The Wandering Girl

The next day we consulted the elders. They came to our house and instead of speaking words of comfort and wisdom, they didn’t speak at all. They to were filled to the brim with terror. The entire tribe met to discuss The Wandering Girl. Most suspected those who had just learned the story, i.e. Sam, Jack, Leah and I were playing a Halloween prank and two families left the tribe to stay with a cousin. The numbers began to dwindle.

I couldn’t bear to listen to the elders any more as guilt was flooding through me. I gathered Sam, Leah and Jack and we headed to Jack’s house. As soon as we crossed the threshold, we felt the same chill creep up our spines that we had felt the first time we saw The Wandering Girl. If last nights episode had not occurred, I probably would have been naïve enough to blame the chill on a draught that had entered when we opened the door. Of one thing I was certain, we were not alone in the house.
“Lets just watch some TV, it’s the middle of the day I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Jack said as he reached for the remote. Once we sat on the sofa, we heard a creaking noise.
“Must be the pipes,” Jack said.
“Of course it is not the pipes, weren’t you listening to me when I told about what happened at my house!” I cried.
“What do we do then?” Sam asked.
“We find her.” Leah announced and stood up from the sofa. We all followed suit and came to the room where the creaking noise came from.

It was the garden room, as Jacks Mum called it. It was filled with beautiful flowers and plants that were cultivated by Jack and his family and right before our eyes, they all began to wither and die. The vibrant rose heads drooped and fell to the floor and soon we were surrounded by corpses. The ivy began to writhe and twist, it was like watching “Little Shop of Horrors”. The ivy began to form letters and they read: “The Wandering Girl”. We stood speechless. What did she want from us? The ivy then began to unwind and reached out towards Leah’s throat. It wound in a tight bond, strangling her. She screamed and we tugged at the vine, but it was no use. Jack ran out of the garden room and returned moments later with knives.
“We can cut her free!” he cried.
We tried, but the vine was too strong, then the adults arrived, as they had heard the commotion.
Leah’s Mum screamed. “What has happened?” She tried in vain to free her daughter. I was glad that the vine was not getting tighter or she would be dead. With all the efforts of the adults combined to that of ours, she was soon free.
“Who did this to you?” Leah’s Mum wept.
“We got scared when you were all talking to the elders so we came to Jack’s house to watch TV. As soon as we came in we felt really cold. We heard a creaking noise, so we followed it and we came here. The plants all started to die and the ivy went nuts and made the words The Wandering Girl in the air, then it tried to strangle me.”
Everyone fell silent. No one knew what to do.