The Haunted House Diary
by
Louise Hart
Published by
Sirius Publications
www.sirius-books.com
© 2002 by Louise Hart. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be produced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be addressed to Sirius Publications through our web site at www.sirius-books.com.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is unintentional.
Cover art design copyright 2002 by Sirius Publications. Cover graphic copyright 2002 www.ArtToday.com.
Printed in the
ISBN 1-930889-36-4
About the Author
As
a writer, author, poet and photojournalist, Louise Hart is both prolific and
versatile. The Haunted House Diary,
her latest work, joins the growing list of her published works that includes
poetry, illustrated poetry, short stories, fiction, non-fiction, essays, humor,
cookbooks and children’s books.
This
work of fiction was inspired by the house pictured on the cover. The incidents detailed in the book are based
on phenomena said to have occurred in the house and told to this author. However, the book is more than the story of a
haunted house. It is the story of a
family and a child and is suitable for all ages. The story contains no overt violence or
profanity, but rather, draws on the experiences and imagination of its
readers. Similarly, the central question
in the book: Is the house haunted or is the diary the writings of a child with
an active imagination? is never definitively answered by the author but left to
each reader to decide for herself or himself.
She notes only that the house so obviously in disrepair is undergoing
renovation.
A
graduate of
Introduction
The
following are excerpts from a diary that workmen found in a house that was
being rehabilitated in a nearby city.
The house where the diary was found is very old, one of the oldest in
the city. No one knows its exact
history. It has been empty for several
years.
The
excerpts were written on loose-leaf paper in a young girl’s handwriting. They had been tucked inside her personal one-year
diary as though she meant to keep two diaries - one personal and one
specifically for the experiences the family had in the house. Neither diary was dated so the exact age of
the diaries is unknown. From their
contents and condition, they appear to be about forty or fifty years old. Like the house itself, its exact origin
cannot be determined.
I
do not know the author or the family of whom she speaks. I have checked the city’s records. A family by that name did live in the house
decades ago. No one knows what happened
to the family. Some believe that the
parents died and the children all moved away.
No one knows for certain. If the
family moved away, why the diary was left behind is a mystery. The workmen found it hidden under some floorboards
in the attic. Perhaps it was forgotten
or fell out of a box as the box was being carried out.
How
accurate the diary is cannot be determined without any witnesses or contact
with its original author. The main diary
is filled with a little girl’s thoughts and memories. It tells of her friendships, classmates,
feelings and experiences. She mentions
six children in the family of which she was the youngest and only daughter. As an only girl, she may have used the diary
as a confidant or friend with whom to share her innermost secrets and thoughts.
Why
she kept a separate diary for experiences in the house, she does not say. I do not know if the workmen found all of the
pages to either the personal or the house diary. The pages had yellow, were brittle and had
begun to decay. What follows is only
what I received. It is possible that
while the girl wrote every day in her personal diary, she only wrote in the
house diary only when some event of significance occurred. Both end after only a year. Whether the girl continued to keep a diary or
kept only these two is unknown. Given
that the personal diary is one of those commercially sold one-year diaries, she
may have kept others. It seems likely
that she kept the second to be co-terminus with the personal journal, intending
to keep one with the other. She does, of
course, make much of the fact that this diary covers only the first year the
family lived in the house. Without
knowing the author or the events of the time, why only the first year was
contained in the pages delivered cannot be ascertained. Only the author and her family know whether
all activity in the house ceased after this first year or if any of the events
reported happened at all.
Whether
the house diary is a product of a little girl’s imagination or the actual
experiences of her family after they moved into the house, I cannot say. The neighborhood has changed a great deal
since the time the diary was written. No
one in the neighborhood was living there at the time the diary was
written. I checked with the historical
society in the city. They referred me to
residents of several nearby homes for the elderly.
