The Long Weekend

In the autumn of 1984, I was sent ahead to a boarding school nestled in the highlands of the Eastern Cape, a place of mist and pine forests, far from the heat and dust of my home. The school was a converted farm estate, its main building a grand old manor with creaking floors and drafty corridors. I was one of the first English-speaking students in a school that had been exclusively Afrikaans, and I felt like an intruder in a world that didn’t want me.

My name is Sarah. I was fourteen, and I shared a dormitory with five other girls who, like me, were from distant places—Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi. But by the second term, most of them had found local families to visit on weekends, leaving only me and a few others behind. This particular weekend, I was the only one left on my floor. The other girls had all gone, and the hostel felt vast and silent, a labyrinth of empty rooms and long corridors.

On Saturday morning, the sun rose over the mountains, casting long shadows across the polished wooden floors. I had the entire floor to myself. I wandered into the common room, where a television sat in a corner, but the reception was nothing but static. I decided to explore the attic, a place we were forbidden to go, but with everyone gone, curiosity got the better of me.

The attic was dusty and smelled of old paper. There were trunks and boxes, old school records, and a collection of portraits that had been taken down. One portrait caught my eye: a girl with braided hair and sad eyes, labeled ‘Elsie, 1928.’ I felt a chill, as if someone was watching me. I hurried back down, dismissing the feeling as nerves.

That evening, I made myself a cup of tea in the small kitchen on our floor. As I sat at the table, I heard a faint scratching sound, like a pencil on paper, coming from the empty dormitory across the hall. I tiptoed to the doorway and peered in. The room was dark, but I could see a figure sitting on one of the beds, bent over a notebook. The figure didn’t look up. I called out, ‘Hello?’ but it vanished.

I convinced myself it was a trick of the light, but I couldn’t shake off the unease. I retreated to my dorm and locked the door. I tried to read, but the words blurred. Then I heard it again—a soft, rhythmic tapping on the window. My room faced the courtyard, and below, the old oak tree branches swayed. But the tapping was too precise, like a code.

I pulled the curtain aside. In the reflection, I saw a face—the girl from the portrait, but older, with hollow eyes and a gaunt face. She was standing right behind me. I spun around, but no one was there. The window was cold, and I saw my own breath misting. I ran out of the room, not caring about the locked door, and raced down the stairs to the main hall.

The hallway was dimly lit, with a few lamps casting pools of light. At the end of the corridor, I saw the figure again, now wearing a long white nightgown, her hair unkempt. She glided toward the study hall, and I followed, my heart pounding. The study hall was a grand room with tall bookshelves and a fireplace. The figure stopped in front of the fireplace, turned, and pointed to a book on the mantelpiece. Then she faded.

The book was old, bound in cracked leather. It was a diary, and the name on the first page was ‘Elsie Venter, 1928.’ The handwriting was neat, but the entries were disjointed, filled with fear and despair. One entry read: ‘They think I am mad. But I see her. She comes at night, stands at the foot of my bed, and whispers my name. I cannot sleep. I cannot escape.’

I flipped to the last entry, dated a week before Elsie’s death: ‘I have made a friend. She tells me to wait. We will be together soon.’ The next page was blank. I closed the diary and felt a presence behind me. I turned slowly, and there she was—Elsie, or what remained of her, her face pale and twisted in sorrow. She reached out a hand, and I saw that her fingers were decayed, her nails black.

I dropped the diary and stumbled backward. ‘Why are you here?’ I managed to whisper. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, she pointed at me, then at the diary, then at the fireplace. I looked at the fireplace and saw a small, metal box hidden in the ashes. I knelt and pulled it out. Inside was a letter, yellowed and folded.

The letter was from Elsie to her mother, explaining that she was being sent away to a ‘special place’ because she had seen something she shouldn’t have. She described a night when she saw two teachers burying something under the oak tree. She had been silenced, sent to a mental hospital, and died there, never to return.

I realized then that the scratching sound was Elsie’s pencil, trying to communicate from beyond. She wanted me to know the truth. I felt a mix of terror and pity. I clutched the letter and looked up, but she was gone. The room was empty, the diary lying on the floor.

I spent the rest of the night in my dorm, door locked, lights on. I didn’t sleep. In the morning, I called my parents and begged to come home, but they said I had to stay. I returned to the attic and placed the diary and letter back where I found them, hoping to give Elsie peace.

But that night, as I lay in bed, I heard the scratching again. It was coming from under my bed. I looked down and saw a piece of paper with a single sentence written in the same neat handwriting: ‘You know now. You will never leave.’

I did leave, eventually, when my family emigrated at the end of the year. But even now, in the quiet of my own home, I sometimes hear that scratching, and I know she is still waiting, ready to share her story with anyone who will listen.