The Rusted Gate

The summer I turned twelve, my parents packed us into the old station wagon and drove six hours north to the town of Merrow’s Rest. The house they’d rented for the season was a sprawling, dilapidated Victorian called the Ashworth House, perched on a cliff overlooking the churning gray sea. It was nothing like our cramped apartment back in the city. My three siblings and I were thrilled by the creaking stairs, the turret room that smelled of salt and dust, and the overgrown garden where we could play hide-and-seek among the tall, rustling grasses.

Our first week was blissful. We explored every corner, from the dusty attic filled with moth-eaten trunks to the cellar that reeked of damp earth and old wine. But there was one place we were forbidden to go: the small, rusted iron gate at the far end of the garden, half-hidden by brambles and a leaning stone wall. Beyond it, a narrow path wound down to the cliffs and the sea. My father said it was too dangerous, that the path was crumbling. My mother, usually the voice of reason, seemed uneasy whenever we asked about it. She’d just shake her head and say, ‘Leave it be, children.’

I, of course, couldn’t leave it alone. I was the curious one, the one who always had to know. So one afternoon, when the fog rolled in thick and the rest of my family was napping, I slipped out the back door and through the garden. The grass was slick with mist, and the air smelled of brine and something odd, like burnt sugar. The gate was old, its iron twisted into shapes that might have been flowers or might have been faces. The latch was rusted but gave way with a groan. I stepped through and onto the path, the gravel crunching under my sneakers.

The path hugged the cliff, dropping steeply on one side to jagged rocks and crashing waves. The fog swallowed the world, and I could barely see ten feet ahead. I walked for what felt like an hour, though it might have been only minutes, when the path opened onto a small cove. There, half-buried in the sand, was a rowboat, old and weathered, with a name painted on its bow: ‘Deliverance.’ And sitting in the boat, facing the sea, was a girl about my age. She wore a white dress that billowed in the wind, and her hair was dark and limp. She didn’t turn when I called out. She just sat there, motionless.

I walked closer, my heart pounding. When I was a few feet away, she turned her head. Her face was pale, almost translucent, and her eyes were the color of the sea in a storm, gray and empty. She smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. It was the kind of smile that made you want to run. She said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ Her voice was soft, like the whisper of waves on sand. I wanted to ask what she meant, but my throat was tight. She pointed out to the water. There, just beyond the breakers, something bobbed in the waves. It looked like a dark shape, a log, or maybe a body. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, she was gone. The boat was empty, half-buried as if it had been there for decades.

I ran back to the house, my lungs burning. When I burst through the back door, my mother was in the kitchen, and she saw my face. She grabbed my shoulders and asked what was wrong. I tried to tell her about the girl, but she hushed me. She looked at me with a strange, knowing expression, and said, ‘You went through the gate.’ I nodded, tears stinging my eyes. She sighed and sat me down at the table. She told me that the Ashworth House had a history, a dark one. A little girl named Eleanor had drowned in the cove in the 1920s, just days after her family moved in. Her body was never found. Since then, the house had seen a succession of unhappy tenants, each claiming to see the girl, each leaving within a year. My mother had rented the house because it was cheap, and she’d hoped the stories were just that. But now she knew they weren’t.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I shared a room with my two brothers, but they were fast asleep, their breathing steady. The wind howled outside, rattling the windows. And then I heard it: a soft humming, drifting up from the garden. It was a lullaby, the kind you might sing to a child. I tiptoed to the window and looked out. Down in the garden, by the rusted gate, stood the girl in white. She was looking up at my window, and she was smiling. She beckoned with one pale finger. I stumbled back, my heart racing. I pulled the covers over my head and didn’t sleep until dawn.

The next morning, I told my father everything. He didn’t laugh or brush me off. He listened, his face pale. He said he’d noticed things too, odd marks on the walls, a constant chill in the air in certain rooms. He’d thought it was just the old house. But now he wasn’t so sure. He called the realtor, who reluctantly told him more: the previous family had left in a hurry, the mother had been heard screaming about a girl in her dreams. The realtor warned my father not to let us go near the cove. But it was too late for that.

Over the following days, the girl became more frequent. I’d see her in the corner of my eye, standing at the end of the hallway, or in the garden, always watching. My siblings started having nightmares, waking up screaming about a girl with hollow eyes. My little sister, Lily, who was only five, began talking to someone only she could see. She called her ‘Ellie’ and said she was nice but sad. I was terrified. My parents decided we should leave, but the car wouldn’t start. The mechanic said the engine was fine, but the battery was dead. The phone lines were cut. We were stranded.

One night, I woke to the sound of crying. It was coming from the garden, from the cove. I knew it was her, but I couldn’t ignore it. I put on my jacket and slipped out, my flashlight casting a weak beam in the dark. The gate was open, swaying in the wind. I followed the path, my heart hammering, and found myself in the cove again. The boat was there, and in it sat the girl, her back to me. She was sobbing. I stepped closer, and she turned. Her face was streaked with tears, and her eyes were pleading. She said, ‘You have to help me. I can’t leave.’ I asked what she meant. She pointed to the water, and there, shimmering in the moonlight, was a shape, like a figure made of mist, reaching out. She said, ‘He won’t let me go. He wants me to stay with him.’

I looked closer and realized the shape was a man, tall and dark, with no face. The girl said, ‘He’s the one who took me. He lives in the deep. He’s holding my soul, and he feeds on my fear. But you can set me free, if you find my bones.’ I was repulsed, but I also felt a strange pity. I asked where her bones were. She pointed to the cliff, to a jagged overhang. ‘He buried me under the rock,’ she said. ‘Where the roots of the old oak grow.’ Then she faded, and the man’s shape lunged at me. I stumbled back, falling into the water. The cold shock woke me. I was lying on the sand, my clothes soaked, the sea lapping at my feet. The boat was gone. But I knew what I had to do.

The next day, I took a shovel from the shed and went to the old oak tree that grew near the cliff edge. Its roots snaked down into the rocks, and under one of them, I saw a depression in the earth, like a shallow grave. I dug, and my shovel soon hit something hard. I knelt and brushed away the dirt. There was a small, yellowed bone, a finger bone, and then more. I had found Eleanor’s remains. I was crying, but I gathered them carefully into a burlap sack. As I did, the wind died, and the air grew still. I felt a warmth, as if the sun had broken through the fog. I carried the sack to the cove and gently placed the bones in the rowboat, which had reappeared, as if waiting. Then I pushed the boat out into the water and watched as it drifted away, slowly sinking beneath the waves.

That night, the house was quiet. No humming. No crying. My sister Lily slept peacefully. And in the morning, the car started with a single turn of the key. We packed and left the Ashworth House without a backward glance. It was only later, when we were halfway home, that my mother found a small, tarnished locket on the seat, the kind a young girl might wear. Inside was a lock of dark hair and the initials ‘E.A.’ She closed it, and we said nothing. But I knew we had done the right thing. I had freed her. Yet sometimes, in the dead of night, I still hear the sound of waves, and a faint humming, as if she’s thanking me from afar. And I wonder if, perhaps, there are other gates waiting for the curious, and other girls waiting for someone to save them.