At
two of the nursing homes, I encountered former neighbors and city residents who
knew of the house. Several of them reported that the house where the diaries
were found had a reputation for unusual occurrences that were attributed to its
being haunted. One of the former
neighbors, a Jack Regan, said that at one time, the house was the talk of the
city. He said that the house had a
reputation for lights and appliances going off and on and doorbells ringing by
themselves, doors opening and closing without anyone present, things moving
without being touched and, most of all, for the sound of footsteps in the front
hall and on the front staircase. He
claimed that he visited the house when the footsteps could be heard. He said that it was rumored that the house
had originally been built down around
When
I reread the house portion of the girl’s diary, I was struck by the details
given therein and what I had been told by the former residents. None of the residents with whom I spoke could
remember personally meeting the girl. Even those who claimed to have known the
family seemed to have little knowledge of the girl. They said that as youths, the boys were well
known in the city. They were normal and
had many friends. Some had gone to
college. Others became tradesmen. All had now left the area.
Some
with whom I spoke seemed unaware that there was a girl in the family. I found that somewhat strange. Even stranger was the fact that those who
claimed to have known the family could not recall having met the girl. One told me that the girl had a reputation
for being an extremely bright, serious student.
She said that she believed that the girl went to the university before
getting married and moving away. She
could not remember the names of the girl, her brothers or if there had ever
been an aunt. The father was a local
businessman and the mother was a nurse and volunteer at the Red Cross. I had to believe that she knew the family,
for those facts were confirmed in the diaries.
I
have not checked with the school system or other public records to try to find
the girl or any remaining members of the family. After my interviews, I was satisfied that the
girl and family existed. I possibly
should have tried to either return the diary or to clarify why she wrote
it. However, I rejected that idea. I do not know that she is still alive or if
alive, where she is living. I could
obtain no definite details about her or even which university she
attended. I was told that she had
married so she may not now be using the surname given in the diaries. After all these years, she may not remember
writing the diaries or their content.
Thus, if I found her, she might not be able to confirm or deny the
veracity of the details in the haunted house diary. Besides, if the house diary is accurate, it speaks
for itself. If not, after reading it, I
must say it still is an enjoyable tale.
If I found the girl, she might be embarrassed if she learned that the
diaries are still in existence and that someone had read her entries. She might not give her permission for the
publication of the haunted house diary and having read it, I believe that it
should be published.
Because
I wanted to preserve the story as the girl told it, I have only completed a
cursory edit of the haunted house diary.
Where pages were ripped or in poor condition, I have had to fill in
words using what was left of the original entries. I have corrected a couple of grammatical
errors. Fortunately they appear to be
few for the girl seemed to be a good writer for her age. From her writing, I would judge that those
who reported her to be a sensitive, serious and intelligent student were
possibly correct.
As
mentioned, although certain entries in the personal diary are relevant to
events in the house, I am not including any extracting any portion of the
personal diary because it is obviously just that - personal. My reasons for
excluding all entries, notations and comments from the personal diary are
several. One, the fact that two diaries
were kept suggests that the girl may have written the haunted house diary for
others to read. On several occasions in
the diary, she mentions that there were open discussions about events in the
house. She may have seen herself as the
journalist or reporter, preserving a record of the events for future
discussions. Two, she apparently wanted
to protect her personal observations and comments in her main diary from any
intrusion. I have respected those
wishes. Three, the entries in her
personal diary about strange events in the house cannot be separated from her
opinions of other family members and their relationships. Those views seem too personal to publish
without her assent. Four, since I cannot
locate the author to obtain her permission to publish any portion of her
personal diary, I have chosen to exclude that diary altogether.
The
personal diary is leather bound and has a lock on it. Squirrels that had made the attic in the
empty house their home apparently chewed or attempted to chew on the
diary. That, too, accounts for its poor
condition. When found, the diary could
be easily opened. The diary of the
house was tucked inside the front cover as though only a long letter or note to
another. A makeshift cover for the house
diary consisted only of a front page on which had been printed “The Haunted
House Diary. Because the house diary was
only on loose folded sheets of paper, it fell out of the personal diary when
the workmen opened the main diary to try to find the name of the owner. Because of the unusual title given the house
diary by its author, the workmen became intrigued and read it. The workmen knew of my interest in local
history and thus delivered the diaries to me.
They had read the house diary.
