A Christmas Ghost Story

A Ghost Story for Christmas

Bryony rushed from the house. She was running late, as usual. Tonight was Christmas Eve and she had arranged to meet her friends for Christmas Mass. The weather was appalling with thick freezing fog which reduced visibility to about ten metres.
Shivering in the bitter cold, Bryony opened her car door and gratefully climbed inside thankful to be out of the cold. Placing her keys in the ignition she was dismayed to find her car battery was completely dead. There was no point in calling out the rescue services as most places had closed for the holiday, but what should she do?
After a few minutes of planning, Bryony decided that her only option was to cut through thenearby wood, this would cut down her journey by a considerable time and would probably enable her to make Midnight Mass by the skin of her teeth.
Although not the bravest of people, Bryony set off into the woods, her teeth chattering in the cold.
Bryony had only walked a few hundred yards when she realised that in the thick fog, she had no idea whatsoever, which direction she was going in and was hopelessly lost. Nevertheless she stumbled on getting colder and colder and more disorientated as the time went on. When she realised that she had passed the same oak tree for the fifth time she sank down shivering on a nearby log and started to cry. She was very frightened and it occurred to her that she could actually freeze to death in the bitter cold.
Suddenly, a few yards ahead, Bryony could just make out a dim flickering light. She rose to her feet and started towards it. The light stayed tantalisingly too far ahead for her to see it’s source but she stumbled ahead anyway and hoped that she was not getting even deeper into the woods.
Suddenly, Bryony could make out the image of a small girl, in a pale blue dress. The girl had a small terrier type dog with her and both seemed oblivious to the cold, not only that but there appeared to be a phosphorescent glow surrounding both the little girl and the small dog. Bryony called to her but she ignored her and carried on skipping just ahead of Bryony but too far away for her to make out her features.
Just as Bryony was giving up hope of ever finding her way out of the woods and back to civilisation she caught the sound of distant traffic and saw the faint flicker of headlights through the trees. Calling to the little girl to wait so that she could thank her, she was surprised to find that both the girl and the dog had vanished.
Stumbling out of the trees she realised that she was actually in sight of the Church. Rushing inside she realised that she’d missed the service. Her friends clustered around her very concerned at both her dishevelled condition and her agitation. She wanted to immediately form a search party for the unsuitably dressed little girl and the small mongrel dog which never left her heels.
The vicar attracted by the fuss, wandered over to discover what the fuss was about. On hearing Bryony’s tale he sat them all down on the nearest pew and started to relate the strangest of stories.
It began two hundred years before when, on Christmas Eve, a small child, the daughter of the local landlord, wandered off into the woods, with her dog,in search of Father Christmas. It was a freezing cold night with very similar weather conditions as this particular night.
After an all night search by the villagers, the child was found, curled up under a snow laden oak tree frozen to death. Her trusty mongrel dog was huddled up close to her in an attempt to keep her warm. It was reputed that the dog refused to leave the spot where the child had died and several days later, it too, died.
The vicar’s tale continued as he told them of lost travellers and people such as Bryony who had taken a short cut and found themselves lost and who had told of being led to safety by a small girl in a pale blue dress, a small mongrel dog and a faint shimmering light which surrounded them both.
The vicar went on to say that although he was a man of God and therefore should be at the least sceptical of such stories, he found himself believing these strange stories as there were too many such tales over the years for them to be unfounded.
The following day, Christmas day, found Bryony and her friends entering the woods, to lay a small Christmas wreath at the base of the oak tree in thanks to the small girl and her dog that had led a very cold and frightened Bryony to safety on Christmas Eve.

Taken

From Wales Online.