Meeting at John and Sheila's in their sunny front room by nine dedicated would be authors and very good stories to tell. Joan E told of the time we had a bonfire in our garden. Sue a very disturbing one about a child being abused. Ann wrote about promotion that brought tears to the eyes. John hot air balloon, Brian ghosts, Sheila about flowers and working at a garden nursery. My contribution compensation for an accident. But Joan Read came tops in the voting.
Tears
Fiona McNab sat on her bed and looked in the mirror, the image she saw was of a green eyed woman quite pretty but nothing out of the ordinary except for one thing, there was also another image looking at her in the mirror, that of a young girl. Her long black hair was braided and fell as two plaits either side of her shoulders, she wore a shift and on her feet were moccasins Fiona had seen this girl many times since they had moved into this ranch. Her husband Richard went ballistic when she mentioned it. He said that her ability to see people that were not there was just her imagination but she knew without a shadow of doubt that this girl whether she was a ghost an apparition or spirit needed help.
Fiona went outside into the paddock where she saw old Tom leaning on the fence he had been called this since he was 17. He was now in his 76th year. She asked him if there was anything unusual about this land." Well now" he said chewing on a piece of grass "the land here as far as you can see used to be Indian land and there is a legend that a massacre took place near here. A troop of cavalry returning from a battle with Cochise (who was a Chiricahua Apache) came upon this village and slaughtered the woman and children but this had never been proven."
Fiona thanked him and continued her walk, after about I5 minutes she came upon an old barn which looked as if it was about to fall down. Before she got to the door, it opened. Fiona could hardly breath her heart was pumping so hard she thought it would burst. Just inside the door she saw the girl who beckoned to her. She went in and the door closed behind her. As her eyes became accustomed to the light she saw them. Woman and children some standing some sitting and some sleeping. Just as she was about to question the girl the door flew open and there was her husband, she said "Richard can you see them". He got hold of her shoulders and even though the tears were running down her face he shook her hard and yelled at her "do you really want everyone to think that you are mad" he was furious "enough of this nonsense" he yelled and with that he left. Just then Tom came in "You hear them don't you" he said "No" Fiona answered, "I saw them, they are here in this barn waiting for us. We need to dig up the floor". Tom said he would arrange for a machine and driver to come tomorrow. That evening when her husband came in Fiona kept quite she never mentioned the vision or the barn or about tomorrows event she knew he did not understand or believe.
The next morning when all was quiet the digging started it was not long before the first skeleton was found they could see that it was of a small child Tom phoned the sheriff and soon there were forensic scientist, anthropologists, historians and photographers all over the place by late afternoon 40 bodies had been found all of them were woman and children. When Richard finally arrived home Fiona could see by his face that their marriage was over but she knew it was worth it when she looked into the mirror that night and the image of the girl seemed to say "Thank you" and Fiona knew that she would not see her again. The bodies would be recorded and then buried according to Indian ritual on a sacred piece of land where hopefully they would remain in peace.
