Anne: November 14, 1800
I am sitting in the hostile hospital waiting room, hugging my lush, creamy white lamb stuffed animal that Daddy gave to me. He just went into the room that Mommy is being kept in, but he wouldn’t let me come in. Mellony just came out with tears streaming down her face and her hands trembling violently. Henry and Pearl are nowhere to be seen, which leaves me abandoned and wondering. I know I am just six, but why won’t anyone tell me anything? I don't get along with Mommy, but that doesn't mean I don't want to know what is happening with her. After what felt like hours of waiting, Daddy comes out of the room, eyes swollen and body shuddering. He tells me the news: Mommy died of a heart attack. I search for the hollowness in my heart, but I can’t find it anywhere. I try diligently to cry, but I can’t. As we walk out of the hospital, I hear all the nurses whispering, “Poor child, she is too shocked to even cry.” I am the only one who knows that isn't true; I don't cry because my heart isn't shattered.


Anne: November 14, 1801

Daddy just tucked us into bed, snuggled in blankets on a frigid November night in 1801. All four of us are tired after a day of snow-filled joy playing with Daddy. I close my drowsy eyes when I hear footsteps coming down the hallway. I can hear Daddy obnoxiously snoring in the room over, so I know it isn't him. All my siblings, Henry, Mellony, and Pearl, are also in my room with me. So, who is it?! The door is open, and suddenly I see a woman’s shadow. She looks freakishly familiar. But before I have time to react, the woman comes into our room! I shriek the most blood-curdling shriek I have ever heard in my life! My siblings wake up, but it is too late. I don't get a chance to see her clearly because a few seconds later the world goes black, but one thing I do remember is what she whispered, “Goodnight, my children.”

Anne: Present Day- 1812

Hello, my name is Anne Calder and I was seven years old when I died in 1801. I have been dead for a few years now, as it is the year 1812. Oh wait, if I am dead I shouldn't still be here, right? Well, I am because the Face in the Wall protects my spirit from shifting into Shadowland, same as my three siblings, Henry, Mellony, and Pearl. We four are something called “spirits” because we have already died. Now when most people die they go straight to Shadowland, unless they have someone to protect them. Lucky for us, the Face in the Wall is our protector. The Face in the Wall is a female face imprint on a gravelly wall in our tunnel of a home. The Face in the Wall is like a hawk surveying her hawklings, us, always observing with a sharp and thorough eye. One downfall to being a spirit, though, is that we don’t recollect any of our past, but otherwise we are fairly content with our spirit lives.My older sister, Mellony, was twelve years old when she died, and my other sister, Pearl, died when she was eight years old. Then there is my obnoxious older brother, Henry, who died when he was ten years old. We spirits don't look or do things too differently from you besides living in a damp tunnel, being able to walk through walls, being unnaturally pale, and having a light blue and black aura surrounding us. Oh, and I forgot that we can float, too. Calder mansion is a humongous, remote mansion in England. The mansion is, at the minimum, 50 miles away from civilization. We dwell in a tunnel buried underneath our home where we lived when we were alive, Calder mansion, with the Face in the Wall always giving us new things to do. Our job, the Face in the Wall says, is to overtake and kill all the new residents of Calder mansion. I never really understood why, but the Face in the Wall says it is for the greater good. And I believed her too, until this man and his wife, Richard Lewis and Olivia Swithe, moved in today. When Richard Lewis Swithe stepped into the mansion, it was as if a missing part of me was finally connected.


The Swithes coming to live in Calder mansion was a big surprise. We are a common legend around here, “the spirits of the Calder mansion” is what we are called. We are greatly dreaded because of the incomprehensibly gargantuan amount of people we have murdered. It had been decades since anyone had even stepped into the house. So when the Swithes did come, we figured they were very special. Immediately, the Face in the Wall told us what we had to do. Of course, she wanted us to kill one right away. She decided that we would kill Olivia. I was crestfallen because she seemed to be amiable and I didn't want to have to kill her. But, everyone knows you do not quarrel with the Face in the Wall. Once we killed this little girl, the Face in the Wall decided to protect her spirit, just like she does with us. This little six year-old girl, Mary, didn’t want to kill her parents like the Face in the Wall told her to, so the Face in the Wall sent her to Shadowland. The Face in the Wall says Shadowland is this big, dark meadow occupied by lethal, cream-orange colored flowers. The Face in the Wall tells us that the flowers suck up your spirit and never let it go. She told us she never wants us to go there, and I thought, why does she want Mary to go there? I knew better than to ask my question, though, unless I wanted to end up dead like Mary. Ever since little Mary, the Face in the Wall hasn’t protected anyone’s spirits except ours.


