Brambletye Chapter One (standard:drama, 1863 words)
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Jun 14 2025	Views/Reads: 0/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A dismal, murky day, a sixteenth-century ruin, a girl in a white robe, and a hard-pressed novelist set the background for this drama set in East Sussex.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

hands on my trouser thighs. 

“Aye, worn blade. I can see as much from here,” he said, drawing a raspy
breath. “But don't fret. There's a garage back up the main road a bit. 
You'll get a replacement there.” 

I thanked the friendly tractor driver and turned to get back into my car
when I saw it, or should I say them: the ruins of three stone towers 
set back from some railings, silvery, ghostly shapes in the mist. 

“What are those?” I called out to the driver, about to climb into his
tractor. 

“Ah ...” He paused and ambled back to me. “Go back to Cromwell's time,
they do – maybe before. The Civil War, no less. The owner at the time 
got wind that the powers that be were after him for treason and fled, 
and that's it. The place was left to rot.” He raised a hand, pointing a 
chubby finger at the three towers. “Once, they were part of one grand 
house, so they say. Anyway, good day to yer son.” With that, the man 
turned, boarded his tractor with a wave, and drove off, leaving me 
standing and staring at the eerie sight. 

But then I saw something else – an ivory shawl and hood that seemed to
float and swirl in the mist as it hastened past the three towers. My 
eyes had to be deceiving me, or so I thought. Either that, or I'd just 
experienced my first sighting of a genuine phantom. But then, as the 
wind rose and the mist temporarily receded, I made out the 
all-too-human shape, and then, rounding the furthermost tower and 
obviously in pursuit, a taller, bulkier figure, dressed in dark 
clothing, much like those worn by security guards. 

“Have you seen a girl, about so tall?” he asked, his hand level with his
chin to indicate her height. I don't know what made me do it, but on 
that murky morning, I shook my head. “No,” I said, and without 
responding, he turned around and ran off in the direction he'd come. It 
might have been innocent, just a game between the two, but the girl, 
dressed in robes best befitting a health spa, and in such dreary, damp 
weather as this? Get real. Something was amiss here, and without 
knowing why, I felt my lie was justified. 

I guess instinct just kicked in. I looked around for the girl, then made
a beeline across the soggy grass directly to where I'd last seen her, 
but there was no trace. Mystified, I turned around, and there she was, 
emerging from a recess in the left-hand tower. I'd a feeling she was 
making ready to run off again, but I'm not the smallest guy, and to 
have someone six-four and sixteen stone bearing down out of the mist 
and cornering her was probably the reason she froze. 

The girl, I knew that now, for her hood had fallen as she suddenly
turned around, stood slack-jawed at my approach. “Are you alright?” I 
asked. What was that about?” 

“N–nothing.” She shook her head, and golden hair, apparent even in these
dank conditions, danced around her shoulders. “It was just a game.” She 
shot a glance towards a thicket of trees, through which her pursuer had 
disappeared. 

“It didn't look like it,” I returned dubiously. 

“It was.” She nodded, to my mind, too enthusiastically. “We have to race
three times around the Brambletye as we call it, and I was winning 
until, well, when you came running across.” 

I didn't apologize, mainly because I still didn't buy her story. Maybe
it showed good spur-of-the-moment imagination – or was it desperation? 
And why was the guy dressed differently? In any case, I wasn't sure 
whether it was possible to race around as though it were a running 
track – the ruins seemed fraught with obstacles. So, I persisted. 
“Where have you come from?” It seemed miles from anywhere. 

“Over there.” She stretched an arm, pointing at what might have been
some random place in the distance. “I'd better go.” 

“Go where? Where's home?” 

“It's not home – it's, never mind. Thank you for your concern.” And with
that, she took off running at quite a pace and was soon engulfed by the 
trees. I could have pursued her, not that I would have caught her, but 
then I'd look just as guilty as whoever had been chasing her. 

I'd no choice other than to return to my car. 

I sat for a few moments with my hands on the wheel, taking in the eerie
sight of the three tall towers, the tops of the ruins disappearing and 
then reappearing through the swirling mist. Gradually, the prospect of 
the South Coast began to fade along with the towers, at least, for now. 
I'd find a budget hotel for the night and resume my journey tomorrow. 
At least, that's what I told myself then. But deep inside, the weird 
sight I'd just witnessed was working away at my subconscious to assert 
itself at the forefront of my mind as the day went on. 

I'd noticed two or three smallish hotels during my brief visit to the
village nearby, so I pulled into one just a few minutes' drive from the 
Brambletye ruins. I'd resume my journey to the South Coast tomorrow. As 
I say, that was my intention, then. 

It looked like a decent place, so I grabbed my holdall and laptop,
entered reception, and booked in. After receiving my key card, I went 
to my room overlooking a courtyard, got out my laptop, and almost on 
autopilot, googled ‘strange activities around Forest Row.' As you might 
suppose, I came up with nothing. Perhaps what I had witnessed really 
was a product of my imagination, just a harmless game in the middle of 
nowhere, in the drizzle and mist around some spooky ruins littered with 
what appeared to be hazardous obstacles. 

Yeah, right. 

Something was amiss, and that bugbear in my head just got a heck of a
lot bigger. Could I report my concerns to the police station? What 
would I tell them that would make any sense and wouldn't be written off 
as some kind of prank? It was, after all, out in seemingly peaceful 
countryside. On top of that, there wasn't a police station in the 
village in any case. Like the country in general, the police station 
had retreated into a larger town some four miles away. 

So I made up my mind to pay a return visit to Brambletye the following
morning, and when in all likelihood I'd encountered nothing, resume my 
journey to the South Coast for a belated start on the groundwork of my 
novel. 

Later in the evening, before retiring, I tried calling Joanne, but the
call went straight to voicemail, so no big surprises there. I tried the 
landline, not knowing why I bothered, only for that to achieve the same 
result. 

Then, with intrusive thoughts of remote ruins, a blonde girl in a white
robe chased by a burly pursuer, I eventually fell asleep.  


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