Whispers in the Dark Clouds

A young girl in the mid 1800's starts to hear whispers.......

The wind blew and the candle went out. I sat there, holding my legs in the cold. The wind came through the crack in the window and the lightning fell to the ground again. I shivered in my night gown. My sisters were asleep in the other beds and my parents across the hall. I wanted to scream, to yell, but they would only yell back. I was the youngest of seven children, making me the baby and the most scared.

My sisters had told me of storms, but I had never actually seen one. The sound of thunder frightened me, and the sight of lighnting made me more scared. What could make something so frightening? I grabbed my blanket and wrapped myself as I walked toward the window. I felt the cold come in from the crack even more, and my blanket made no difference. I held it tighter and looked into the gloomy sky.

"Oh sky, why are you so mad?" I asked myself. A flash of lightning hit our field and I fell back to the floor. I stared, amazed. That lightning had sparked a small fire in the field. I had to tell Papa.

I got up and started towards the door, when I heard a sound. I turned around and thought I saw something out the window. Had I?

I shook my head and started to turn the knob. "Genevieve." Someone whispered. Just then a loud boom of thunder shook the house. I ran and hid under my covers. I was shaking, not from the cold, but from hearing someone say my name. I started to wonder if it was my mother. Perhaps she was awake and saw the knob turn and knew it was me. "Genevieve." I heard again. No, it wasn't my mother.

I lifted the covers only a bit to see if someone was there. I didn't see anything. I looked back towards the window. I could see the fire, only it was bigger and growing by the second.

I needed to tell Papa. He needs to know of the fire.

I grabbed my blanket again and headed for the door. "Genevieve." I heard the voice again, only this time it sounded......younger. "Genevieve. Genevieve." I kept my hand on the knob and started to turn my head. I kept my eyes closed at first, "Genevieve, please open your eyes." I wanted to, but was scared. What if I saw something I didn't want to see? "Genevieve do not be scared. I am your.....friend." 

Something in the voice sounded familiar, but also wrong. Yes. something wrong was in the voice.

I started turning the knob more, so that I could leave the room, leave the voice. I let the door swing open. A rush of air came in and I almost fell back from it.

"Genevieve, no." The voice was pleading and sounded younger than before. I quickly grabbed my blanket and ran from the room with my sleeping sisters and the voice.

I ran into my Mama and Papa's room. I shook Papa until I got a groan from him.

"Papa wake up. You have to wake up." I looked out the window and could see the glare from the fire, slowly getting bigger. "Papa wake up!"

"What Genevieve." He groaned. He started to turn, but still his eyes didn't budge.

"Papa there is a fire in the field." He suddenly sprang up and looked at me. I pointed to the window and he looked outside.

The fire was getting bigger and bigger by the second. Papa got up and put his shoes on and grabbed his coat. He ran to Mama's side and shook her til her eye opened.

"Levi what's going on?" She asked.

"A fire in the field, I have to wake up Elijah." Mama sprang up and put her coat on. Papa ran out and went to wake my brother, Elijah. Mama came over and took me in her arms. She held me there for a few seconds then put me at arms length, "Okay Genevieve, go on back to bed." She kissed me on the forehead and I walked back to my room with my sisters still sleeping. I heard the front door slam shut and Elijah yelling out to Papa.

I walked back into my room and looked out the window. I saw Papa and Elijah with buckets of water and shouting to eachother.

"Genevieve." The voice. Softer and younger. I turned around and looked. No one was there. I turned back to the window. "Genevieve why did you do that?" I simply stood there, still looking out the window,

"Because the fire could have grown and destroyed the crops or possibly the house." I answered. I stayed there and listened for a reply, but didn't hear one. I watched Papa and Elijah get more buckets of water. The fire started to go down and I yawned from being tired. I walked back to my bed, my blanket still wrapped around me. I put my head on the pillow and closed my eyes.

 

I started dreaming of the fire. Papa and Elijah were engulfed inside of the red and orange prison. They were screaming at me. "Genevieve! Please help us!" There hands reaching out to me and I reached back. Only centimeters from there finger tips I heard the voice. "Genevieve." Then Papa and Elijah disapeared and I was in the fire, only it wasn't me.

My hand was still reaching and I pulled it back as fast as I could, only it wasn't quick enough. She had grabbed it and pulled me in. I closed my eyes and waited for the fire to scorch me to death. "Genevieve open your eyes." Now the voice sounded just like mine. I opened my eyes and saw the fire in a ring around me. She was still holding my hand I saw that she looked exactly like me.

"Where is my Papa and my brother Elijah?" She only smiled and squeezed my hand. I stared her hard in the eyes. They were so similar to mine that I swore they were mine. But how could that mean if I was standing right here.

"Don't you see Genevieve? Were sisters!" She jumped up and down with my hands in hers. I just stood there. She stopped jumping and started frowning.

"Genevieve, what's wrong? Aren't you happy?" I stared at her again.

"How could we be sisters?" I asked. She frowned more and stared at the ground.

"They didn't tell you about me?" She stared at me again and frowned more. She let go of my hands and walked towards the fire.

"We were born as twins. Identical twins, but only you survived. I was buried right there." She pointed right to where I was standing and started smiling again. 

Only, this smile was sinister and cold. 

"And now.....you will be too!" She jumped at me and pushed me into the fire. The red and orange prison engulfed me and I could feel my skin start to burn off my body. I screamed and yelled, but the only thing I could hear was my twin laughing at me. A dark and cruel sinister laugh, the last thing I ever heard.

*    *           *

 

"Oh Levi, Elijah are you hurt?" She started scanning us top to bottom.

"No Mama, were fine." Elijah smiled and Mama kissed him on the cheek. Papa came around the corner with four filled buckets.

"Come on Elijah. Help me with the last of it." He handed Elijah two buckets.

"Yes sir." They held the buckets up and threw the water at the fire.

They walked over to Mama and waited for the last of the fire to extinguish.

They heard a small yell, then a louder scream and the fire suddenly bursted into more flames, then fell to the ground.

Mama, Papa and Elijah put there arms down from guarding there faces and stared at the ground. 

Where the flames had fell there lay a cold, burnt and dead Genevieve.     

Reviews

[ATG]

This was a good story. It requires a bit of editing and I think it could benefit from a slower pace, but over all, a good story.

[Aggie Skeleton]

Good story, a little sad, a little rough, but good. A little editing would render it great.

[A.Lee]

This sounds like something EA Poe could have written with a little editing and proofing. Very well told story, haunting and captivating. Good work.

[Harley Ann]

Wow! That was intense! You HAVE to build on this. Revise and edit, you know, grammatical stuff and vocab variation. But the story was way cool. I could definitely see an English class in high school or something reading it, and instead of hating it, they can't help but love it because of the sense of awe they're left with. Kind of like Ray Bradbury's stories...
This really was fantastic. No joke. Usually I read the beginnings of stories and get too bored to finish, but this pulled me in till the very end.
;)

[Calypso]

It's a little stiff, but the story is good.

[Havatara]

Whoa, this is a really heavy story. I love it! I think you should reread it and just double check for a couple things. Someplace you said teh instead of the, and in another spot you said were instead of we're. Also, when you had Genevieve say, "Because the fire could have grown and destroyed the crops or possibly the house," I would take out the word possibly. It just doesn't need to be there. Great job and happy holidays.