The Footsteps

Creakily, slowly, the door opened,

only a bit, like in a dream.

The storm bellowed out,

the servant, old and stout

let go of a blood curdling scream.

The footsteps…ahh, here they are again,

creeping around the passage, up the stairs,

through the kitchen, into the attic, no-one aware.

The huge mansion is ancient,

built many a moon ago.

Craggy old owners, exhausted servants,

dinner-dances in flow.

There’s a single skull buried in the grounds,

belonged to Lady Amelia Jedd.

Back in 1640, she was known to be naughty

with countless suitors to her bed.

But one night, a secret tryst in the attic…

her husband had caught her with a man.

He fired at him with his shotgun,

but he missed and the lover, well he ran

all the way down the spiral staircase,

through the passage and out the front door.

Gerald got Amelia’s neck in a hold,

strangling her until she breathed no more.

Amelia was never seen again

but her husband, it is said,

was so enraged by her passions

that he hacked off her head

and buried it in the mansion grounds,

the remains of her body? Who knows where?

The servants, the vicar, never asked,

they knew he had a violent temper,

to enquire would give them a scare.

On many a roaring stormy night

dear Amelia’s ghostly feet

would stalk the halls, corridors, floors

for her lover she would meet.

Gerald died of a heart attack,

his face screwed up in a fear.

Dead wife came back to avenge him,

or so it did appear.

At the old haunted mansion, Scattisbury House,

well, the scenes were truly erratic.

Her headless form, quite bizarre, not the norm

with her footsteps creeping up to the attic…