7"Stop! Please stop!" yelled Lisa as the horse continued to gallop towards the ravine. The horse was too big and strong for a twelve-year-old to turn.
"If only I had not taken that field," she thought to herself. "Mother warned me there were snakes there."
The horse continued to gallop with no break in its stride. The yell of the girl had only frightened it more. It was running blindly, not seeing the edge of the ravine and it was going to stumble over the edge any second.
"I'm going to die!" screamed Lisa. "I'm going to DIE!"
The horse fell over the edge, creating an avalanche as it went. Lisa fell over the horse's head, tumbling and tumbling, over and over until she hit the ground.
She had broken her arm and her leg and had a huge gash in the side of her head. She struggled on and tried to get home, climbing up the side of the ravine, but she had lost too much blood. The world faded from her eyes and her legs gave way beneath her. She collapsed and slowly passed away.
***
In the year 1999, one hundred and twenty two years after Lisa's death, two sisters were arguing.
"Oh, come on Sam, cheer up. We're moving to the country!" Iona, a thirteen-year-old girl, tried desperately to cheer up her sister, Samantha.
"But there are no other families for miles. We'll get so bored!" complained Samantha. She had been complaining for two months now, ever since she learned they were moving.
"We'll be living on the edge of a ravine with horses to ride and the cows and sheep to look after, we'll never have time to get bored."
They argued for another couple of minutes until their mum decided they had to help fill up the removal van.
Within a couple of hours they were ready to leave. All the way along the three-hour drive, Samantha complained and Iona tried again and again to cheer her up.
When they reached their new house, Samantha was finally quiet.
They all looked at the huge house with the ravine behind and the flat farmland in front. Iona fell instantly in love with it and ran forward to be first to choose a bedroom.
They unpacked for the rest of the day. Most of the furniture was out but the smaller things like food and toys were still left in boxes.
That night Iona could hardly sleep. Every time she started to drift off, something woke her up, like the window rattling or a door slamming. Once she woke up and was sure she saw a figure at the end of her bed, but when she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes to see it more clearly, it was gone.
Iona had read about poltergeists and ghosts and this reminded her about a story in a haunted house. She was the type who believed in anything to do with the paranormal.
In the morning when she tried to explain what she had seen to Samantha, her sister persuaded her that it was just a dream.
By the following night Iona was sure it had just been a dream. All her ornaments and toys had been brought out of their boxes so her room was now beginning to look like her old home.
But that night, the vision of the figure came back again. This time it remained. Iona saw it clearly this time. It was a young girl, about the same age as herself, maybe a little younger. She had medium length brown hair, brown eyes and she wore very old-fashioned clothes. She was quite short for her age. The strange thing was, she seemed to be transparent.
The ghost floated over to Iona's bedside table. At first Iona was sure it was going to try and hurt her. But then she realised it was trying to talk to her. Its lips were moving but no sound came out.
Then Iona had an idea. She jumped out of bed and grabbed some scrap paper and a pencil. She then handed it to the ghost and said, "What do you want to say?"
The ghost then wrote:
'Help me find my horse'
"What are you talking about?" asked Iona. "Who are you? What do you want?"
Then the ghost wrote:
'My name is Lisa. I want to find my horse, Selet. I lost
her. I want her back. Help me find my horse please'
"How can I help?" questioned Iona. "Where did it go?"
The ghost got angry and was obviously trying to shout at her but Iona couldn't understand anything she was saying. So it wrote down:
'If I knew where she went I wouldn't need your help
to find her!'
Iona was so tired, she couldn't really say no to the ghost so she just said, "Sure, I'll help."
The next morning she tried desperately to convince her sister their house was haunted but with no success. Samantha just laughed at her.
Just after lunch, the ghost appeared in Iona's bedroom and asked Iona if she would help her to find her horse. Iona reluctantly said, "Yes," and they went down to the ravine.
Samantha asked where she was going and when Iona said, "Oh just out," Samantha got suspicious. Iona never went 'just out' so Samantha decided to follow her.
Lisa showed Iona the track down and when Samantha saw that Iona seemed to know where she was going, Samantha got even more suspicious.
Lisa showed Iona where she had fallen and where her body was buried. She tried desperately to tell Iona what had happened but she soon gave up since Iona couldn't hear her.
Samantha tried her best to go down the track without being seen, by dodging between rocks but she didn't need to worry because Iona was already preoccupied. She seemed to be talking to someone.
As Samantha got closer she started to see a shape next to Iona. As she got closer still, she realised the shape was a human but she could see the rocks on the other side of it!
