The Old Maid and Other Stories

By Rufus Woodward

The old maid and other stories. Three new weird tales by Rufus Woodward.

Three short stories of ghosts and witches, of sibling rivalry and desperate longings, of the weight of time passing and the strange unsettling things that lurk on cliff tops and in sand dunes.

The old maid

“I was trying to help you,” she says. “You really shouldn’t talk to me like that. Don't ever talk to me like that.”

“Fine by me,” snaps Charlotte. “Whatever makes you think I want to talk to you at all?”

Cold companion

He gets up and goes through to the other room and finds her there, curled up, head to the wall with tears running down her face. Somewhere in the darkness the sound of low sobbing is coming back at her. He puts his arms around her and holds her tightly.

“I couldn’t stay away,” she whispers between tears. “I knew it was here and I couldn’t stay away.”

Ghost story (not scary)

“Then something happens and it’s not funny anymore. It all comes so quickly that we don’t even have time to leave. When he’s gone we stand there for the longest time, listening to her cry. Then we shuffle away, neither of us saying anything or knowing what to do with ourselves.”

‘The old maid and other stories’ is Chapbook number two of four volumes forthcoming from the Olgada Press during 2015.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rufus Woodward
• Release date: Jul 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310168659

Rufus Woodward

Rufus Woodward is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.He is the author of four volumes of weird tales published by the Olgada Press.For more information, please visit www.shorecliffhorror.com.

Book preview

The Old Maid and Other Stories

Three weird tales by

Rufus Woodward

Olgada Press

Chapbook no. 2

2015

www.shorecliffhorror.com

First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by The Olgada Press, Edinburgh, UK.

All rights reserved

Copyright Olgada 2015

The right of Olgada to be identified as the authors of this book has been asserted by them under the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, by any means, with prior permission of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Contents

The Old Maid

Cold Companion

Ghost Story (Not Scary)

The Old Maid

Three figures walk along an empty beach. It’s mid morning. The sun is climbing in the sky, the tide far out. Great flocks of seagulls sit on the wet sand by the water’s edge, basking in the morning summer sun. Occasionally they stir themselves to pull an insect from the sand, to flap and peck at one another, their sharp calls rising and shrieking above the low, lethargic roll of the sea. It’s warm already, getting warmer all the time. The three figures are walking in their shirt sleeves and bare arms, sweaters tied around waists or stuffed in the bags they each carry slung over their shoulders. It’s going to be one more hot day of a hot summer, each day longer and more languid than the last. Everyone has been feeling it. All the way along this coast, the seaside towns have been filling up early, the popular parts at least – every grey, concrete promenade, every brightly painted pier, every amusement arcade, every sticky, sweaty cafe - even this early in the day they’re filling up with families, with couples, with groups of sulking teenagers, everyone looking for a breath of cool air or a cold splash of sea water to keep the heat away.

Those are the towns, though, and it is not like that out here. Out here where the three figures are walking there’s no one else to be seen. Whether that’s because this is too far from the deck chairs and the ice cream vans for anyone else to venture, or whether there might be some other reason, is not important. All that matters is that they have the beach to themselves. They’re walking quickly. Two girls. Sisters. One just a few years older than the other. And a boy, of an age with the older sister, his shirt wide open at the neck, his fair hair flopping carelessly over his face so that he has to flick it back or push it aside with his hand every few steps. They’re walking quickly and talking quickly too, their faces bright and happy, their smiles wide and naive. The sound of their laughter carries far across the beach, mixing in with the seagulls and the waves as though they’re in competition, each staking a claim for their ownership of the shore.

They are friends, obviously, but, just as obviously, they haven’t known one another for very long. They’re still getting to know each other, this fair-haired boy and these two sisters. The girls are dancing around themselves as they walk, sometimes skipping ahead arm in arm, sometimes linking arms with the boy and pulling him along with them. Why they should be in such a hurry no one, not even they themselves, could say. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just aware of how short even the longest, hottest summer’s day can be when set in the context of a lifetime. Maybe now, so young (even the older girl can’t be more than 20, the boy barely older than that), they know how few opportunities they will ever again have to be so free as this, so happy and untroubled.

The older girl is called Charlotte. She has dark hair pinned tightly back against her head, though her sister always tells her it looks better when she lets it fall freely. She wears a narrow fitting, green dress that curls and wraps around her ankles as she walks and over her shoulder hangs a linen bag filled with provisions for the picnic they’ll be having later in the day. Her sister, three years younger and named Sissy, wears a white frock that seems to shine brightly in the glare of the morning sun. It’s her new favourite dress, one she was bought only a few days previously and is decorated all over in tiny red flowers, roses and carnations, the colour of which plays nicely with the long, copper blonde hair that floats around her shoulders.

The younger girl is the real beauty of the two, that much is sure. Her older sister is more serious, less striking by far. Even when she laughs she reveals, for those who look closely enough, the effort in her eyes, a constant self-awareness that her sister is so completely free from. Not that any of this seems to bother the boy. No, if anything he is more taken by Charlotte than by Sissy, forever stepping back to take the older girl’s side, to meet her glances,