Aldonton, Wiltshire

17 May 2022

Stanley was a man on a mission.  Long and hard he'd worked towards his chosen path and he simply couldn't stand those who wouldn't seek the truth.

That might have been why he hated his current company, a gaggle of three charlatans calling themselves the Ghost Grabbers.  Each one was a fraud, an outright, forthright fraud.  The network had assigned him here as their cameraman, and he had little choice if he wanted his career to go anywhere at all, something he was quite keen on.

The gaggle of nitwits was on this particular afternoon in the back of his truck, discussing some manner of foolishness while he drove to the next location.  Of all the places they'd been this was by far the strangest.  Normally they had him go out to some ruin, or old manor house, but this was a new one.

The little town of Aldonton was scenic, a perfect microcosm of rural Britain, like something from a movie.  Like every good movie of course, it had its secret.  Aldonton hosted a house that shouldn't exist.  Every town record and tax form showed that this hill was empty, every paper he could find showed that no house should be built on that particular, wooded hill. The council was quite sure of that.

But the house did exist, and everyone knew it.  Soon as you looked right the roof popped out from the trees, regally reigning high above the cool green canopy.  It was there, right there, and anyone could see it.

Not a soul had ever stepped foot there though, not so far as they could tell.  Boys dared each other to go and touch the side, but a few questions showed not a one managed the feat.  A few went into those woods, but never made it all the way, always coming right back out.
Seemed an easy enough task, go to the house, film the house, if it was abandoned, go inside, it was on public land after all.  That was why it grated so bad on Stanley as he circled and circled, trying to find the drive.  There should be some sort of path, some opening to get to the building, but so far as he could tell, no such thing existed.  After a third try circling round again he sighed, and pulled the van to a small open area off to the side, the grass and gravel crushing under the tires.

"We here then Stanley?"  Came the call from the back.

"Close as we can be Charles," Stanley answered.

The whole crew piled out while Stanley struggled with his camera equipment.  The three 'stars' of the show turning to look up, and the house.

Not a one of them was worthy of primetime.  Charles, the leader, was tall, with dark hair greasy enough to fry in.  Beside him stood Susan, a short redhead with a penchant or more makeup than any sensible person would wear to check out haunted houses.  Finally Michael filled out the roster, he was average, with straight black locks and the notable talent of being able to look scared on command.
"Can't we get closer?"  Complained Susan as she saw their target.

"Afraid not, whatever path may have been seems to be long since overgrown.  Not like it's a long hike or anything."

"Fine, fine," Charles declared.  "We'll walk, be nice and spooky anyway."

Stanley doubted that, even after they'd put filters, and sound effect over the footage, a stroll through the woods was still a stroll through the woods.

He didn't much care though, and a few moments later he lifted his camera high for a shot of the crew, one of the mystery house's parapets barely visible in the background.

"Hello everyone," began Charles as the on light flicked red.  "Today we're here at Aldonton's own haunted house.  Reports of mysterious happenings years back, and the image of a ghostly girl in the topmost window, looking out onto passers by.  Let's go Ghost Grabbers!"
Two hours and innumberable trips back to the road they'd come from and the four were exhausted, leaning against trees in the maze that was supposedly a small patch of woodland.

"How do we keep getting turned around?  I mean, are we not going straight or something, some trick of the light?"  Susan complained, no longer looking nearly as prim as she'd done at the beginning of this excursion.

"I don't even know, there's got to be some kind of trick going on, like a funhouse."  Stanley wiped the sweat from his brow, lugging all the equipment all about the underbrush had taken more than a toll.

"One more time, just one.  If we make it back to the van again, I'm calling this one a loss," Charles declared, "We've wasted almost the whole day, with nothing at all to show for it but sore feet and dehydration."

So once more the group set out, parting the foliage carefully as they crept through the bushes and trees.  Since this was their last attempt, they were giving it their all to get one final shot that was worthwhile.

It so happened that this time their efforts bore some fruit.  Rather than nothing but plant life, this time they stumbled upon something new.  Carefully picking around one of the trees was a small figure.

The girl was no more than ten, and consumed in the engaging task of harvesting some kind of flower, several joining a small basket of plants beside her as the looked on.  Pitch black hair hung down around her long emerald green dress, like something from a painting or one of those fantasy video games, and she sang a strange tune to herself as she worked.

Cantate vitae canticum
Sine dolore acte
Dicite eis quos amabam
Numquam obliviscar

"Is that... Latin?"  Michael asked in a fearful whisper.

Horror movies were a favorite hobby of fake ghost hunters everywhere.  Not only because they gave a good chance to try and act scared, but because the nonsense spewed in those made perfect sense to try and pawn off as real ghost tracking advice.  One of those snippets was that if you ever found someone chanting in Latin, things had already gone too far down the rabbit hole.

Michael's comment must not have been quiet enough, as the girl turned nearly in a blur.  Her eyes matched her dress in color, but in vibrancy were on a different level, the twin orbs of green peering out from the milk white face froze the four in their tracks.  She seemed to take a moment to consider, then spat out angry words at them.

"Are you lot still here?  Don't you have better things to do?"  And like that the shock holding them all in place broke.

"Us?  Shouldn't you be in school?"  Michael asked.

"Haven't gotten my letter yet, obviously.  Now go away, you're clearly not welcome here."  Letter?  That hardly made any sense, but nothing about this trip had.

"Sorry... you're not a ghost," Charles said as he stepped forward a bit, trying to salvage the situation.

"Well, since I seem to be solid and am not floating a foot off the ground I think we can rule that out.  Now leave, you're trespassing."

"We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot; perhaps we could speak with your parents dear?"  Charles gave her a winning smile but realized instantly that he'd made a horrid mistake.

"No, you may not."  The girl was rude, but hardly angry, just... frustrated?  Like someone made a mess that she didn't care to deal with.  "And if I have to get my aunt I assure you she'll be incredibly cross at having to deal with muggles who won't just go away."

"Right... maybe a phone call?  Can you give me your aunt's cell number?  I'd really like to have a word with her.  And if you would, your name?"

"Eudora, and do you have something to write on?"

"I'll put it in my phone, one sec."  Stanley watched as he tapped the keys, putting her string of numbers in, and was unsurprised when the first thing he did was try to call said aunt.  It wouldn't work though, no signal, such things were poor out away from civilization.

"Now if you don't mind," Eudora pointed.  "The road is that way."

As soon as they reached the road, once again beside their van Susan spoke up.  "Are you sure that was alright, just leaving her out there like that?"

Stanley shook his head, finally able to put his camera down on the seat.  "She knew that place, and there's nothing around here that would go after a kid.  Got word from her aunt?"  He asked, turning to face Charles.

The other man had frozen, looking livid as someone spoke to him over the phone.  "No, the number she gave me was for a portaloo cleaning company."  He turned and made his way back to the forest, intent on giving young Eudora a piece of his mind, but yelled in pain before he'd even broken the tree line.

By the time the rest of them made it to him a long sinuous form was darting away through the underbrush, a jagged dark line along its back marking it.

"Bloody bit me!"  He spat as Stanley and Michael pulled him up, the latter focusing on the fleeing snake.

"That's an adder mate, used to have them all around the house," Michael announced.  "Telling the kid off will have to wait."

It wasn't till the sun had slowly sunk behind the horizon, and their brave leader had been administered plenty of antivenom that the cameraman discovered that his footage was almost all corrupted.  From the moment they'd left the roadside it seemed the files had somehow jumbled themselves, rendering the whole day's work worthless.

The tired operator made a note to put in for a transfer to literally any position, preferably to someone who cared about telling people the truth.