The Mystery of the Whispering Ghost: A Children’s Halloween Short Story
by Andrew MacRae
“Paul, wake up. Wake up.”
Paul opened his eyes. His five-year-old sister was standing next to his bed. Morgan’s eyes were wide and she was holding her stuffed pink pig. Moonlight spilled through his window.
Paul’s comic book, the one he was writing and drawing all by himself lay next to him. He had fallen asleep while thinking of what to draw next.
“What’s the matter, Morgan?”
“I can’t sleep. It’s too noisy in my room.”
“Noisy? Why?” Paul rubbed his eyes.
“There’s a ghost in my room and she keeps whispering to me. She’s keeping me awake.”
Paul sat up. A whispering ghost? At twelve years old, Paul knew this needed investigating.
They tiptoed down the dark hallway to Morgan’s bedroom. The door was closed. “I closed it so the ghost couldn’t go away,” explained Morgan. Paul looked down the hallway at the door of their parent’s bedroom, wondering if he should wake them up. Morgan opened the door to her room and went inside.
“Come on,” she whispered, as usual not afraid of anything. Paul gulped and reached inside the door and found the light switch. Morgan’s room filled with soft light from her bedside lamp. Paul looked around at the toys, books and stuffed animals.
“I don’t hear it,” he said.
“Her,” corrected Morgan. “She’s a her.”
“How do you know?
“Because I’m a girl and this is my room.”
Paul didn’t think that made sense but he knew better than to argue. “Well, anyway, I still don’t hear anything.”
“Maybe she’s afraid of you.”
Paul didn’t think that made sense either.Ghosts are supposed to scare people, not the other way around. He decided to wait in Morgan’s room and see if the ghost would come back. Paul turned off the lamp and sat in the rocking chair while Morgan snuggled into bed with her pink pig. The room was dark and Paul could hear the ticking of the clock downstairs.
Paul was falling asleep when he heard a soft whispering sound. It came from near the bookcase, in the darkest part of Morgan’s room. Morgan also heard the whispering.
“Paul, can you hear her?”
“Yes, I do. Hold still.” Paul got up and tiptoed over to the light switch and turned it on. The room filled with light again. But there was no ghost to be seen and the whispering stopped.
Morgan sat up. “Ghosts don’t like light.”
Morgan decided to sleep in Paul’s room for the rest of the night. Paul helped her carry her blanket and pillow and she made a bed for herself on the floor. Morgan went to sleep right away, holding her pink pig. Paul lay awake in the dark for a long time, unable to sleep and wondering about the whispering ghost he in Morgan’s room.
Paul hurried to Morgan’s room the next morning to investigate. Her bedroom looked normal in the morning sun. He looked at the bookcase where the whispering had come from. Nothing looked out of place. On the shelves were rows of books and shells and pinecones and a jar filled with sticks and leaves where Morgan’s caterpillar was sleeping inside a cocoon.
“I told you, ghosts don’t like light,” said Morgan, standing in the doorway. “We have to wait until night to hear her again.”
Paul thought about that. He looked over at the window with its thin curtains that filtered the strong morning sunlight and he had an idea.
Paul took a folded blanket from the foot of Morgan’s bed, then moved the rocking chair next to the window and tried to stand on it. That didn’t work because the chair rocked too much. Paul went to his room and brought back his desk chair and put it in front of Morgan’s window. He stood on the chair and lifted the blanket and tucked one end into the curtain rod and then he got down from the chair. The blanket covered the window and blocked all the light.
Paul made one more trip to his room. He came back with his flashlight and closed the door to Morgan’s room, shutting out the light from the hallway. The room became dark.
Morgan clapped her hands. “Oh good, now we can talk to the ghost. We can ask her what her name is.”
“Shhh!” said Paul and he sat in the rocking chair and waited while holding his flashlight and staring in the direction of the bookcase.
Soon the soft whispering began again.Paul aimed his flashlight at the bookcase and turned it on. The round spot of light danced across the bookcase but no ghost was there. Yet the whispering continued.
“Maybe she’s invisible,” said Morgan from where she sat on her bed with stuffed animals all around her.