The House of Mist

‘Once a year in the middle of Selestrain Wood, Soots, Scotland, late in October when the full moon is shinning bright, the House of Mist will show itself for one whole hour. The house is known to have ...’

But I never got to finish reading because my charming mother decided to shout me down for dinner.

It was the twenty sixth of October; the full moon was surely on its way. I had everything planned out. When I was told to go to bed, I would do it with ease and lock my bedroom door immediately. I have had my bag packed for days with all the essentials and nobody could ruin my plans.

You see, my best friend Lindsay and I are odd, we keep our self to our self and no one will ever find out what our true passion is. Our deepest passion of all that we share is ‘The House of Mist.’ I have studied this house for four years now and have read every book and article about it but that is not enough for me! Selestrain wood is only a ten minute walk from my house and I intend on taking this walk tonight. I used to go there when I was younger with mum, dad and Keira but now, well they are just memories. Since Keira’s death last year mum and dad are always fighting and I am not surprised they haven’t ended up divorced yet. It pains me to see them like this but hopefully ‘the House of Mist’ will help me. The legend goes that if you figure out the truth of the house, then you will be granted one wish that you truly want, crave or need. The house will be able to tell if it is the wish you desire the most so if you say what you think is the wish you most desire then the house will only grant the one wish that you most desire even if you don’t realise it.

Quarter past eleven crept up rather quickly. Mum and dad had gone to bed an hour ago so they would, no doubt, be fast asleep. I grabbed my bag, unlocked my bedroom door and slowly started creeping along the upper level of the house. As I reached the top of the stairs I swung my leg over the banister and started to gracefully slide down. I was able to land without making a sound before slowly starting to make my way towards the front door. The house was so quiet that I was frightened the noise of the key turning in the lock would echo through the house and wake up mum and dad. Thankfully it didn’t.

I had escaped. I was finally on my way to Selestrain wood. The adrenalin rush was overpowering me; I was walking at top speed down the road. The wind was whistling through the trees and winding around the houses. With every ‘hoot’ of an owl, I jumped. I was scared, nervous and extremely excited all at the same time.

As I waited for Lindsay the owls were ‘hooting’ and the wind was whistling and I was slowly getting more and more irked. All I wanted to do was just leave and make my own way into the wood but a voice far in the back of my head told me not to. Half past eleven came and when the little hand passed over the twelve, a dark figure emerged from behind the last house looking onto the wood.

‘Finally she was here and the adventure could begin’ I thought.

We greeted each other quickly as we were both just as eager as each other to start our official hunt for the house. Thirty minutes is all we had until our chance was lost, our chance to put all our work and effort into something practical.

“Are you scared?” I asked Lindsay as we started walking deeper into the woods.

“A little bit but I am more excited,” Lindsay replied bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Yeah, same but we can’t show or feel our fear because the house can tell and who knows what it will do,” I replied sounding more confident than I really felt.

“Well here we are. Two minutes and we will finally see the house of mist,” Lindsay said looking at her watch after a long walk in silence.

The owls had stopped ‘hooting’, the wind was no longer rustling through the trees and the air had gotten a sudden chill to it, there was no feel for anything. It was like all the love and excitement I had just felt was gone. Everything was silent.

I slowly turned around to ask Lindsay if she was feeling the same thing as I was feeling but she wasn’t there. During a 360˚ turn, I realised I was alone.

“Lindsay! Lindsay!” I started calling out frantically.

But there was no reply. I knew that she couldn’t be hiding behind any of the trees because they were so old and thin but I just didn’t know where she was. One minute she was standing beside me then the next ... she wasn’t.

She just vanished.

I started to panic. Looking at my watch I realised that there was just under a minute until the moon would be at its fullest and it would officially turn the twenty seventh of October. The dread was overriding the excitement. Keira would officially be dead a year in less than a minute and now Lindsay was gone and I might never see her again. My brain was going into over drive. I knew I had to find ‘The House of Mist,’ it was my only chance to bring my family back together again.

Suddenly everything went dark. It was officially midnight. Nothing was visible, the moon was hidden and there were no stars in the sky, I couldn’t even see my own hand stretched out in front of me. I searched my pocket for my phone but quickly realised I had left it at my house because every article and story said that ‘The House of Mist’ wouldn’t show itself if there was any kind of modern technology within five metres.

There was a small blob of light coming from the distance. I closed my eyes closer together to try and make out what it was but it just continued to get brighter and brighter until the whole wood was filled with blinding white light. I barely had time to take in the light before a deafening scream filled my ears making me quickly cover them with my hands and closing my eyes hoping that would block out anything that I didn’t want to see. When the scream had finally died down I turned around to investigate the rustling coming from behind me just as a, stone cold, blast of wind flooded out of the trees waking all the birds that were asleep. The wind was so forceful that my hair was flying backwards; my skin was even moving across my face. The chill was back, the love and excitement was not but hatred and the feeling of being un-loved was aching through my body as through knifes were striking through it like I was a turkey at Christmas time getting carved.

Then it all stopped.

The wind was gone and the chill had disappeared. The thing that was still there though was the awful feeling of hatred and being un-loved. It was like I was the only person in the world that nobody cared about me, that everyone that I knew and loved had died and left me on this earth with nothing else to live for. For a second I actually believed it and the resentment snaked through me like a serpent. I knew this was part of ‘The House of Mists’ plan to drive the fear out of you but I tried with all of my might to remember all the happy times and that I do have people that care about me. The light had died down by now. It took a few seconds to adjust my eyes but I finally realised that I was standing in front of ‘The House of Mist.’