The house, they report, appears to be quiet and quite empty now. They said that the house is almost too
still. There appears to be no life in it
at all. The wood is dried out and almost
characterless. The house, they remarked,
has not only been empty for sometime, but also, it has fallen into
disrepair. They said that when they first
entered the house that they had been shocked at its condition. Wallpaper had been torn from the walls and
there was clutter left in some rooms by former residents. This was especially true of the front hallway
and staircase. Both they said had been piled
with clutter as though to block anyone from entering or walking through them.
I
mention the current state of the house while making no judgment as to its
relevance to the events detailed in the diary.
Who or what blocked the hallway and staircase is unknown. It may be a matter of coincidence or the act
of intruders. We may never know just as
we may never know the exact origin or motive of the author of the journal. Regardless of the validity of the events
described herein, I would comment that what the author has detailed is dramatic
and engaging. If true, the events may serve
as evidence of survival of the human spirit.
It is possible, given recent research that the events may have all been
linked to one of the residents. Some
scientists would classify the events described in these pages not just as
paranormal, but rather, as those of a poltergeist or mischievous spirit. Some researchers believe that poltergeist
activity can be linked to trauma or the presence of a disturbed
adolescent. There were at least four, if
not five, adolescents present at the time these events occurred. However, not all are present during any one
event and the experiences are broad in nature.
Most poltergeist activity that has been attributed to an individual
adolescent appears to be consistent or short-ranged. Further, from the diary, it is clear that
each member of the household appears to have had his or her own individual as
well as some group unexplained experiences in the house.
Given
that the validity of the events described in the diary has not yet been
verified, I leave it to the reader to judge the accuracy of the diary’s
entries.
Introduction Finding the Diary
Chapter 1 How we came to move to the new
house
Chapter
2 Day 31, The
Intruder
Chapter
3 Day 35, The
Footsteps Return
Chapter
4 Day 60, An
Uninvited Guest Rings the Doorbell
Chapter
5 Day 125, Ring, Ring the
Bells
Chapter
6 Day 150, Who Is She?
Chapter
7 Day 185, The Game is not
so nice anymore
Chapter
8 Day 225, A Warning?
Chapter
9 Day 240, Ping Pong Anyone?
Chapter
10 Day
270, The Shake, Rattle Attack
Chapter
11 Day 300, Guess Who Came for
the Séance
Chapter
12 Day 330, The
Howling Dog
Chapter 13 Day
365, Playing with Workmen
Other Resources
I
grew up in a haunted house. If that
statement immediately conjures up in your mind sounds of clanking Roman
soldiers, Halloween costume-style white sheeted figures floating down darkened
hallways, sorrowful moaning and groaning heard in the night, red-eyed evil
gremlins, books, pictures, dishes or silverware flying across rooms or
appearing to move by themselves, Ghost Busters or high tech gizmos, I can tell
you that you are wrong. Those are the
romantic images portrayed on television and in the movies. That is not what living in a haunted house is
like.
However,
let me start at the beginning. My name
is Kate Sullivan. My parents are Edward
and Maura Sullivan. I was their sixth
child and only daughter. I was born in a house on
It
was mother who decided that I would be their last child. When the doctor came to check mother and me,
he told mother that she was healthy enough that she could go on having a child
a year for ten more years. Mother
informed the doctor that if he and his wife wanted that many children, they
were welcome to have them. Mother,
however, had enough. Besides, the
eight-room house had no more room for more children. We were all born downstairs in the front
living room that doubled as a sick room when not used for family gatherings or
birthing of a child. The living room had
two doors. One led to the dining room
and kitchen off of which was the house’s only bathroom. The other led to the front hallway and
staircase to the upstairs bedrooms. All
of the house’s four bedrooms had multiple occupants. Even though I was the only girl, when I was
ready to sleep in my own bed, that bed would be in a room with one or more
others. The house had only a storage
attic and it took years for father to lay cement in the cellar so there was no
place to add another room for more children.
The
house in which I was born was not haunted.
