By Eleanor Robertson -

For a year or so, I was completely obsessed with abandoned buildings. In retrospect, this was probably a projection of my internal state at the time – I was depressed and rudderless, not quite sure what to do with myself. My usual coping mechanism for these feelings – compulsive reading – had stopped working. I bought piles of books and read a few lines of each before discarding them. The desired effect, which was to occupy my mind so fully that it had no room for misery, did not materialise. I was suffering from tinnitus of the soul.

I can’t remember how abandoned buildings initially took their hold over me, but I fell hard and fast. I spent hours researching spooky old hospitals, prisons and colonial houses close to where I was living. One in particular caught my eye. It had been used as a children’s mental hospital, a juvenile detention facility, and a reform school. It was a 15-minute walk from my house. I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but I had to get in there.

Tragically, I’d missed the annual open day by a week. I wasn’t the only person keen to step inside and have a rubberneck – I came across several blog posts by urban history nerds showing photos taken inside at the previous year’s open day. Under a carpet of fallen leaves, the floors were tiled in a beautiful pattern of blue and orange. This seemed far too cheery considering the thousands of ill, unloved and delinquent children the place had held over its hundred-year history.

Undeterred by common sense, good taste or trespassing law, I recruited a friend to help me enter the building. Neither of us were seasoned housebreakers, so our plan was to skulk around the perimeter in the early hours of the morning and see if we could find a way in, using only our wits and a pair of sharp pliers I’d borrowed from my housemate.

Even having visited the building during the day, I was overwhelmed by just how eerie and menacing it felt at 1am. The weeping willow on the driveway, so beautiful in the afternoon sun of the day before, was terrifying in the cold light of the moon. We headed around to the side entrance, trying to stick to the shadows. Possums parkoured in the trees above us, and every time a leaf rustled, my heart rate increased by 10 beats per minute.

As we approached the heavy wooden door, I heard a woman’s voice over the anxious heaving of my friend’s breath. I froze on the spot. My mind was perfectly divided between the urge to run far, far away, and the urge to follow the noise to its source. Reasoning that I’d already come this far, I crept along the wall into the courtyard. I tried to peer around the corner unobtrusively. The fear was acute and consuming. My hands tingled numbly, announcing that this was the time for fight or flight. Despite the chill, I was bathed in so much sweat that my feet slipped around in my shoes.

I counted to three and inched my head forward to look into the small grassy yard. I couldn’t see a human shape, so I crept further along the wall. As soon as I was in the courtyard, I spotted the source of the noise: a juvenile magpie, warbling sadly, under a thicket of weeds.

As I turned on my phone flashlight, the young bird cried out in fear. My friend bent over and carefully picked up the magpie. It was in a bad state, too weak to resist. I called the wildlife rescue number and left a message, then we sat with the bird until the rescue volunteer arrived at six in the morning, watching the rising sun transform the willow from spectral horror back to verdant beauty.