Present At The Seance

By Samiksha Deshpande

Charlotte Wigg was murdered.

Tis’ but a simple fact.

Yet no one found her killer.

Her corpse had pulled a vanishing act.

Her death was quite the scandal.

Had coppers on their toes.

But where her killers fled,

Not one shiny copper knows.

Mary Walton was her daughter,

She fought them tooth and nail.

She prayed to the mighty coppers,

They did nothing but fail.

Five others had a clue,

Of Charlotte Wigg’s decease.

But all turned a deaf ear,

To their genuine pleas.

Mystery turned to nuisance.

The case drew to a swift close.

Charlotte’s empty coffin, buried.

Ignorance, they all chose.

Two years passed in false bliss.

All until one winter night.

Six ladies held a seance,

Under the pale moonlight.

The first was Charlotte’s sister,

The second, a Julie Grave.

The third and the fourth were twins, their name was Baxendale.

The fifth one was the mystic, she was nought but a slave.

The last was our Mary Walton,

She’d had enough of false pretence.

She thought the way to find the killer,

Was her mother’s own presence.

Thus ten candles were lit.

The chanting soon began.

They summoned Lottie’s ghost,

All worked according to plan.

‘Lottie, can ye hear us?’

Charlotte’s sister felt a chill.

She let out a shaken shiver,

The others sat frozen still.

Then the candles blew out.

Laughter filled the air.

The five engulfed in darkness,

To move did no one dare.

One by one, the five fell.

Into a frozen sleep.

T’was long when they all woke up.

A knife stabbed Charlotte’s sister deep.

The five of them, they shuddered.

They found no one in sight.

What killed the poor woman,

So deftly in the night?

The next day passed in mourning.

At night, the five returned.

In memory of the Wigg sisters,

Their candles again burned.

‘Sweet Lottie, is that you?’

‘Come forward, let me see?’

Julie spoke in whispers,

When she heard rustling in the tree.

The wind blew cold,

The light blew out,

Laughter rang again.

Julie’s neck snapped like a twig, she was dead without a doubt.

The four spent the day in tears.

At night, they took their post.

The candles lit up once again,

In the name of Charlotte’s ghost.

The twins, they jointly shuddered.

They called the deceased's name.

Just then the candles blew out.

Thus began the deadly game.

Laughter rang like sirens.

It chilled them to the bone.

And then a phantom shot,

Killed two twins with one stone.

The two grieved away all morning.

At night, they then returned.

They soon began their chanting,

Their meagre fires burned.

The mystic clutched her throat.

She gasped, her fingers froze.

When the candles blew out,

The mystic was a feast for crows.

Mary Walton then stood up.

She burned one candle bright.

She held it up and smiled,

She saw Charlotte, horrorstruck, in it’s meagre light.

The next night, there was a corpse.

Where the seance was once held.

The copper’s froze of shock,

As Charlotte Wigg they all beheld.

Charlotte Wigg was murdered.

Tis’ but a simple fact.

But they’d never found her body,

It’d pulled a vanishing act.

Charlotte Wigg was murdered.

This much all knew, was true.

But where was Mary Walton,

Not a living soul knew.

By Samiksha Deshpande