It was an old brown, clapboard sided house. In fact, it was a very old house. It was not especially pretty, but it was a
peaceful house. We never experienced anything
unusual while we lived there. My
brothers and I would have preferred if we had never moved from that house, for
we had many friends in the neighborhood.
The house was close to our schools so we did not have far to go if we
awoke late and could sneak home for lunch if we chose. The house was also located on a main
thoroughfare that is one of the oldest highways in the country. Although super highways have diverted much of
the traffic away from small cities and towns, this highway/street was often
used by shoppers seeking to travel over the border to avoid paying sales tax by
shopping in
As
children, we had our own values by which to judge the house. Size, age, and condition of the house like
the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, we accepted as givens. They were there from the time that our
grandparents had owned the house. We
could not control them so we did not concern ourselves with them. For us, the house’s location and nearness to
shops and friends made it ideal. Fights
sparked by intrusions into one another’s area or bathroom use time seemed
natural to us and were forgotten as soon as they were over. What we remembered most was sliding down the
front staircase, standing over the grate of the hot air furnace on cold nights,
sneaking downstairs to raid our mother’s freshly made donuts or cookies,
listening to our parents and their guests through the hot air exchange in their
upstairs bedroom, hiding in the lilac bushes, sitting on the roof over the
breakfast nook, daring one another to jump off, playing in the back fields with
friends, sleeping in the back cabin and searching for hidden closets where we
were certain treasure had been stored.
That the house had a dirt cellar only meant that we had a large sandbox
downstairs for rainy days. If my
brothers and I had had a choice, we would have grown up and lived in that house
our whole lives.
In
spite of its inconveniences, our parents, too, were comfortable in the
house. They had moved there at first to
take care of father’s parents. Father
started his business in the house.
Mother planted both vegetable and flower gardens in the large yard and
welcomed the convenience of nearby churches, shops and schools. While we were very young, the house served
our parents’ needs very well. However,
as my brothers entered adolescence, its single bathroom (with no room for
expansion or installation of another) would motivate our parents to look for
another home.
“How
do you tell a pre-adolescent from an adolescent boy?” Our mother would jokingly stump her friends
who invariably laughed as she answered, “The pre-adolescent you drag into the
shower and the adolescent you drag out of the shower.”
Both
of our parents considered it a matter of survival to find a home with at least
two full bathrooms to service their five growing sons. Bathroom time had become the most common
subject of territorial disputes among my brothers. At the same time, our
parents knew that we regarded the house as our home and were not looking
forward to any move that might mean risking lifelong friendships or changing
schools. In an attempt to forestall any
opposition, our parents looked for a new house within close walking distance of
our old house so we would not risk losing neighborhood friends. They obtained special permission from our
schools so that we would not have to change schools. They did this before they showed us the new
house. On our first visit, they walked
us to the new house so that we would understand its closeness to our old
house. They announced that we would not
have to change schools even though the new house was technically in a different
school district. Our mother kept
repeating that we would not be losing anything that was important to us, but
rather, would be gaining another bathroom and two more bedrooms. Our parents considered both necessary
requirements for the retention of their sanity and peace of mind. The new house would also have a finished
cellar, full attic and more closet space but those, too, were points that we children
did not consider important at the time.
In spite of our parents’ best efforts, we were not a happy lot. It would take our mother months of allowing
us to sleep in one house and play at the other before we would finally
transition to the new quarters.
My
family did not know that the house was haunted when we moved in. I was nine years old then. Four of my older brothers were already in
their teens. Michael, the eldest, was a
star athlete at the parochial high school.
He was not especially tall and as his little sister, I can say that I
did not think that he was especially handsome or nice. He had blond hair, high
cheekbones like Mother and steel blue eyes. There was nothing nice about the
cold look in his eyes. He always seemed
cocky and too sure of himself around the rest of us. He played the saxophone in his school’s
marching band, and I guess because he wore a band uniform, he had many girl
friends. I could never figure out why.
He lifted weights every day and did have a muscular build. In fact, he almost looked like a cartoon
figure because his chest and arms were so muscular. At home, he was a bully towards the rest of
us and only really hung around with Sean.
