Not all little girls are Angels

Not all little girls are angels.  May 2017,  Bob Ferguson. Copyright Ferguson Publishing.

Dainty feet skipped and hopped along the well-worn path as sunlight filtered through green leafed trees.  Long blonde hair danced in time to the flow of her white dress in the summer breeze. She loved to create rhymes of fun, and times gone, and times begun.

"Skip –skippety, skip -skippety,

I'm all alone,

Mummy is so busy,

She doesn't know I'm not at home."

Over and over she performed her new rhyme. The forest echoed with as sweet a voice as any ten-year-old ever owned.

He watched her. How fortunate this day had turned out.  Deep Emotions had driven him to return to the scene of his last beautiful experience. He hoped the police will not expect him in the same area as four weeks ago.

The girl reminded him of Sophie. She had worn a white dress too and her hair hung in identical ringlets. Is this a trap? No. The police will never risk a young girl this way. This was coincidence or fate or a sign that it's the right thing to do. Yes, that's it. She's fast though. Sophie skipped fast too.

Half a mile ahead the path ran between thick shrubs. It’s there he will snare this sweetest of angels.

He jogged along an adjacent path concealed by a rise in the ground and in a few minutes lurked behind the same shrubs that had hidden him from ten-year-old Sophie.

The seconds passed too slow for his patience. 'Hold on, hold on. She'll be here. Is it a trap? No. It can't be. This is the only place to hide. It's not a trap. It's not a trap.'

Her words drifted through the trees.

'Skip – skippety, skip -skippety,

I'm all alone,

Mummy is so busy,

She doesn't know - I'm not at home.'

She repeated her rhyme until she approached the shrub and halted.

He thought, how strange. She stared straight at the bush as if she could see him. Everyone will be aware this shrubbery is where he abducted Sophie. The police told them. The school will have told her. She's spooked. He remained confident, then she spoke.

'There's no point in hiding. I can see you. Come out there's not much time left.'

He swallowed hard. Did she know he was here or was this a girl's fertile imagination at work?

'Mr. Thompson, are you afraid of a girl?'

She spoke his name. Panic swelled inside him. Drum beats echoed in his chest. His eyes scanned the woods. Nothing moved. There is no hiding place in sight. 

'I'm glad you dressed in the same clothes as when you hurt Sophie. The police can do tests on them. They’ll prove you killed her.'

His heart thumped harder, and the beats reverberated up the side of his neck.

'Come with me. You can hold my hand if you like and don't worry there's no police or anyone else in the woods. We can skip together.'

He watched her skip forward to the edge of the shrub and stretch her hand out. Her soft blue eyes stared straight at him and how she smiled, so unafraid, he thought. His large calloused hand edged out and clasped hers.

'C'mon then.' She said. 'Skip with me.'

What an angel, he told himself. I will skip with her. She’s divine.

With every skip, she chanted her rhyme.

'Skip – skippety, skip -skippety,

I'm all alone,

Mummy is so busy,

She doesn't know I'm not at home.'

'Say it with me.' she said after the third rendition.

He gasped in delight at this angel of beauty that had come into his life. Maybe he should let this one live. She’ll stay with him. She’s so different from Sophie who cried and spoiled everything. This adorable child is unafraid. She's perfect. So -perfect.

'Skip – skippety, skip -skippety,

I'm all alone,

Mummy is so busy,

She doesn't know I'm not at home.'

For the next five minutes, they skipped and rhymed together. Mr Thompson had never experienced happiness as this before and neither had the little angel. They stopped at a wire fence with a break in it.  Next to the railway line.

He stared at her with a big smile. ' Why have we stopped here my angel?'

'Because this place is where we have to be.'

'Be for what?'

'To make sure your day is complete.' She smiled at him.

His heart leapt with expectation. 'You want to make me happy?'

'No silly old, Mr. Thompson. This where you make me happy.'

How can this be? She wants him to make her happy. Sophie didn't want him to make her happy at all.

She held out her right hand to his and shook it the way two business folks agreed on a deal, then said. 'Thank you, now we don't have much time. Hurry through the gap in the fence.'

He stared at her. 'Why would I want to do that, Angel?'

'Because the train's almost here, silly.'

'And what has that to do with me?'

'Mr. Thompson, you are so stupid. The trains coming to kill you.'

He laughed. ' I thought you were an angel, and you are. I'm not going to hurt you like Sophie. I want to keep you with me. You can help me with other girls.'

'No, I can't. Today is your day to die. If we'd met before you killed Sophie, it might have been a nice idea. But, now it's too late.'

'Why’s it too late?' He asked.

'Because the police told my daddy they knew who did it and they were planning to arrest you tonight.'

His heart beat hard again. 'They told your daddy my name?'

'No, they said they discovered who did it. They had your DNA, I think that's what they called it.'

'How did you know I did it and that I would be here today.' He eyes scanned the woods.

'I watched you with Sophie. You didn't see me, did you?'

He stepped nearer to her. 'If you watched why didn't you tell the police?'

'And take the chance they might find out what I did. No way.'

'What did you do?'

'I sent her to you. Sophie was my cousin, but she hated me. When she found out what my favourite toys were, she would break them. I told mummy. But mummy watched her during the week to let auntie Catherine go to work. That's why I sent her to you. Now I don't have to worry about my toys being broken anymore.'

'Ah – but, how would you have known I was here that day?'

