Paul stood, stock still, in the square as London surged around him. The rain that had come and gone all day, spat down on him. Luckily, he’d brought his bright blue rain jacket, which would protect him for a while.
He didn’t feel the rain, though. He barely acknowledged any of the hundreds of tourists and locals that bustled around him. It was as though they were part of a different reality then him. He both didn’t belong there, and felt trapped by this place.
Paul stared at the ground before him. The wet pavement was plastered with fallen leaves of various shades of brown. Fall in London could be beautiful, in a gloomy sort of way.
Yet it was all lost on Paul. All he could think of was the woman. He’d seen her when he’d first arrived in this place. He’d stood in this exact spot, on a day just like this, and looked out over the square, then to the window of the unassuming building. There she appeared. Slight of frame, yet graceful and flowing as she moved. She mesmerized him, though not because of who she was, but of who she reminded him.
When Paul looked at the woman, he saw his big sister. When their mother had died when they were just kids, it had just been the two of them, as their father was not in the picture. She’d raised him, protected him. He’d always been a shy kid, and his sister was his best and only true friend.
Their lives were difficult, but bearable together. Then that horrible day arrived. The doctors had some long name for the disease, but Paul just boiled it down to cancer. His sister had cancer, late stage. There was nothing anyone could do.
Over the next few months, Paul watched his sister wither and fade. She was gone long before her heart stopped beating. And suddenly he found himself all alone.
He tried, he told himself. He truly did. But he simply couldn’t connect with the world without his sister. He didn’t belong there. He resolved that he didn’t want to be there anymore. It was time for him to go.
A car honked at a pedestrian who was a little too slow getting across the street. Paul looked up. He knew she would be there, the woman he always saw at this place. His eyes scanned to the left, and there she was.
Her dark hair fell onto her pale shoulders as she stood at the window and looked down at the street. Her eyes were a startling green, like sunlight flashing off a high mountain lake. She wore a white gown that hung off her waifish frame like a sheet thrown over a chair to dry.
Paul watched her as a lump grew in his throat. She looked so desperate, empty. All but the very minimum of life had drained from her body, except for one last bit of determination. Paul saw it, and he knew what she was going to do.
He moved. In a flash, he was inside the building and climbing the stairs. In the next instant, he was outside the woman’s room. Pushing his way inside, he saw her. She stood at the open window.
He called out to her, his hand raised. She looked back at him, eyes filled with tears born of terror and relief. They were the same tears his sister had in her eyes during those last moments before the pain of her disease would cease forever.
He ran toward her. It felt like a dream. He moved like molasses, his legs felt as though they were solid iron, barely able to take a step.
The woman toppled backward, out of the window, and into nothingness. She disappeared from his view. Paul crumpled to the floor. He didn’t want to look down at the street, for he knew what he’d see.
Below in Berkeley Square, a group of teenagers jostled along the sidewalk. One of them looked over at number 50 and pointed. He remarked how it was haunted by the ghost of a woman who threw herself out of the window to her death. The other teens hardly gave the story a laugh before they continued on their way.
None of them paid any attention to the figure in the bright blue raincoat standing stock still in the square as London surged around him.
If you were to walk by 50 Berkeley Square, chances are you’d pass right by without giving it a second glance. It’s an unassuming building, but, if the stories are to be believed, it’s also one of London’s most haunted houses.
One of the several legends connected to the building tells of a young woman who was held captive in the house by her abusive uncle. One day, the woman reached her breaking point and threw herself out of the upstairs window to her death on the street below. Her spirit, unable to rest, still haunts the area.
There is also the tale of Thomas Myers who moved into 50 Berkeley Square in 1859. He was engaged to a woman he loved very much, but the wedding was never to happen. His beloved broke his heart and left him, causing Myers to lock himself away from the world in the building’s attic. As the story goes, he would only leave the attic at night by the light of flickering candle. Such was his life until Thomas Myers eventually went completely mad and passed away.
Over the years, the reputation of 50 Berkeley Square has grown as people have reported increasingly horrifying experiences in the building. One day a maid was making up one of the upstairs rooms for a visitor. A scream ripped through the building and when people raced up to check on the maid, they found her on the floor uttering the same phrase over and over: don’t let it touch me. She was taken to the hospital and died the very next day.
Another man, a Captain Kentfield, dared to spend a night upstairs. In the darkness a scream and a gunshot were heard. When Kentfield was discovered, he was dead, his face twisted in an expression of terror.
There have been more tales of intrepid, or perhaps foolish, souls who have braved a night upstairs in 50 Berkeley Square. To be fair, there isn’t a lot of evidence to back up many of the tales. And in the many years the building has stood, residents have come and gone and most report nothing unusual.
Still, true or untrue, the legends of 50 Berkeley Square make for some great ghost stories.