Memory Shadow

By Camilla Bailey, aged 9

Abandoned in a wicker basket and enveloped with fear, I laid in the endless gloom and the canal water started to seep in. As I watched the last tiny slips of light fade away, something grabbed me. Cold, clammy fingers grasped my arm in a vice-like grip. I tried to cry. No sound came out. My lips were as dry as a foreign desert and my throat parched. I couldn’t breathe. And then darkness. Complete total darkness…

Seven years later at the Lancashire orphanage

12:00. Midnight. The darkest hour. I lie under the itchy, nylon sheets. I toss and turn like a broken washing machine. Silence. More silence. Then, suddenly, a thump. I lie still, petrified. An eerie creaking noise fills me from head to toe with fear. I hardly dare to breathe. Somehow, this feeling of gripping terror is familiar, like a shadow of a memory, dusted with cobwebs, waiting to be discovered. Without warning, a figure silently glides into the room, a sense of loss in its mist. Dressed in a cotton nightgown, the figure seems forlorn, somehow, as if she had been air brushed out of her loving baby’s life. Forgotten. A small, fragile feeling of hope engulfs me making me feel as if a magnetic force is pulling me towards her, luring me in. My fear makes me want to run but my emotions take hold. A wave of empathy draws me towards her. The figure begins to sing of hopes, dreams, wishes and memories. The final verse of the song will haunt me for many years. The words echo in my mind and will never be forgotten:

Come little child hurry now

Dawn will break and leave you shall

Come little child cry shan’t you

For mother will return brand new

Come little child rest you shall

Floating down the old canal

The last syllables of the song hang in the air, lingering as if not wanting to leave, but the spirit begins to fade. I run towards her, frantic for her to stay and whisper, “Mama don’t leave me. Help me. Save me!” In a desperate, tearful voice, the spirit’s only reply is to repeat that last verse of her song over and over and over again. She is almost invisible now, as if one with the air. I fall to the floor, crippled, and sob. The tears slide down my face like colossal and endless raindrops. My wails fill the silence and pervade the walls. Centuries later, I will be discovered, lying on the attic floor, my sobs still audible.