"Greystone Manor" By Raven F

     On a foggy autumn night, the horseman slowed his steed as he began to approach the large sign that read, “Welcome to Greystone Manor”. Although the horseman was weary from his journey, he was reluctant to go any further towards the large manor with the imported polynesian cobblestone that was clearly aged  and untended to. This weary traveler had heard stories of the Greystone Manor that went as far back as the mid 1500s. According to legend, the Greystone family came together in the most peculiar of ways. Aurther Greystone had apparently  met his wife, Cornelia Spruce, during a festival of which she took part in. Cornelia was raised with what today’s society now referred to as gypsies, and her family worked hard during these festivals to keep the commoners amused and make enough money to feed themselves. Aurther and Cornelia fell madly in love as time went by, but Cornelia's father, Odinah, did not approve of his daughter’s relationship with a non-gypsy. Enraged, Odinah put a curse on Aurther, making it impossible for him to give Cornelia children. Unwilling to part with her lover, she marries Aurther, and with the money from his family's inheritance, Aurther hires workers to build the Greystone Manor. As the years went on, Cornelia grew sad over not having bear any children of her own, and fell into a deep depression. Eager to please his wife, Aurther went mad trying to find a way to bring a child into their lives. Aurther couldn’t stand the thought of Odinah’s curse being the downfall of his marriage. So in a trump of desperation, Aurther left his residence in the middle of the night and went to the nearest orphanage in the village, snuck inside, and stole a small green-eyed, brown-haired infant in the dead of night. Those that speak of this story are never able to comprehend why Aurther did not just ask to adopt the orphaned infant, but assumed that his madness and desperation drove him to it. That morning as Aurther sent his chambermaid fetch the infant to show to his sad Cornelia, the chambermaid told Aurther that the infant had passed away in his sleep. Aurther was devastated. The curse that Odinah put on Aurther  was truly a force to be reckoned with. Aurther began to think to himself, that if he could not give his wife a child, then he would take his own life, so that she may find happiness with another man who can give her a child, and so he did just that...Aurther hung himself from the tallest railing in his manor. So distraught over Arthur's death, Cornelia died forty-nine hours later, from a broken heart.

An with this tall-tale in the mind of the horseman...he banged on the door with a frontal stalling motion...KNOCK...KNOCK...KNOCK.