"Aaaaahhhhh!" Samantha screamed and started to race back up the track.
Hearing the yell, Iona turned to see what it was and Lisa vanished from sight.
Iona ran up the ravine path as fast as she could, trying desperately not to fall. She kept calling out to Samantha that it was, "OK," and that the ghost was gone now.
They both reached the top safely, Iona on Samantha's heels.
Finally Iona managed to stop Samantha and get her to come back to the ravine where Lisa was waiting.
As soon as Samantha saw Lisa, she turned and was going to take another sprint up the ravine when Iona grabbed her arm and dragged her down to the bottom of the path.
Lisa started to walk towards Samantha with her hands held out in front of her in a sign of peace. She stopped just in front of her.
Iona started to explain. "Sam, she's a ghost."
"I can see that she's a ghost," yelled Samantha. "I'm not blind."
"Her name is Lisa," Iona continued. "She lost her horse, Selet was it?"
Lisa nodded. "She wants to find it. And I said I'd help her. Will you help us? Or are you just too scared?"
Samantha wanted to be braver than her sister so she said, "Yes."
Iona decided to go back to get a bit of paper and a pencil so they could have a conversation with Lisa. Samantha couldn't be bothered going all the way home and back so she decided to stay with Lisa.
When Iona was gone, the most Samantha did was shuffle her feet. When she was tired of the silence she decided to ask something.
"So you're dead then?" Lisa nodded. "That's nice." After saying that, Samantha decided it would be better to stay quiet. After a couple of minutes, although it seemed like hours to Samantha, Iona came back with the paper and the pencil.
First of all, Lisa wrote down what had happened to her. Then she explained that she wanted her horse so she wouldn't be lonely.
To start the search, they started to dig up small mounds of dirt that the bones could have been buried under and picking up stones under which the bones could have been hidden.
The only problem was that Lisa couldn't help because when she wasn't concentrating enough, her hands went straight through the spade, which was why she hadn't bothered doing it before.
Three weeks later the girls were still unsuccessful but one night Iona had a dream where she saw a black horse and in the dream she started to follow it. It led her to a small pile of rocks further up the ravine than they had been before.
When she woke up, it was still dark. She had that feeling of restlessness again, the same as the first time she met Lisa.
Suddenly a large shape appeared in front of her. It was a horse. Iona could still see straight through it but she could tell it was definitely the same horse as in her dream.
She knew she had to follow it. She went to wake up Samantha.
She shook Samantha until she asked, "What time is it?" Then Samantha said some strange name like 'Aravis' and kept talking a load of nonsense.
Iona decided to go on her own. She got changed, grabbed a spade from her cupboard and sneaked out the window.
The horse was waiting patiently outside and when it saw her, it stated to trot to the ravine. Iona jogged behind it.
At the top of the ravine, it gave a little dart forward and then went back to a trot. Iona guessed that had been where it fell.
On the ravine floor, it started to speed up. It seemed as desperate to see its owner as she was to see it.
It led her to the same pile of rocks as in her dream. She moved the stones and dug a hole. She came across a skeleton that could have been a horse.
She looked up to see the size of the horse compared to the skeleton but it was gone.
Iona realised she needed to move Lisa's bones here so she would need a wheelbarrow. There was one back at the house. She went to get it and wheeled it back.
She started digging where Lisa had pointed out her burial place.
The digging must have disturbed Lisa because she appeared in front of Iona.
Iona explained about her dream and the ghost horse. When Lisa heard it, she was desperate to help. As soon as Iona reached Lisa's skeleton, Lisa picked up the bones and put them in the wheelbarrow. Iona was pleased with this because she hadn't been looking forward to touching Lisa's earthly remains.
Once they had all her bones they took them to the horse's skeleton. Lisa tipped her bones into the hole Iona made then disappeared. Iona filled in the hole and covered it in rocks again. When she was done she went home and back to sleep, more relaxed and peaceful than she had been since she had arrived there.
When Iona told Samantha what had happened that night, she found it hard to understand how it had happened but was happy she didn't need to see the ghost again.
Some nights if you watch long enough, you may catch a glimpse of a black horse and a twelve-year-old girl riding over the fields on the edge of the ravine.
***
This is the first propar story I wrote ever, well one that might be at least of some slight interest to someone, so I thought, why not just put it in. I know it isn't very good just now and I am going to redo it some time, but I would like someone else's opinion on how to make it better. Please, please, please review this or send you're thoughts to xilmin