'That one's easy -I made you come.'

In the distance, a train horn hooted. He glanced at the gap in the fence and at his angel. Deep inside him, fear grew. Everything she had said was fantasy, pure fantasy and yet, he sensed something truthful in her words.

She smiled. 'Okay, trains coming. On you go.’ She waved him away with her hand.

He didn't want to, yet his feet turned, and he staggered towards the gap. 'There will be people on the train. They'll identify you to the police.' He stumbled on through the gap.

'No one will see me because I'm not here.'

'I can see you.'

'Only because I want you to. I'm sorry about the rhyme but, I lied in it to trick you.'

'How?'

'If I told the truth in the rhyme it would go like this.'

'Skip – skippety, skip -skippety,

I'm in my home,

Mummy is so busy,

Because she knows I'm safe at home.'

He squeezed through the gap.

'Sit in the middle of the railway track.' She ordered.

She giggled and laughed as he sat down on the old railway sleepers. Tears flowed from his eyes. 'Please don't do this.' His body shook with fear. 'I'll surrender to the police and I won't tell them about you. I promise. They won't believe me anyway.'

'Mr. Thompson – listen. My daddy told me how clever the police are. If you do something bad, they trick you into telling the truth. It's true. Detective Sergeant Davidson would have arrested you a few days ago if he hadn't had that accident in his car.'

'You did that, why?'

'I told you. It's In case they found out what I did and any of the other things I do.'

'Angel, let me go. The train's coming. Please?'

'Okay, I'll let you go.'

He smiled with relief.

She laughed. 'Only joking. Bye, bye.'

Mr. Thompson cried and wished he'd never hurt any little girls.

The train driver braked when he spotted the figure on the tracks. The express train from London to Glasgow was at maximum speed and he realised it wouldn't stop in time. He closed his eyes as the train thundered into the man. Blood splattered the windscreen.

Further along the track, the train halted. The driver thought he heard the giggles of a young girl. However, no matter how hard he searched, he saw only the remains of the dead man.

*** 

Two miles away, the quaint cottage basked in the sun. Mummy washed the kitchen windows, while upstairs in the cute pink and white bedroom, a young girl sat and played with her dolls. She wore a beautiful white dress and had blonde hair in ringlets.

She was such a happy little girl who loved to make up rhymes.

''Skip – skippety, skip -skippety,

I'm all alone,

Mummy is so busy,

She doesn't know I'm not at home.'

The rhyme brought a massive smile to her face. She had lots of rhymes did this little angel.

'The mouse, – the mouse -escaped the house,

The mouse got ate by our big black cat.

It ate my mouse – it shouldn't have done that,

That’s why I killed that ugly black cat.' 

She loved to write rhymes of things she'd done and things to come.

'It's this weekend, Granny comes to stay,

She's an old witch, that old lady,

She moans at me and calls me a brat,

This weekend, I'm going to do something about that.'  

Two weeks after granny's funeral. The whole village spoke of how the train driver had heard a young girl's giggles at the time of the pervert's suicide. Everyone in the village agreed it was the ghost of Sophie returned from the dead to exact revenge.

In the village shop, the little girl stood with her pretty white dress and her blonde hair in ringlets and listened to folk speak of Sophie. It angered her that the whole village thought it was Sophie who had caused the perverts death. She hated Sophie so much. 

The little angel whispered to herself.

'Village folk, they do say,

That Sophie guards them night and day,

I'll show everyone they are wrong,

They'll know the truth when they're dead and gone.'

She smiled as she sauntered out of the shop into the heavy rain and cared not as she schemed on how to make them pay. In the shop window, she admired the reflection of her white dress, and long blonde hair full of curls.  

The truck driver pressed his brakes to no avail. The truck careered around the sharp bend and his hands slipped from the steering wheel.

Little angels who stare in windows sometimes shut the world out until a truck out-of-control ruins the loveliest of white dresses.  

At the funeral, everyone cried for another angel taken in such a cruel way. Was the village cursed? They asked. As the minister, recited psalms of comfort, blind old Mrs. Taggart turned her head away from the mourners.

She wished for him to shut up so she could listen to what the young girl was saying.

'There she lies in a dirty grave,

The bitch that killed me on that day,

Now that little angel can see,

That she's a ghost just like me.' 

Old Mrs. Taggart recognised the voice as Sophie's and smiled with understanding. She knew the truth.

A chilly wind brushed against her other ear.

'Now you've heard that bitch's words,

Upon you and her, I do curse.

I'll make both you and this village pay,

I'll make you rue this very day.' 

Blind old Mrs. Taggart recognised the other girl's voice too. It was the girl buried today. Her heart felt sad at what they both had become. She'd tried to protect them. But, she was too old. She hoped she had enough energy left for one more task.

She whispered as quiet as she could.

 'It's sad to see you're both still here,

Full of hatred, evil and fear,

I command you both this very day,

Leave this place and go on your way.' 

The village returned to normal after that day. Over the years both mothers of the girls tended the graves with loving affection and for some unknown reason they cared for blind old Mrs. Taggart’s grave set right in between both girls.

After they left, the manager of the graveyard often wandered over to the graves. Sometimes -not always. He swore he heard blind old Mrs. Taggart’s feeble voice shout and always the same words.

'Behave, girls, I'm watching you…'

Copying of this story is allowed for personal reading. This story is not to be used for resale.

 

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