Fiction logo

Jasmine in Winter

by G. L. Payne

By Gary PaynePublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 10 min read
14

Jasmine in Winter

by

G. L. Payne

He’d gone out onto the ice looking for the strange anomaly. Every year, he’d lived at Dallas House, it had appeared, a wispy cloud hanging over the water of the pond that stood on the property behind the main building. Every year on the same day, November 14th, it was there from dusk until dawn, amorphous, faintly glowing, just . . . floating there above the water.

With each appearance, he’d vowed to investigate it but he’d never managed it before. The shape was well out over the pond where the water was deep enough he’d need a boat to reach it—or resign himself to swimming in the frigid conditions. Nearly 20 years, he’d lived at Dallas House, a 20 years he’d been fascinated by the curious visitation but never quite enough to explore it. This year was different, though. This year, a hard freeze had come early and the pond had been iced over for days. It wasn’t uncommon in the depths of winter for the pond to be frozen solid enough for him to walk on, but the mysterious shape was there only on November 14th and that was usually too early in the season for a hard winter freeze. Sometimes by then, there was a thin shell of ice but that was too thin and dangerous to walk on.

But not today. Today, because of the early winter cold, the pond was frozen rock-solid. Going out on the ice would be easy.

At dusk, he’d stepped through the dried rushes and brown, lifeless cattails, off the bank and out onto the ice so he could be there waiting when the strange form manifested. What he found when got there as night was falling was a child.

A goddamned CHILD!

The girl was six, maybe seven years old, dressed in something that looked like a hand-me-down wool nightie crafted from material salvaged from an old pair of long johns. It hung in a fuzzy red bag over her tiny frame. She needed it. She was dripping wet and she had to be chilled to the bone. What the HELL was she was doing out here on the ice of the frozen pond all alone, Winston Rollie wondered. He could think of no sane reason for it.

Her icy blond hair hung in strings, like lines scribbled by a careless artist, down over her face. Water glistened in droplets along the curve of her jawline and fell in fat drips from her chin. Wet streaks tracked from her eyes as though she might have been crying. Her complexion was wax-pale, intense in contrast with her dark eyes. Her cheeks burned as red as summer tomatoes. The rest of her skin, the exposed areas he could see—her twig-like arms and delicate hands—glistened as if translucent, the blue lines of her veins showing through like the faint tracings of lines on a map.

Winston approached cautiously to avoid startling her, almost afraid she might vanish before his eyes; thinking he might just scream if she did. His winter boots crunched on the rock-solid surface of the water. At first, she seemed not to notice him, not even reacting when he spoke.

“Hey,” he whispered gently. “Hey, hey,” he said, taking off his heavy coat. His breath jetted small clouds as he spoke. “It’s okay.” He knelt beside the child and wrapped the garment around her shoulders, bundling it tightly to warm her. She needed the protection more than him. How she’d survived out here before he’d discovered her, he had no idea. The night was cold—cold as hell, in fact—the weather far harsher for this time of year than it had been in memory.

Winston resisted the temptation to wrap her in his arms to warm her. From the vacant expression on her face, she was emotionally blasted. He didn’t want to risk traumatizing her further. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said, brushing the wet strands of her hair away from her eyes. “Are you all right?” His hand came away dripping with freezing water. Her skin was as cold as marble. An uneasy disquiet gathered in Winston’s gut as he tried to make sense of the circumstances. This child didn’t belong here. In fact, he would have sworn she wasn’t here just a moment before.

And no child’s body should be as cold as stone.

No LIVING child.

She rolled her eyes toward him in faint recognition of his presence, and he added, “What’s your name?”

She seemed confused. “Wha—?” she whispered, then licked her lips with a pale tongue. “Ja— Jasmine . . .” She fixed her gaze on Winston, bleary-eyed as if waking from a deep slumber. “I— I'm Jasmine.”

Winston glanced around, looking for a mother or father—any other presence that might explain her being there but none was to be found. The night was empty and they were alone on the frozen pond.

“Well, Jasmine, what are you doing out here?” he asked. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No,” the child reported, her voice soft as the chirp of a baby bird. “Not anymore.”

That response chilled Winston more than the winter air.

The wind gusted, making coils of loose, light snow dance around them. Winston was already shivering. Part of what chilled him was the cold. Part of it was that he was thinking about the haunting of Dallas House. Winston didn’t believe in ghosts: he damn well knew they were real.

He stared hard at the little girl. She was real, too, as insane as it seemed. She had to be. He could see her. He had touched her. She was as solid as the ice beneath his feet.

But that didn’t make a bit of sense.