Because he was the oldest, he was not only given his own bedroom in the new
house, but also, his bedroom was at the back of the house. His room was the farthest from our parents
and was located at the top and to the right of the back staircase. Mike made a great deal of the location of his
bedroom and his ability to come and go without first asking our parents’
permission.
Sean
was the second oldest. Only a year
younger than Mike, he did not look anything like Mike. He was tall with dark almost curly hair and
brown eyes. Mike had blue eyes as did
Mat, Mark, Tom and our father. Our
mother’s eyes were deep set and dark brown as were Sean’s. My eyes were not as deep set or as dark and I
had blond hair, but still, Sean and I resembled one another. Sean and I were not close. He chummed with Mike and thus had little to
do with the rest of us. I think that he
thought that being close to the eldest made him more grown up, but it did
not. Sean just did not talk very much to
the rest of us. Like Mike, he had many
friends and played trumpet in the school band.
Like Mike, he had many girl friends.
Since he was better looking than Mike, even if he did not have as many
muscles, I could understand why the girls liked him.
In
our first house, he and Mike shared a room.
In the new house, he was given the bedroom at the top of the back
staircase. Like Mike, he could come and
go without the rest of us knowing. He and Mike spent a lot of time together in
Mike’s room, which because it was so far away from the rest of our rooms, meant
that we could not hear what they were talking about. They did not invite us to join them. Sometimes it seemed as though our parents had
two sets of children. Mike and Sean made
up one set and then the rest of us.
Mathew
and Mark were twins. They were two years
younger than Sean and two years older than Tom.
That put them right in the middle of the boys. Both were blond and blue-eyed, but that is
where the resemblance seemed to end. Mat
was as outgoing and loud as Mark was shy and introverted. Mat liked his
bedroom, bureau and bed kept neat. Mat
liked to collect everything he found coming and going to school or play. Mat sometimes chummed with Mike and Sean even
though he and Mark were in the same classes at school. They each had their own set of friends and
their friends did not like each other. When
we were little, Mark would play with Tom and me, but as he grew up, he, too,
seemed to prefer the company of his friends.
Even though they had little in common, I guess because they were born
twins, Mathew and Mark always shared a bedroom.
Since they were not close and were opposite in so many ways, they often
fought, but our parents thought that they should not be separated. In the new house, because they did fight so
often, our parents gave them the bedroom next to theirs.
Tom
who was born two years before me was the quietest of my brothers. He was also the gentlest and kindest. He and I shared a bedroom and played together
when we were real little and always talked to each other about school, friends
and family. Tom was not as tall as Sean
or as popular with the girls, but I thought that it was because the girls
failed to see how nice Tom was next to my other brothers. At the time that we moved to the new house,
Tom was not old enough to date like Mike, Sean, Mat and Mark. Our parents set a rule that the boys could go
out on supervised dates with girls when they reached thirteen years of
age. They told me that I would have to
wait because while it was all right for boys to date at thirteen, girls who dated
then got a bad reputation. I asked Tom
if he knew any of the bad girls Mother and Father were letting the others date,
but he did not know. I was glad Tom was
not yet dating because it meant that he and I could talk in private when the
others went out with friends.
My
brothers were even more opposed than I to the move to the new house. They liked our old house, especially after
our father bought and had a construction cabin moved onto cinder blocks in the
backyard. He built Navy-style bunks that
folded down from the wall like the bunks you see on submarines. My brothers and I often slept in the cabin in
the warm weather. It was more comfortable than our house. Our house was not air-conditioned and the
upstairs could become too hot to sleep or even breathe in summer. Our aunt’s German shepherd guarded us as we
slept. His name was King and like Sean
and me, he had brown eyes. He was a good
dog and only barked if someone tried to come into the cabin while we slept or
if we told him not to let anyone else enter.
