The Dream

The Dream (or “The Pale Lady”) is a scary story for kids about a girl who has a nightmare in which she meets “The Pale Lady”, a creepy woman with black hair and black eyes. It is based on a tale recounted by Augustus Hare in his autobiography. A version of this story appeared in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Lexi Morgan had a dream. She was walking up a dark staircase and when she got to the top, she walked into a bedroom. The bedroom carpet was made up of large squares that looked like trapdoors. And each of the windows was fastened shut with big nails that stuck up out of the wood.

In her dream, Lexi went to sleep in the bedroom, but during the night, a woman with a pale face, black eyes and long black hair slipped silently into the room. She leaned over the bed and whispered, “This is an evil place. Run away while you still can.” Then the black haired woman grabbed her arm.

Lexi Morgan woke up with a scream and lay awake the rest of the night, shivering and shaking with fear.

In the morning she told her landlady that she had decided not to go to Kingston after all. “I can’t tell you why,” she said, “but I just can’t bring myself to go there.”

“Then why don’t you go to Dorset?” the landlady asked. “It’s a pretty town, and it isn’t too far.”

So Lexi Morgan went to Dorset. Someone told her she could find a room in a house at the top of the hill. It was a pleasant-looking house, and the landlady there, a plump, motherly woman, was nice as could be. “Let’s look at the room,” she said. “I think you will like it.”

They walked up a dark, carved staircase, like the one in Lexi’s dream.

“In these old houses the staircases are all the same,” Lexi thought.

But when the landlady opened the door to the bedroom, it was the room in her dream, with the same carpet that looked like trapdoors and the same windows fastened with big nails.

“This is just a coincidence,” Lexi told herself.

“How do you like it?” the landlady asked.

“I’m not sure,” Lexi said.

“Well, take your time,” the landlady said. “I’ll bring up some tea while you think about it.”

Lexi sat on the bed staring at the trapdoors and the big nails. Soon there was a knock on the door.

“It’s the landlady with tea,” she thought.

But it wasn’t the landlady. It was the woman with pale face and the black eyes and long black hair.

Lexi Morgan grabbed her things and fled.