At first it had been traumatic living in Dallas House. Winston had bought the rural estate years ago. Wanting a change after losing his wife, he’d traded the rat race of the city for the field mice of the country. The fact that the estate was haunted was a detail the previous owner hadn’t bothered to mention. Oh, it wasn’t a grand, terrifying spectral occupation like you might see in the movies. No unholy revenants were floating furniture toward the ceiling or causing books to fly across the room, pages flapping like the wings of hysterical birds. This was a small haunting, limited to the sound of mysterious footsteps roaming the hallways in the small hours or the creak of the hinge of a door swinging gently when there was no breeze to move it. Often in the winter months—and only in the winter months for some unknown reason—late at night a quiet sobbing could be heard and, occasionally, the faint odor of a woman’s perfume wafted through the air.

Dallas House itself, while not an apparition, was an artifact from another time. Early in its life, with its tall, steeply pitched gothic spires, impressively wrought gables and spacious (and drafty) rooms the old three-story house had been quite fashionable, at least for the time in which it was built. These days, it was a run-down Victorian ramshackle, long past the glory days of its Reconstruction-era vintage which was why Winston had been able to afford it in the first place. It even looked like something you’d expect to be haunted.

He'd originally planned on renovating the structure from top to bottom but somehow never got around to it. Now, at the age of 68 and with the dearly departed Mrs. Rollie more than two decades gone—she wasn’t dead, she’d only divorced Winston, though the fact of her still being alive didn’t prevent him from considering her to be her very own special brand of unholy revenant—the fire for such endeavors was gone from his belly.

As the years had passed, he’d eventually gotten used to the odd goings-on in Dallas House. In the summer months, the paranormal activity all but disappeared and he almost forgot about it. He’d been there a few years before he’d first noticed his November 14th visitor, eventually arriving at a place where he even looked forward to seeing it each year. Finding a little girl (if that’s what she was) had been about the last thing he’d expected when he’d decided to make his move to finally investigate it.

Looking at her, despite that he could see and touch and hear her, Winston couldn’t help wonder if he’d finally met the ghost occupying Dallas House. He stared hard at her.

“Where’s your mommy?” he asked.

The child’s eyes surveyed him as if seeing him for the first time.

“Looking for me,” she whispered.

Winston was shaking from the cold. He couldn’t help notice the young girl didn’t seem to feel the bitter air at all. He again knelt in front of her and raised her chin lightly with his fingers to look into her eyes.

She can’t be a ghost, he thought. She’s as real as I am.

“Where do you live?” he asked. The cold was getting to him and he shouted the question at her like she was someone hard of hearing. When she raised her arm and pointed in the direction of Dallas House, well, Winston thought again about screaming.

“That’s my house, Sweetie,” he said. “You don’t live there.”

Jasmine looked down as if unsure how to respond.

“Mommy’s looking for me,” she said. Her voice contained a profound sadness.

Winston cupped his hands in front of his mouth and blew, trying to warm his fingers. He was shivering almost violently now, his teeth chattering. It was hard for him to resist reaching out and taking his coat back from the child. Hell, he thought, if she’s an apparition, she doesn’t need it anyway.

But if she wasn’t . . .

Either way, Winston needed to get off the ice and out of the cold. He pointed toward Dallas House. “That’s where you live?”

Jasmine nodded slowly.

Winston stood and took her by the hand to lead her off the ice.

“Okay. Well, let’s take you home, then,” he said. He could figure this craziness out in the warmth of his front room.

He took only a single step and Jasmine shrieked in terror.

“No. NO! NO!!” she screamed. She wriggled her hand free and violently pulled away from him. Winston’s coat slipped off her shoulders and he gathered it up, trying to decide whether to again hang it over the little girl or wear it himself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She looked down at her feet. Winston followed her gaze and, for the first time, realized she wasn’t wearing any shoes.

“The ice,” she whispered. “It will break.”

Her voice was a composite of sadness and fear. Winston choked up, sharing the pain that was radiating from the child.

“It will break,” she said, with absolute certainty. “It always breaks . . .”

He took her again gently by the hand.

“I promise it won’t,” he said. He knew then for certain and he took his heavy winter coat and pulled it over his own shoulders.

“Not this time.”

Together, because this year was different and a hard winter had come early, they walked across the frozen pond back to Dallas House. By the time Winston opened the front door, his hand was clutching only empty air. Jasmine was gone.

That night, finally warm again and laying in bed ready for sleep, Winston heard the sound of footsteps where no one was walking, followed by the creak of what could only be an old wooden rocking chair. Laying in the dark, eyes closed and still trying to process what he’d seen this night, he heard the soft sound of a woman’s voice singing a lullaby. After the singing stopped, he was sure he heard a child’s giggle.

Dallas House was quiet then and Winston never again heard any more strange noises in its hallways.

The following November 14th, the curious cloud was absent from the pond.

It never returned.

Horror
14

About the Creator

Gary Payne

Hi. I'm Gary Payne and I write under the name "G.L. Payne". It just sounds better to me. I've been writing fiction for many years and ages ago, I managed to get a few short stories published. Hope to publish a novel one day. Thanks

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.