The Children of Frederick Vance
Short Story By: Frankie Baxter 🕊 England 🇬🇧
Everyone had heard of Frederick Vance. He was known to be the Duke whose Manor was destroyed in a fire, killing him and his four children. Their estate was over thirty miles from any village, or other house for that matter, so their small bodies were scorched and blistered for just over seven hours before help arrived. He’d had two boys and two girls, each equally sweet and innocent, undeserving of their gruesome fate. Being widowed, they were all he had left to love, and so before his wife died from illness, he asked her to teach him how to sew their clothes, so that he could be the best father for his children.
Mr and Mrs Collins weren’t the type of people to believe stories like these. James Collins was an accountant and approached matters with logic, and Susan Collins was an architect and a firm, pragmatic woman, similar to her husband. They moved into the Manor with their daughter Lucy, who was a bratty six year old who’d grown up with everything a bratty six year old could ask for. They had been living there for little over two months when Mr Collins found the basement, a large clean room, with a large rocking chair, a single bulb which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, and a spacious wardrobe. Mr Collins thought that this could be a spacious and safe area for Lucy to play in.
Lucy walked down the long line of stone steps into the basement, and flopped onto the burgundy carpet. The first part of the room she decided to explore was the rocking chair, but it screeched each time it dipped back and forth, so she moved to the right side of the room.
Under the bulb was the wardrobe, and if she stood on her tiptoes, she could reach the handle to pull the doors open. The hinges groaned, but to her delight it was filled with worn children’s clothes. She grinned and began to pull the piles of frocks, petticoats, blouses and skirts out. She had little interest in the boys' clothes, and tossed them aside: she’d found the most beautiful clothes she’d ever seen.
They were hand sewn, all clearly created with care and patience. The hems were lined with lace, the buttons selected to perfectly compliment the piece, the stitches forming tiny shapes along the satin and cotton. And there were so many, Lucy squealed, and began to pull the skirt and tops over her own clothing.
Then, a sneeze.
It came from the far corner of the room. It was high-pitched, from a child. What followed was a bustle of shushes from the same corner, and a very quiet “Be quiet, she’ll hear us.” This was spoken by more children.
Lucy was still. She then saw the carpet slightly pull, as something - that she wasn’t able to see - stepped slowly across to her, pressing the carpet down as it came closer. Then it stopped, around two metres from the paled six year old.
In a tiny voice, the child whispered into her ear.
“Do you like our clothes?”
Mr and Mrs Collins weren’t convinced of this story when Lucy came hurtling up the stone steps and into their arms, sobbing and howling in fear. However, they knew she’d be obstinate and never feel safe in that house again if they didn’t do something. They called a shrink a few towns over, who recommended them a so-called ghost hunter who lived a few more towns over. His rates were high, but all they wished was for their whinging daughter to let the whole thing be settled. He did it in an afternoon, pumping a nondescript, slightly green gas into the room, and allowing it to sit for a day or so before she reentered. He left and when Lucy gingerly climbed down to the entrance of the basement, she felt reassured by the piercing silence. No child, invisible or not, was there. The gas had cleared and all that remained was a slightly musty smell. Otherwise, the matter was sorted.
Frederick Vance didn’t despise coexisting with the Collins family. At times he enjoyed it; he loved to watch Susan sketch her architectural plans for hours, and James had a very similar music taste to him, so he was happy sitting silently in his company, tapping his foot along with him. His precious children didn’t mind either, they spent most of the day in the basement, playing games and doing make-believe until he called them up for bed in the large guest room. He left them to their own devices, rarely feeling a need to check up on them. He felt that the Collins family weren’t a threat, and mild in nature. He had nothing to worry about.
But one night his children didn’t come up to bed. This was strange, as this had never happened before.
Frederick decided to check up on them. As he ventured down the stone steps, the first thing he noticed was the smell. It was toe-curling. It was the type of smell that rips through your nostrils, drowning your sinuses in its sticky, sour odour. Its pungence sickened Mr Vance, and he nearly stumbled once the wave of it hit him.
As he walked down two more steps, he noticed a small foot. Then another. Then the hem of a skirt. He rushed down into the basement, but it was too late.
His four beautiful children laid on the carpet, a pile of corpses, their once rosy cheeks grey and sunken. Their bodies had swollen with gas and pus, they were now bulges of bodily fluid and poisoned internal flesh that was held together only by their ashy skin. They were so swollen that if you were to slice their stomachs, it seemed
as though their organs and liquids would spill out onto the floor. Next to their mouths were small blotches of spit and vomit that had dried into the carpet, and their eyes were now empty sockets of dried blood, their purpling eyeballs rolled out and landed onto the carpet.
The next morning, once she had plucked up enough courage, Lucy went back down to the basement and spent the afternoon there, playing with the clothes.
It was after a few hours when Mr and Mrs Collins heard the scream. They rushed down to the basement. But they both stopped, standing in the entrance, horrified.
Lucy was lying still on the floor in the centre of the carpeted basement. She was wearing a yellow dress and bonnet that she had found in the wardrobe. As they would forever more, her eyes remained wide open, directly aimed at the bulb above her which twinkled off and on. Under this light, the metal on her body sparkled.
Every inch of her pale pink skin had been punctured by a long, thin sewing needle, and the grand rocking chair swayed back and forth, propelled by an invisible force.
About the Author
Frankie is an Art, English and Spanish student who has always loved writing. "My work usually has themes of feminism, nostalgia, love (with a twist) and I like to try out new genres!"
Meaning of the Work
“The Children of Frederick Vance was my first attempt at a ghost story. I was really proud of it!”
