree, getting to know each other a little better. As they turned to set off back towards town, however, they found a terrible figure blocked their way. With its back to the light, all they could see was a figure in a long gown that clung wetly to its feminine form, its head lolling at an unsual angle on its shoulder and its long hair combed straight out to one side, moving with an invisible current.

They ran.

When the lovers arrived back in town, Claire was still hysterical, screaming and crying, while Pierre was white-faced with terror and silent. It was Claire that told the disturbing story to her parents, and the tale swept around the community as if someone had set tinder-dry kindling beneath it. When he overheard it being told to another, Evelda's father went home and the couple drew their curtains upon their neighbours and one can only imagine what they were feeling to hear that the soul of their daughter was walking the riverbank.

When he finally spoke on the subject, Pierre was not so definite as Claire had been that it had been his dead sweatheart. Prayers were said for the girl next Sunday at church, and Pierre walked with Claire again, but this time walked within the town limits with her, and without incident.

Until that night. Claire and her family were awoken by a loud and incessant banging on their front door. Claire watched from the stairs as her father opened the door. Framed in the opening and lit by moonlight, there stood Evelda, her head on her shoulder, her hair streaming to one side.

"Spectre, be gone!" Claire's father shouted, making the sign of the cross, and slammed the door in her face. There was a muffled thud and the whine of the wood as something leaned against it, then silence.

This happened every Sunday night for a month, and finally Claire's father paid a visit to Guillem, who had always been a good friend to him, and told him what he had told his priest. Evelda had never yet set foot in their home, and the priest had blessed the house and said extra prayers over her grave to try and lay her soul to rest.

"I never knew she had such a jealous heart," said Claire's father, his head in his hands. "Perhaps she would listen to her parents and be at rest."

So far, the family and the priest had kept the Sunday visitations a secret, and Guillem could not imagine trying to explain to Evelda's father what was allegedly happening, and certainly not without seeing it for himself. So the next Sunday night, he sat with Claire's father in their warm kitchen, waiting for the knocks at the door, while Claire spent the night across town in the home of Madame Roget.

However, when the knocks came, they were quick and panicky and accompanied by the voice of Madame Roget. "She has gone! She has gone!"

Claire's father wrenched open the door and the old lady stood there, wringing her hands, saying she had gone to check on Claire but found the bed empty.

As Guillem listened to her story he became aware of a movement in the dark street beyond. He squinted and could see nothing. Then, all of a sudden, Evelda melted from the shadows into the light of the doorway. She looked just as she had when he had turned her over on the river bank, petals and leaves plastered to her with mud, her tongue protruding, her eyes staring and her hair moving as if still combed by the cold fingers of the stream.

He silenced the sudden shrieks of Madame Roget by raising his hand - he often commanded such respect from the townsfolk, even in times of hysteria. Behind him he could hear Claire's father murmuring a prayer in horrified tones. Evelda made no attempt to approach them further. Then from her hand, buttercup petals fell, sprinkling around her bare feet onto the cobbles. Then she turned and began to move away.

They all watched her. Claire's father muttered, "My daughter!" and he and Guillem started after her. They followed her through the dark, silent streets and across the meadow towards the river, moving quickly and quietly - like three spectres, not one. It was not long before Guillem realised she was leading them close to the spot where her body had been found.

Evelda stopped by a tree, within earshot of the river, and did not move further. And above the sound of the river, Guillem heard a voice. He looked into the expressionless face of the dead girl, and stepped past her to the hedgerow. The pale light from the moon sparkled on the moving water beyond, and on the towpath lit two figures.

Claire, clothed in her nightdress, clutched a shawl around her with one hand. In her other she held a small posey of wildflowers. With her stood Pierre, his face raised to the night sky in profile, the moon casting a silvery sheen in his cheek. he said something to Claire and she turned away from him, looking up also. As she did, Pierre's hands moved around her neck, his silvery expression suddenly full of dark intent.

Guillem charged through the hedgerow and knocked the man to the ground with a punch that knocked him to the ground. Then arrested him, and Claire's father took his daughter home to safety.

After Pierre's trial for the murder of Evelda, nobody said anything about the folly of young girls meeting their boys at midnight in remote places. They had all been enamoured with the charming bard who had delighted them with his tales and his manners. But they became more understanding of their daughters' beaus, who might have brought them back a few minutes late from a romantic evening stroll, but always brought them back safely.

Pierre was hung for his crime. Later it emerged that tales of the mysterious deaths of young women had followed him on his journeys through many lands.

As for Evelda, her soul became more peaceful and she did not reappear to those who had known her in life. Buttercups, which grew abundantly in the area, never grew near her grave and were never placed there again.

The end

(c) Blitz Salamander 2009