My name is Nicholas Daily.
When was I born? It doesn't matter.
When did I die? Ah! That is important!
I died August 19th in the year 1895. I was eight.
I remember asking mother and father if I could go play on the beach with William Keckwick.
"Don't be long then Nicholas. ", said my mother cheerily.
That was the last time they ever saw me alive.
As William and I played in the sand, it was a warm summer day. A sudden cold chill caught us off guard.
How unseasonable.
"Children! Boys!" said a raspy, terrible voice and we looked up.
There stood a woman dressed in black mourning clothes, her face veiled but was saw a thin, pale, wasted face of a woman. She pointed towards the sea.
"Go! Drown yourselves!" she said.
I didn't want to obey and, yet it felt some unseen force, forced first myself then William to stand. We turned together and side by side walked to the sea.
"No! No! I don't want to!" My brain screamed but I couldn't break this hold. It was almost like this woman steered me into water. Water, icy cold, lapped at my shoes.
Then my ankles.
My waist.
Finally, I was up to my neck. William had already disappeared beneath the waves.
A sudden tide made me realize my feet were no longer touching the sand below. And I felt weighted, and I went under the waves.
I couldn't breathe. And slowly I sank into the darkness, as I closed my eyes I felt cold hands – colder than the water – grab my shoulders.
I watched as William and I's bodies were found. I watched my mother faintly and my father sob.
I watched my own funeral.
Most of the time the Woman, left us children alone. She had claimed others.
Before me, and William, she had taken other children.
Why?
I found out.
His name was Nathaniel Drablow.
Younger than I when he died. But he died eleven years before I did. The only son of recluse Alice Drablow and her husband Charles who had died some time before Nathaniel did.
Nathaniel was around us, but never when the Woman was. For some reason those two never met but Woman was always searching for him, calling:
"Oh, Nathaniel! My baby! My darling! Where are you?"
And soon I discovered on my trips alone when the Woman was away, Nathaniel was her son, not Mrs. Drablow's. Mister and Missus had taken him from her.
Nathaniel died, drowning in the marsh – he was covered in mud. He, his nurse, and the driver of the trap died when it went off the path. The ponies had somehow lost their footing and it sank. Mrs. Drablow managed to jump to safety, but Nathaniel sank, screaming for her to save him.
She makes us do it.
She makes us.
They took her boy away.
And now,
She takes us.
Over the years I watched as she claimed other children. They always joined our sad crowd. We couldn't move on, and we cried, because we would never join our parents when they died.
Then I saw Arthur Kipps.
He had a little boy. He was in danger.
I tried to warn Mr. Kipps. I tried so hard.
But the Woman in Black got him too.
So, I thought.
Joseph Kipps didn't join us.
Victoria told me later that Joseph and his father had gone with his mother who died when he was born.
How lucky they were.
Woman was furious. She lost a claim.
Slowly, families died or moved away.
Our village decayed.
It was empty.
And we were forgotten.
And suddenly, new people.
New children.
And I knew the horror would begin again.
My name is Nicholas Daily.