We are sent on our first mission in two years, to kill Olivia. The Face in the Wall tells us to slit Olivia’s throat when she is sleeping. We creep up the timeworn staircase to our old room, now Olivia’s. Henry, my older brother, suddenly skids down the staircase, landing with a loud thump at the bottom. “Great! Mellony screams at Henry, “You ruined the whole plan!” Olivia comes sprinting down and yells, “Richard! Who is that? Richard!” Pearl whispers, surprisingly because she barely ever talks,It is us, the children who haunt this house.” Olivia responds, “What? That is impossible, those children are dead!” Henry then screams, “Just like you!” as he slits her throat with the knife he always carries with him. As he jerks the knife away from her neck, I see the sickening crimson blood dripping off the cold steel blade. Olivia’s body collapses to the ground, lifeless and limp. Henry laughs, but it sounds like a heartless shriek to my ears, which have been numbed by countless cries of despair. Olivia’s death is just another life I've brought to an end, but it feels different for some reason. My heart plummets , why me? Why do I have to savagely murder? Why am I not the oppressed, but the oppressor? But before I can bury myself too deep in my guilt, I am ripped back to reality as my siblings haul Olivia into oblivion. They chuck the unfortunately dead woman over a cliff that is located right outside the Calder mansion. We casually walk down to our home, our tunnels. The black nothingness of our home greets us, like every other day. Except today I feel nugatory and isolated in my spirit world. I wonder what is happening to Olivia in Shadowland: is she suffering because of me?


The Face in the Wall’s booming voice rings down the stony hallway, “How was the kill, children?”. Henry shouts out, “It was clean and precise, you should have seen her face! When are we going to kill Richard?”. The Face in the Wall harshly says, “I will decide when and how we do it, and no one will question me! Now go to your caves and get ready for a meeting in five minutes.” I trudge down to my bleak cave, wishing I never had to confront the Face in the Wall again. But of course, five minutes later, as the Face in the Wall promised, we are summoned to the Face in the Wall’s cave. There, she gives us a brief spiel on how we were going to kill Richard Swithe. As she is rambling on, I start to perspire out of dread. I never felt this feeling before! Why now, why with Richard? I don't want to mindlessly slaughter any more people! I am panic-stricken that I will turn into a heartless murderer if I don't end it now!

I have an idea for how I am going to stop my life of destruction, I will forewarn Richard about what the Face on the Wall is planning to do to him. But, how will I contact him if he can't see me? He can hear me, but I don't want to startle him. Naturally most people would ask for advice from parents or siblings, but I’m certainly not like most people. I feel like I am deserted and forgotten most of the time because I don't know anyone that I really and truly trust. But, Richard Swithe makes me feel needed and loved for some unknown reason. I mean, how would he even know that I exist? I am very bewildered, wouldn't you be too knowing you have lived your whole life killing in vain and just realize now how stoney-hearted it really was?

While the Face in the Wall thinks I am sleeping, I am actually slinking up into the Calder mansion. My plan is to leave a note explaining who I am and what Richard should do. I am about to place the paper on the kitchen counter when I hear footsteps lightly padding on the ground. Suddenly, the warm glow of a candle illuminates the room. Richard stands there stunned and asks “Who are you? Is that you, Anne?” How does he know my name and how can he see me? I then, of course, ask the obvious, “How can you see me, and how do you know my name?” Richard responds gleefully, “So it is you, but how? You died so many years ago, I didn't think it possible for you to still be here. Anne, don't you remember me, your very own father?” That is when the weight hits me like a brick in the face, he is my father? I don't understand, why would the Face in the Wall keep that from us? No that i have perceived the truth, everything adds up. No wonder I feel so connected to Richard, he is my father! But this still leaves one question, how can he see me? “How can you see me if I am a spirit? No one else I’ve ever met can do that.”, I say questioningly. My father explains, “Ever since I was a child I could see shadowy figures that no one else could. One day I confronted my mother about it, and she said I was one of the few people in the world who could see spirits.”