We sometimes used the cabin during the day as a playhouse or
headquarters when we played Army or war with our friends in the
neighborhood. We always considered
sleeping and playing in the cabin an adventure. The other children in the old neighborhood
did not have a cabin. Many lived in
tenements. They envied us our
cabin. Our parents told us that they
liked the cabin because when we were out there, they knew that we were safe. My brothers said that our parents liked the
cabin because when we were out there, they had the house to themselves and our
aunt. We did not mind because there was
enough room in the cabin so that we were able to have friends sleep over with
us in good weather. There was not enough room in the main house. We were very proud of our little house. After
we were all in school, we learned that no other children in school and maybe
even in the entire city had their own house as we did. There was no cabin for us at the new house
and each of us having our own bedroom did not seem to impart the same
status. Many of our friends had their
own bedrooms in their homes, but only we had our own house. Regardless of all the amenities we gained
through the move to the new house, we would always miss our cabin.
The
new house was a deep burnt red, wood sided Victorian with fancy white trim that
not only had the two full bathrooms about which our mother seemed almost
euphoric, but also, was twice as large as the old house. Mother noted that with a full concrete cellar
and large attic, the new house even had room for additional rooms and a third
half bath. She and our father began
planning the installation of a third half bath (in the cellar next to our
playroom) almost as soon as we were settled in.
Our
parents welcomed the move to the new house and the temporary truce it brought
over bathroom use. At first, we played
musical bedrooms as our parents moved us from bedroom to bedroom searching for
the right combination or juxtaposition to establish truces, if not lasting
peace, in the never-ending wars for territorial privacy. During the first month, we kept occupied
packing and unpacking and exploring the hidden closets and corners of the
house. There were strange noises, but
since the house itself was strange and new to us, we did not question the
noises at first. We were more interested
in digging for Indian arrowheads after one or two showed up in our
backyard. The house, we learned, was
located on land that was once occupied by a native tribe and in the 19th
century had been used by the first residents in the area as local dump. The backyard, we were certain, would prove to
hold buried treasure. It was not large
for the original barn that had once housed cows and other animals for the farmer
who first cleared the land was located at the back of the lot. The barn was hidden behind lilac, forsythia
and bridal wreath bushes that quickly became hideouts for us. The search for treasure so
consumed our energies that we began to complain less and less about the change
in residence. The new house was
becoming our home.
The
first hint that our family was not the only occupants of the house came a few
weeks after we moved in. It was autumn
by then and we had all returned to school.
On school nights, my brothers and I were not allowed to watch more than
an hour of television, if any at all.
Our parents stressed that our first priority was to complete our
schoolwork. They believed that with the
exception of certain documentaries and news programs that we watched together
as a family, television was entertainment.
As such, it was for leisure hours such as on Saturday and Sunday
afternoon or evening when the family could gather together to watch a program
or movie just as we might go to the local cinema. Because it was entertainment, unless we
received a homework assignment that specifically required that we watch a
program, the television was not allowed on after 8 p.m. (the time set for the
airing of adult programming for which our parents informed us we did not
qualify). My brothers and I were
expected to occupy ourselves with homework, reading books or playing (quietly)
in our rooms prior to going to bed. We
were also expected to have taken our showers and to be in bed early enough so
that we would wake up in time to dress, eat breakfast and walk to school (now
over a mile away). By
At
least, that was how it was in the old house and how it started out at the new
house. Everything, however, was about to
change. We did not know it, but after
our first month in the house, things would begin to happen that would change
our whole family’s life. I kept a
diary. I do not remember when I started
keeping diaries. I cannot remember when
I did not keep a diary, so I guess that I have kept diaries from the time I
first learned how to write. Most of my diaries were just notes in scrapbooks or
the empty pages in school notebooks that I had not used the year before. When mother would buy me a notebook or diary,
I would use that, but mostly, I just used old notebooks that no one
wanted. I had kept track of each day’s
events. Sometimes I would write stories in my diaries, but mostly, I tried to
write what happened that day so that someday I would remember. I normally wrote in any notebook until there
were no more empty pages, but after the events of the thirty-first night, I
started a new diary, for what had happened that night was not like anything we
had ever known before. It was mysterious
and I sensed worthy of a diary of its own.
It is from that diary that I now relate the story of our first year in
the “new” house.
