Haunted, they said, because of a purported murder
that happened long ago in Gramma’s house in one of the second story bedrooms.
Built in 1900, it was a two story, gabled
red-brick house with a corrugated galvanized tin roof. By the 1950’s the wood
floors, gray with time, were splintered with long gaping slits into
unfathomable darkness where rodents clacked and clicked with impunity
throughout the house in the quiet of the night.
On the ground floor was a small kitchen boasting running
water, a wood-burning stove and a walk-in-pantry—where I met my first
vinagaroon— a dinning room, bedroom, and
a front room which doubled as a bedroom, where I was born on a hot summer day
in 1947. (Toilette facilities were out the back door and down the trail a spell
to a little shanty at the back of the lot.)
Off the dining room, a dimly lit staircase led to
the second story. It was steep and narrow, flanked on both sides by walls, and
ascended in a straight line, creaking and moaning with each step to the top of
the landing where a small window offered a limited view of the yard below. Left of the landing, a doorway opened
directly into a bedroom. Right of the
landing, a long, dark, windowless hall led to the other three rooms, two for
sleeping and one which was uninhabitable.
It was called the spare room, used for storage, the
one and only window boarded over, allowing little light, the ceiling open to
the rafters inviting bats. Dusty, dark, and intriguing in a macabre sort of way,
it was home to unremarkable cast offs except for a pair of mannequin-like legs
from the knee down that leaned against the wall waiting for night when they
might walk the halls with the ghost who lived there. Only a curtain draped over
the door frame held in place by two nails, a flimsy deterrent to everything
evil that came out at night or frenzied glimpses during the day to ensure the
boot forms were still there and no ghostly shadows flitted about.
Devoid of convenient light switches on the wall, and
the threat of wandering dead and boot forms walking of their own accord, not to
mention monsters from the under world, finding one’s way in the dark was an
unwelcome thrill. Unable to see my hand in the impenetrable black, I had to find the bulb that hung from an
electrical cord in the middle of the room and pull a chain. The process required
agonizing minutes of inching forward, swinging arms back and forth in a
maniacal frenzy, terrified that I might make physical contact with something
hairy or slimy and certainly ugly. Finally, finding the chain, I quickly pulled
it, dreading what I might find in the sudden brightness staring back at me.
Nothing ever did. And the manequin legs were
never out of place.
If the house is haunted, which some relatives
swear too, and many towns people believe, then I am grateful to the gods of terror
for sparing me a little girl who suffered enough with an overactive
imagination.