After taking in all this information, a flood of emotions fills my body. Without thinking, I spring to my feet and leap onto my father and we hug like we haven’t seen each other for years, which is true. But then I remember why I am here, to exhort my father about the severe hazard he is in. I loathe to penetrate the joyous reunion between us, but I must bear the grave news. I explain to Daddy how the Face in the Wall commanded us to kill him. I plead with him to leave, but he doesn’t want to be disjoined again. As I walk away with a burdened heart, I notice that something is different in the stony corridor leading to my cave. And then it strikes me, where is everyone? Normally the hallway is pervaded with the echoes of the other spirits’ actions, but not now.

As I approach the main room, I see a man being held down by Pearl. But this man isn't just anybody, it is Daddy! I fly across the room, but I am too late. Henry has just stuck the knife in Daddy’s throat! I break down in tempestuous tears, he can't be departed! I sit there on the ground, watching the color drain out of him and his eyes glaze over. This only further confirms that he is truly dead, making me despise my cold hearted siblings even more than I did before. As I sit there grieving, they stand as if they didn't just murder someone. I hope that they feel guilty one day about killing our father because I have no pity for them anymore. Why do I feel as if before this I was void of emotions? Was I really, or does the Face in the Wall just make it seem that way? I finally found out who my beloved father is, only to have him torn away from me. Suddenly I scream, “Why do you pretend we aren't murderers? You ignore that you just killed someone, our father, for what? For absolutely nothing, nothing!” I screech at my siblings. “I have had enough of your selfish ignorance! And you can go tell the Face in the Wall that, too! I don't care if I'm sent to Shadowland because I'll be sent there knowing I tried to spare someone’s spirit from that awful place! But, you won't have that satisfaction, you will live the rest of your pitiful spirit life, if you can call it that, alone and truly dead in your soul!”.

My siblings scamper away from me, probably to go and notify the Face in the Wall about what I said. But, I don't care if the Face in the Wall sends me to Shadowland anymore. I said what I meant and I am going to stand by it. If the Face in the Wall sends me to Shadowland, at least I will be with my loving father one more time. I am so caught up in my thoughts that I don't see the Face in the Wall coming. Suddenly, though, she is shrieking, “How could you not obey me? If you felt a connection to Richard, why didn't you feel one to me? After all, I am your mother! I knew killing my own children would have a horrid outcome, but I was too desperate to care! You should have known to follow the rules, but now you will suffer the consequences! Say goodbye to this world because you are going to Shadowland and will never return!” Just as the Face in the Wall says “return”, I feel the air whooshing around me and propelling me off the ground. As soon as it starts, it ends and I am thrust into a field of tall grasses and orange flowers. Wait, I know what this place is, it is Shadowland. Beside me I see my father lying on the ground, clutching a cream-orange flower to his chest. But, those flowers suck up your spirit and never give it back! As soon as I see Daddy lying on the ground dying, I make a decision that will change my whole future. I snatch the delicate orange petals off of the closest flower and lie down with my father. As the flowers suck our spirit away from us, we hug in an attempt to make up for the years we lost while separated. Finally, my perilous journey ends with a peaceful shade of darkness.

Narrator: Present Day- 1812
“Why did you send our little sister away like that! She didn't deserve to be sent to Shadowland!” Mellony vociferated at the Face in the Wall. With another burst of anger from the Face in the Wall, the three other spirits are sent to Shadowland to join their father and sister. Mellony, Pearl, and Henry stare, speechless, at the little girl with the jet-black hair and the lacy white dress, their sister, sprawled, dead, on the ground with their father. “How could they have let this happen?”, they wonder. Soon it starts to rain in torrents, and slowly the siblings disintegrate into the air with Anne and their father. But as the rain beats down, five figures can be seen in the clouds: four children and a father, reunited at long last. Lighting flashes and they are gone, never to be seen or heard from again. But, this one memory is the peak of the heart of a spirit.