Tag Archives: urban legend

Thirteen For Halloween: The Eternal Lullaby of Wilhelmina Soames

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Every city has its ghosts, but few linger like Wilhelmina Soames. She haunted Main Street with her empty pram, its wheels squeaking on the cracked pavement, her presence as constant as the rising sun. The locals knew her by a hundred cruel names—The Mad Mother, The Lady in Rags—but her true title was whispered only by the bravest and the most foolish: The Collector.

“Nelda, Farley, Aubrey…” Wilhelmina’s voice rasped, a croak that slid down the city’s alleys like smoke. The names flowed from her lips in a ceaseless chant, each one spoken with the reverence of a mother calling her child home. Yet there were no children. Only the pram, and her eyes—wide and fever-bright—scanning the empty streets.

“Vance, Giselle, Wesley…” She called out to names long forgotten, her cracked lips curling into a smile that unsettled anyone who dared to listen too long.

The city had become numb to her presence, indifferent to the sight of her skeletal frame and wild hair, matted with dirt and debris. It was easier that way, to pretend she didn’t exist, to step over her as they did the other broken things the city swallowed whole. But those who whispered behind her back never lingered long near the places Wilhelmina wandered after dark.

Because Wilhelmina didn’t just push an empty pram. She collected.

At dusk, she ventured beyond the crowds, beyond the reach of streetlights, into forgotten corners of the city, the places where the shadows lingered thickest. Those who had been desperate enough to follow—whether out of morbid curiosity or cruel delight—never spoke about what they saw. Some said she rummaged through dumpsters, sifting through filth as if seeking something precious among the discarded refuse. Others claimed to hear her speaking softly to things unseen, her voice a strange lullaby meant to soothe the dead. But always, they said, she found something—someone. And when she did, she would cradle it in her arms, rocking it gently as if it weighed more than air.

Those few who dared to peer too long into her pram swore they caught a glimpse of something terrible. Tiny, disfigured shadows, twisting and writhing inside the carriage as if desperate to escape.

The rumors spread fast, and the stories became more elaborate with each retelling. Some claimed Wilhelmina had once been a nanny to a wealthy family, that she’d lost her charge in a tragic accident—a baby slipping from her grasp and into traffic, her mind snapping in two with the sound of that child’s body beneath tires. Others whispered of ancient curses, that Wilhelmina was cursed to roam the city, forever collecting the souls of the young who died before their time. She wasn’t just a madwoman, they said. She was a harbinger. A guardian of lost souls, condemned to ferry them to a place no living eyes could see.

And so, every night, her eerie refrain echoed through the streets, searching.

But the stories were never enough to explain what happened next.

On the night of her death, Wilhelmina entered the vacant lot, the one space in the city untouched by developers—a place where the air always felt cold, no matter the season. There, among the rubble and weeds, she bent low, her fingers sifting through the earth, frantic, searching as though time itself was running out.

And then she found it. Something unseen yet tangible to her alone. A bundle, light as air, and in her joy, she lifted it high, cradling it to her chest. But in her haste, she didn’t notice the jagged brick half-buried in the dirt.

She tripped. Her skull met the brick with a sickening crack, and the last breath of air left her body in a wet, gurgling gasp. Blood oozed into the soil, darkening the ground beneath her.

But Wilhelmina didn’t die—not in the way most do.

She awoke standing over her own body, her lifeless shell sprawled on the cold earth. The sight didn’t startle her. In fact, it comforted her. The years of madness, the endless wandering, the voices of lost children—she finally understood. She had been preparing for this moment all along.

Around her, the shadows deepened. Small, pale hands reached for her, dozens of tiny figures emerging from the gloom. Children, their faces contorted in silent screams, their eyes hollow and unblinking. They had waited for her, lost in the dark, and now they were ready to be guided to wherever it was that the forgotten dead go.

Wilhelmina smiled, her lips parting to release a lullaby that no living ear could hear. She gathered the children to her, one by one, her touch soothing the fear in their eyes. Her pram was no longer empty—it brimmed with the restless spirits of the city’s lost.

