The face at the window: a ghost story

Crowfield Abbey is haunted. We who live here do not talk about it, we simply accept it and get on with our daily work. Perhaps it is the curious nature of the haunting that allows us to forget it for eleven months of the year, for the ghost only appears in September.

The Crowfield ghost is only seen through windows, and there are a great many of them in the abbey. It is never seen in the same window twice in a row and there is no way of knowing when or where it will be glimpsed next.

This morning, Brother Mark was working in the vegetable garden when he had the strongest feeling that he was being watched. He looked around, puzzled, and then noticed a face at the small window of an empty store room overlooking the gardens and orchard. The room is kept locked, and as it is empty, nobody has any need to go inside. It was, he thought, the face of a young boy, pale and frightened. The boy's mouth moved as if he was calling out, but Brother Mark heard no sound. He hurried to find me, for I have keys to all the rooms and cupboards and chests in the abbey, and together we went to the store room and unlocked the door. It was empty and cold, as we had known it would be.

Whoever he was, that troubled soul, he had gone but we know he will be back. Today is only the first day of September, and there are so many windows here at Crowfield...