I gasped.

It was beautiful. It had three wooded steps leading up to a freshly polished porch that gleamed under the moonlight. There was a bench hanging from the roof of the porch with cushions that looked as soft as marshmallows. There was a brown arched wooded door the exact same colour as the porch. It had a small golden round handle at the left hand side near the middle with a gold knocker in the shape of a finger placed precisely in the middle of the door. On the lower level there were two big bay windows with a grand shade of burgundy curtains tied to the side. The windows stuck out like there was a ledge on the inside to sit on. On the upper level there were two square windows with thin panels crossing down the middle of the windows horizontally and vertically. The last window looked like it was situated in an upper attic as it was a small triangular window with a wooden rim around it the same shade as the porch. All the windows had carvings on them that were so carefully carved it was as if they were just finished. An ivory plant twisted all the way up and around the porch and house. It had small white flowers in it and was cut to perfection; there wasn’t a leaf out of place. It wound all the way around the pillars holding the porch up, the banister, the wall of the house and the gutters at the top making it link at the top of the point. Everything about this house was intricate perfection.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was making my way towards the front door completely mesmerised by its beauty. As my hand touched the golden finger knocker another deafening, skin curling scream flooded from the house and into my ears pulling me back into reality and where I was. The second it hit my ears I knew there and then I had to do something as that scream could only be identified as Lindsay’s scream.

Forgetting about the warnings of ‘not wakening the house’ and ‘the mist should never be woken’ I pushed the door open. The minute I touched the handle it flew open and I knew I had done the wrong thing. There was a big entrance hall and it was all filled with balls that looked ghost like as they were transparent with little, tiny, blobs of light in them as if they were eyes watching everything. They moved around so slickly it was as if there was no life in them and they were just floating aimlessly with no purpose.

I started to slowly move towards the staircase, knowing that this was where I had to go. I thought I was about to faint, my heart was thumping against my chest and I started too really panic, my hands were getting sweaty and tears started silently sliding down my cheek ‘what if Lindsay showed her fear’ was all I kept thinking. No one has ever reported back on what would happen if you done that so there was no way of preparing yourself for what would happen.

When I came to a landing at the top of the stairs I started heading towards the right, down a narrow hallway. I stopped as I noticed there was deep red blood splattered all over the plain white door and curved around the handle. The door was open ever so slightly, so I gave it a little push with my foot and it flung open to reveal a four poster bed with gold drapes and burgundy bed sheets, a fire was crackling in the corner and a rocking chair was facing the flames.

I slowly walked into the centre of the room, heart pounding and hands sweating but I knew Lindsay was in here, I just knew it. I could feel the heat of the fire burning through my jeans onto my legs but the shrill coldness of the air was still lingering.

Then the rocking chair slowly turned around to reveal a pale white, misty looking Lindsay with blood leaking out of her eyes and rolling down her face. The blood continued to pour out of her finger nails as well as her mouth. I quickly ran over to her aid and took of my zipper and started frantically trying to wipe away as much of the blood as I could but it just kept coming back like a tap unable to turn off.

“I’m sorry,” Lindsay said in such a whisper that I barely heard her.

“Why are you sorry, you did nothing wrong,” I told her still trying to wipe the blood of her face as it rolled down her face.

“I did .... I..... showed.... my,” Lindsay said taking large in takes of air at a time as her eyes fluttered between open and shut.

I saw that she was struggling to sit up by herself so I gently lifted her up and took her over to the bed, placing her gently as if she was a delicate doll ready to break.

“It doesn’t matter, I ‘m here now,” I said letting the tears silently stroll down my cheeks as I stroked her hair.

“Run..... Never...Stop...Loving,” were the last four words that excited Lindsay’s mouth.

Then all life left her and her big blue that used to have so much life in them now had no life at all. I was sobbing now, tears streaming down my face like a waterfall and my body shaking uncontrollably.

A few moments later I was able to control the shaking and I close Lindsay’s eyes and kissed her on the forehead and said my final goodbye to her. Then I turned towards the fire to run out of the room and all the way home but instead I stood frozen where I was. In the doorway stood a black figure stood blocking my way out. Rage filled up inside me and I ran straight towards the figure not knowing what I was going to do but I knew I had to do something as this is what killed Lindsay. I don’t know how I knew it I just did and it was the last thing I saw before everything went dark. A pain pierced through my heart sending a scream exploding out of my mouth. I knew what Lindsay now meant by ‘never stop loving,’ she had found the only way that could conquer everything.

Happiness. Joy. Love.

That is what the world really revolves around. The only reason ‘The House of Mist’ exists is because the opposite of happiness, joy and love is sadness, pain and hatred. There are always going to be opposites in the world but ‘The House Of Mist’ only exists to show people that they need to learn to control their feelings and accept that you can’t wish away the sadness, pain and hatred because it is part of everyone and everything.

I tried with all my strength to try and remember all the love, joy and happiness I had felt throughout my life with and without Keira and Lindsay but I just couldn’t. The pain of just losing Lindsay was too strong.

Then everything went away and I could feel myself floating.

Floating away from my body.