Chapter
Two
Today
was Day 31 in our new house. We had
school and after school, mother let us watch television for an hour before
supper. We had to have supper exactly at
Our
parents’ bedroom is to the left of the top of the front hall staircase. Mother chose that room for them because of
its location. The room catches the early
morning light. Mother believes that the
room has a special warmth all its own.
Father said that the room’s location so close to the main staircase and
above the front door exit means that he and mother can reach all of us in case
of emergency and protect us from any intruders.
My
brothers and I think that they chose that room because from it, they seem to be
able to hear everything we say or do upstairs and down. They always seem to know where each of us is
or is not, and even if the door to their bedroom is
closed at the start of a dispute or fight, they seem to hear the fight as it starts
and come right away. Their bedroom is
just opposite the upstairs bathroom.
Mother and Father do not use that bathroom even late at night. They use the downstairs bathroom. They have said that the upstairs bathroom is
for my brothers and me. Bathroom time
and use still sometimes cause fights among my brothers. My brothers will walk in on one another when
one or more of them is in the bathroom. I worry that they will walk in on me so I
just wait until they are all done. Then,
I take my shower or get ready in the morning.
It means that I never get any hot water for my showers, but that is
better than a brother walking in on you when you are in the shower. Mother is
adamant that we all take a shower or bath every night. From her bedroom, she is able to easily
monitor each of our showers and bedroom activities and settle any disputes that
might arise. That I think is the real
reason she and Father chose the room they did for their bedroom.
Most
of our bedrooms are linked to one another.
Our parents’ room is not, and they also seem to welcome the extra
privacy that affords them. We children
have noted that they sometimes now lock the door to their bedroom so we have to
knock before entering. At the old house,
their room was in the midst of ours and we always had ready access. My brothers and I have had some secret talks
in the back bedrooms just to discuss why our parents locked their bedroom
door.
Shortly
after mother entered her bedroom, changed into her nightgown and laid down in bed, it started. It was about
Mother
said that she worried that something might be wrong with Father because of the
change in the sound of his footsteps.
Maybe his meeting had not gone well.
Maybe something had happened to the car and he was exhausted. Maybe something was troubling Father. She called to him so that he would know that
she was concerned and waiting for him.
No
one answered.
Mother
called again. Again no one
answered. Her calls awakened us, but we
did not leave our bedrooms. Mother would
only tell us to go back to sleep if we did so we just listened. Mother called to Father again. First there was silence. The footsteps paused at the sound of her
voice just as Father would have, but he did not answer or say a thing. The next sound was of the footsteps
continuing from the front door down the downstairs front hallway to the dining
room, then without stopping at the bathroom as Father would have, the footsteps
could be heard coming back up the hallway towards the stairs. Now, the footsteps were on the stairs. The steps were heavy, slow and deliberate,
not at all like Father’s. Father’s
footsteps are energetic and happy. The
steps we heard coming up the stairs were like those of a weary night watchman
who had walked the same path over and over again.
Mother
told me that her heart, too, was racing at the sound of the approaching footsteps. She said that she was sure that she had
locked the front door. Besides Father,
only she had a key. However, she knew
that no matter what had happened, no matter how bad it might be to cause such a
change in Father’s gait, she knew that he would have answered her call.
Father,
of course, loved to play jokes. That was
why we children always loved it when he was home when we were little. After we were all in bed, Mother would ask
him to tuck us all in one last time and to check to see that we were all safe
and asleep. Father would take his
flashlight, turn off the hall light and then shine his flashlight through the
palm and fingers of his hand to create the shadow of a clutching hand coming up
the stairs. He would make deep moaning
monster sounds in his throat as he thumped his way up the stairs. Sometimes, if we were not yet asleep, it
would take everything not to gulp from fright but if we did, we knew that
Father would discover that we were not sleeping when we were supposed to
be. To keep from gulping, my older
brothers taught Tom and me to pull our blankets over our heads and pretend to
be asleep. That was scary too, for
Father sometimes tiptoed as he approached our rooms. He would peek in and if he thought that we
were only pretending to be asleep, he would sneak up to us and tickle us
through the blankets. The next thing we
would know is that our hearts would be pounding and we would be trying to
scream and laugh at the same time.
