The Candle In The Window

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window-"

"Oh no, not a candle!" mocks Annalise. "Was it scented? God forbid."

I turn towards her with a sharp glare, unimpressed at having been interrupted. She simply looks back at me with a smug smile, confident in that overtly sanctimonious yet completely unjustified way only 14 year olds can be.

I raise my eyebrows, "Do you want to hear the story or not Annie?"

"Well-" she starts, before she's cut off with a sharp elbow to the ribs from Oliver.

"Shh!" He exclaims, smushing his index finger against his lips, spittle flying with the force of his exhale. "You're ruining it!" Oliver accuses, glaring up at his older sister confrontationally. The orange glow of the fire pit casts writhing shadows across his face, making his frown seem deeper.

"Whatever," Annie huffs, crossing her arms shrewdly. Oliver pays her no more attention, turning back to me with wide eyes that glow with the reflection of flames and the sparkle of anticipation. I feel an endearing smile tug at the corners of my mouth, my nephew's childhood wonderment reminding me of my own when my father first told me this story.

"As I was saying, the old cabin we saw earlier has been abandoned for years, until one day someone saw a candle burning in the window. But to truly understand, we have to start at the very beginning." I glance at Annie again, raising my eyebrow in question. "Unless of course, you guys don't want to hear the story anymore?"

Annalise just rolls her eyes and grumbles incoherently, but Ollie starts practically vibrating in his seat. "We do Uncle Peter! Please tell us," he urges, on the edge of his seat - or in this case, fallen log.

"Well, alright then. It's said that a family once lived there. A mother, a father and a little girl named Ivy. They were happy, living in seclusion and amongst nature. But one day, when she was about ten years old, Ivy returned home from picking flowers to find the house completely empty. All the furniture was gone and all of their family photos had vanished. There was no sign of her parents. There was no sign that anybody had ever even been there at all." Goose flesh starts to prickle across my skin as I recount the story my father had once told me, a shiver running up my spine.

The wind picks up, causing the fire to flicker and my body to shiver. Oliver is obviously ensnared in the story already, hunched forward and staring up at me wide-eyed. Annalise is engaged now too, though she's trying to hide it.

I continue on, "Ivy dropped her flowers and immediately started searching every inch of the cabin, but there was no sign of her parents. She ran out into the woods, frightened and confused. She searched frantically, screaming out for her parents, but there was no answer. She searched and she searched, all day and all night, but she never found her parents or any sign of what happened to them.

Every night she would go out and search, screaming for her parents until her voice was hoarse. Every night she would call out to them, but no one would answer. Just in case they were lost in the dark, she would always leave a candle burning in the window to guide them home. In the morning when she would return from her search she would blow her candle out, before lighting it again the next night.

Without anyone to care for her Ivy started to wither away, growing weaker and weaker. Yet still she searched ceaselessly for her parents, until one night she collapsed from pure exhaustion at the same time as the candle melted down to it's wick. She died there, alone on the forest floor. But they say her spirit is still roaming the forest, forever looking for her lost parents."

"That's so sad," Annalise pipes up, not bothering to hide her engagement now. I nod, "It is, but that's not where the story ends."

The fire crackles and pops, the flames licking the night sky our only source of light. It's dark now, the sky long since stained an inky black. The tall pine trees creak in the wind, their ebony umbrage ominously shrouding the forest around us.

"In the family's absence the cabin rotted away, decaying over time. It lay dilapidated and untouched by human eyes until a group of campers ventured into the woods one day and came across the cabin. Seemingly nothing special, the campers didn't pay the old cabin much attention. That is, until dawn began to break and one of the group woke up to find he was all alone. There was no sign of his friends, yet even stranger was the fact that all their tents and camping supplies were gone."

Ollie lets out an exaggerated shiver while Annie simply narrows her eyes. "What if he just slept walked away from camp?" Annie asks skeptically.