And so, Wilhelmina Soames, the Mad Mother of Main Street, became what she was always meant to be. No longer bound by flesh, she pushed her pram through the vacant lot, her song rising with the wind, a lullaby for the dead. Her voice drifted through the city, a melody of grief and longing, chilling the blood of those who walked too close.

She was no longer just a madwoman; she was their keeper. And the children of the city—those lost and forgotten—would forever hear the eternal lullaby of Wilhelmina Soames, calling them home.

The Strange Case of Wilhelmina Soames

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

“Tucker, Nelda, Aubrey…” a woman’s voice would call out.

“Farley, Vance, Giselle…” every day like clockwork.

“Odilia, Ainsley, Wesley…” regardless of the weather.

She was dubbed the Mad Mother of Main Street, this woman was, Miss Wilhelmina Soames by name, pushing an empty pram up and down the thoroughfare from sunup to sundown, calling out a series of names in the same manner that a mother would call her children and placing a hand behind one ear to listen for a response.

Most of the locals came to ignore Wilhelmina’s comings and goings because people had a way of accepting the things that happened every day, didn’t they, even madness. Those with nothing better to do than mind the affairs of others had many a nasty thing to say about the Mad Mother, but not one single solitary soul could have testified under oath that Wilhelmina spoke ill of anyone, not even of those who mocked and teased her as she strolled by.

Occasionally the mental Miss Soames would go rooting around alleyways and underpasses and all the other nooks and crannies that the city possessed, places ignored by upstanding citizens, places where the foolish, the nosy, the mischief makers, and the destitute often went missing, and she would sniff about and go digging like a truffle pig through the rubbish and muck. Most times she emerged disappointed but on rare occurrences there would be a smile wide enough to split her soot-speckled face in half, as she cradled something invisible to the eyes of everyone else but her own, and she would coo and sing lullabies to it as she gently placed it in the pram.

If Wilhelmina had a home, no one knew the address, and if she ate, no one bore witness to the consumption of food of any sort.

Because gossip was the least effective yet most prevalent form of communication, many rumors surrounded Mad Mother Soames, all supposedly from reliable witnesses explaining her separation from sanity. Some said she used to be employed as a childminder for a wealthy couple and lost track of her young charge while running errands, and the distraught parents ruined her socially, leaving her to fend for herself on the streets like a common beggar. Others claimed the baby lost was her own and in a moment of distraction, the handle slipped from her gloved grip and the pram rolled out into oncoming traffic.

And then there was the urban legend. Before cities were constructed, the planet was a patchwork of tribal lands filled with indigenous peoples who knew the ways to appease the forces that kept the balance of life in check. Those ways and the knowledge that accompanied them were lost when the colonizers arrived. As was the way with life, accidents would occur that sadly resulted in death and those souls too young to have bonded with their physical counterparts would become separated and wander aimlessly with no knowledge and no ability to find their path to the afterlife. So, every decade a new person who had unwillingly and unwittingly sacrificed a young life to the forces that kept the balance of life in check, would become the collector and guardian of those tiny lost souls.

The Mad Mother’s daily search ended when the city was asleep, and Wilhelmina would push her pram into a lot that had remained vacant as long as anyone could remember because it did not have a clear title. The ownership situation was so complicated that no real estate investor felt it was worth the time and effort to resolve.

Wilhelmina had been fortunate this day, so she scooped her invisible bundle out of the pram but tripped over a bit of rubble in the process, causing her to slip and strike her head on the jagged edge of a section of a demolished brick wall.

She awoke quite literally beside herself, her flesh encasement lying face down in the remnants of a building had taken on an ashen pallor, but she was surprisingly unconcerned because she realized it had served its purpose faithfully and it was now time for her to move on, as she had much bigger fish to fry.

Miss Wilhelmina Soames, the Mad Mother of Main Street, smiled as she looked out over the sea of baby souls surrounding her, all with arms outstretched for a cuddle and calling her Mummy.