Storytelling, Week 12: Waking Oaks

     It was an ominous saturday evening. Clouds slowly drifted past the full moon as wolves howled in the distance. The walk to Waking Oaks graveyard was nearly a mile off of Burns highway. Waking Oaks graveyard hasn't been used as a burial since the early 1900s. These days it is just a place where the older kids hang out, drink, or do drugs. There are a few ghost stories that are told about this old graveyard. One in particular is Little Jumping Joan. Her life ended in October of 1882. Everyday she would come home from school jumping and singing with glee. However, one day she never came home. Her body was found a few miles in a forest off of Burns road near Waking Oaks actually.

     A few older kids said they saw her walking around the forest near the graveyard, but only if you summon her. Being twelve years old I even thought this was complete bullshit. So I grabbed two of my friends and we decided to walk to Waking Oaks and try to see little jumping Joan. The walk to Waking Oaks was long, but we saw a white owl perching on a branch, which was great. I had never seen one in the wild before.

     Finally, we reached Waking Oaks graveyard. The entrance had an iron archway that was overgrown with vines and dead kudzu. We slowly walked around the graveyard to make sure there weren't any older gothic kids, but we were luckily alone. Most of the trees within Waking Oaks were almost dead. It is no exaggeration that every tree had multiple crows on its branches.

     We read a few of the gravestones and some of them date back to the early 1800s. I think the earliest one we saw was being from 1819. Many of the gravestones had candles and bizarre marks drawn on them to where the creepy gothic kids would attempt to have seances. I wonder if that actually works, but I wouldn't want to be around if it does.

     We finally found it, the gravestone of little jumping Joan. To be more respectful, her real name is Joan Clark. The grave stone read, "Our Dearest Daughter - Born 1876 : Died 1882." The grave gave us all the creeps to be honest. The three of us knew what to do next. The tradition is to stand in a circle in front of her grave and sing a song three times. Each time you sing the song it is supposed to be louder than the last. Kind of like "Bloody Mary," but inside a graveyard instead in front of a mirror.

     The three of us joined hands and began to sing the song softly:

                 Here am I, little jumping Joan
                 HERE am I, little jumping Joan.
                 When nobody's with me,
                  I am always alone.

     After the first time we sang the chant the wind started to pick up. I thought this was a little weird, but we continued to sing the song a second time. We sang louder this time. The wind began to blow even faster. Finally, we shouted the song a third time at the top of our lungs. Thunder and lightning crashed around us halfway through the third tune. We all looked at each other terrified, but never stopped singing. We sang the last line the loudest. Suddenly...nothing.

     The wind, thunder, and lightning stopped. Actually, there was no noise at all. There was only silence. A silence I have never heard before. I couldn't even hear myself breathing. A few moments passed and we heard a faint sound of a young voice singing among the trees. The singing was quiet and eerie. It gave me chills to my core. The three of us looked into the trees to see who was singing. It was probably the older kids trying to scare us.

     We turned back to the grave of little jumping Joan. A small bloody girl dressed in a school outfit sat on her grave.

     "Have you come to jump and sing with me?" Joan asked quietly.

All of our eyes widened in fear. The three of us ran out of Waking Oaks screaming. I don't know where my two friends ran off to because of the terror. I continued to run down Burns road all the way home. Lets just say, I didn't leave my bedroom or sleep for days.

Graveyard

Author's Note:

For the unit this week I read Nursery Rhymes. I chose to use the paradox of the "Little Jumping Joan" as the reference to the readings. I don't know why I decided to make it a horror story within a graveyard. I haven't written a story that was meant to be scary yet so I figured that I would give that a try. I decided to make the paradox a song, which the three young kids sang in the graveyard. I just thought that the original paradox/poem could be used in a creepy way if it was sung.

Lang, Andrew. The Nursery Rhyme Book Book (1897)