"He thought that too," I reply. "But when he looked towards the cabin, he realised it was in the exact same place. He hadn't moved location from where they had all set up camp, but it was as if his friends had never been there at all."

"Just like Ivy's parents," Ollie muttered.

"Exactly," I reply. "Terrified, the man frantically started calling out to his friends, but there was no answer. It was still dark, only the earliest rays of light peaking over the horizon, so the man still struggled to see. Except then, out the corner of his eye, the man caught a flicker of orange. He turned towards the light, and saw a single candle burning in the window of the cabin. Confused and desperate, the man approached the cabin hoping that perhaps his friends were in there and just playing some cruel joke on him. But when he ventured inside, no one was there. The cabin was completely empty, apart from the solitary candle burning in front of the window.

Dread gripped the man like a vice and he felt all the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. He couldn't decide if he was more scared of being alone, or finding out he was not as alone as he seemed. Petrified, the man ran back to the empty campsite and yelled frantically for his friends. 'This isn't funny!' he warned them, but there was no response. Suddenly the wind stopped, the trees stood still and the morning birds ceased their chirping. It was deathly quiet, the only sound a creaking set of footsteps coming from the cabin. The man turned just in time to see the pale face of a young girl staring him dead in the eyes, before she blew out the candle, and he dropped dead to the ground."

Ollie grabs Annie's hand, and it's a testament to her own fear that she doesn't shirk him off. A little sense of pride blooms in my chest, feeling as though I've done my father proud by retelling his story with the same terror inspiring nuance that he used to tell it to me.

"Legend says Ivy was angered that someone beside her parents had dared to come to their home. They say while she searches these woods every night, if she catches sight of trespassers she makes sure they feel her pain, before dawn breaks and she blows her candle out."

The fire has started to grow dim, but the balmy mirage from the flames still warps the kids faces, the flickering lights casting shadows. Goosebumps still dot my flesh, having inadvertently scared myself while recounting the ghost story. I peer past my nephew and niece's heads, casting my gaze into the deep forest behind them, barely able to make out the looming silhouette of the old abandoned cabin.

They follow my eyes, focusing in on the ominous cabin buried in the woods. Ollie snaps his gaze back to the fire, a tremour running through his body as he tightens his white-knuckled grip on his sister's hand. Annie stares a moment longer, seemingly enchanted by the desiccating building. She audibly swallows before turning back to look at me, red eyed and sweating.

"You don't think she's gonna be mad we're here, do you?" Annie shakily asks, her shoulders hunching up.

A tiny rivulet of regret trickles through my stomach. Perhaps I took it a little too far. I didn't mean to scare them quite this much. My sister's not going to be best pleased if I bring her kids back semi-traumatised. I get up and walk round the fire, settling down on the log between Annalise and Oliver, putting my arms around them.

"Of course not kiddo, it's only a story," I reassure her, tightening my grip. "We're safe, I promise," I say, smiling in hopes of bolstering their spirits once more. Seemingly mollified, the tension slowly drains from their bodies.

The hairs at the back of my neck prickle once again, the distinct feeling of being watched proliferating across my back. It's probably nothing, just some left over chills from the story. Still, I can't resist the temptation to look back over my shoulder, towards the old cabin sat sentry in the woods.

I glance back and feel my blood freeze, icy tendrils of dread constricting around my body. For a moment I'm frozen in animal terror, before I force myself to blink and revert my eyes to the fire pit.

"Uncle Peter?" Ollie chirps nervously, peering up at me with frightful eyes. "What's wrong?"

I swallow past the fist squeezing my throat. "Nothing Ols, nothing at all," I lie, mustering up my most reassuring smile.

I turn back to the dimming fire pit and watch the embers jump out and slowly fade to ash. It was probably nothing. Just my eyes playing tricks. It was probably just the reflection of our fire. Yeah, that must have been it.

But for a moment there, I could have sworn I saw a candle burning in the window.