Father
had not played that game on us since I was about six years old. He said that we had all grown too big. Now, from our bedrooms where we lay under
covers in the dark, we wondered as we listened to our mother call again. If this was another trick by Father meant to
scare us, she was not pleased with it.
We could tell that from her voice.
Mother was not in the mood for a joke.
She demanded that Father answer her as we heard her open their bedroom
door and start towards the stairs. The
banister for the staircase was not more than three to five steps from our
parents’ bedroom doorway. From their
doorway, you can see a quarter of the way down the staircase. As Mother started for the stairs, the
footsteps were more than halfway up the stairs.
Mother’s eyes were on the stairs as she approached. Some of us were now peeking out of the door
of the bedroom at the head of the stairs.
My brothers and I were now awake and had tiptoed together into that
room. We had slowly, quietly turned the
doorknob so that the door opened only a very slim crack for us to see. We knelt and crowded one above the other to
watch. No one dared say a word or even
breathe lest we be found out. Mother
would surely yell at us to return to our beds.
We could see Mother but could not see who or what was on the stairs.
As
Mother approached the stairs, she began to look puzzled. The noise had stopped at the sound of her
approach. That should have meant that
whoever was on the stairs was now visible to Mother. From the look on her face, we knew that she
did not see Father as she expected. In
fact, she saw no one, for no one was there.
The
light switch on the wall at the top of the staircase controlled both the
downstairs and upstairs hallway lights.
Mother moved slowly and cautiously toward the switch. She turned on the downstairs light. The whole staircase was now visible. No one was there. Mother slowly moved toward the wall along the
stairs. She looked down the stairs and
along the hallway. She obviously could
not see anyone for she now began to descend the stairs, one step at a
time.
We
could only see the outline of her face, but we could tell that Mother had set
her jaw. Whenever Mother set her jaw so
that the jawbone protruded, it meant that something was amiss. She was ready to be angry, to shout or to
fight. We children dared not move lest
we be found out. If we were, Mother might take her anger out on us. At the same time, I could feel my older
brothers’ bodies stiffen in preparation to rush to help our mother if she
called out. I was under them as we
peeked out the door and worried now that they might step on me if they did rush
down the stairs to help Mother. If they
did, I would be hurt and unable to help Mother.
No one said a word and we all held our breaths as we watched mother
descend the stars further. She had one
hand on the railing as though to steady herself. The other was on the wall. I guess because she had thought at first that
it must be Father, she had not grabbed a bat or stick or anything with which to
defend herself. My brothers always
forgot to put their bats and toys away so there was always something in the
hallway that one could grab to defend oneself in an emergency. Mother, we noted with some alarm, had nothing
in her hands with which to defend herself as she moved down to the third and
fourth step from us. Without saying a
word, we all seemed to be counting the steps as she moved. Remembering the clutching hand, we kept
waiting and hoping that Father would jump out from where he was hiding so that
Mother would yell at him for frightening her and us and then we would all pile
together as we used to do. Father did
not jump out. No one did. I could feel goose bumps on every part of my
body. I was having a hard time keeping
myself from shivering and shaking. I did
not want my older brothers to know how scared I was as Mother began to call,
“Who is there?” Mother was now more than
halfway down the stairs.
Mother’s
head looked quickly from side to side, searching for the shadow or sound or any
warning of who was there and where. From
the bedroom, we could hear the sound of her breathing. She was drawing in very deep breaths. She seemed at once frightened, angry and
mystified. She seemed to be asking
herself, how could anyone have descended the stairs so quickly and quietly
without her hearing them?
My
brothers and I listened as Mother reached the bottom of the stairs, turned and
began to move slowly down the hallway, the same way that the footsteps had
moved earlier. We heard the door to the
front living room and the bathroom open and close again. Each time, only Mother’s footsteps were
audible although quiet and slow. I think
that if her footsteps had sped up at all or if she had begun to move quickly,
we would all have screamed and run, although where I am not certain. The man’s footsteps had been downstairs. What if he was still there? He could be hiding, waiting to catch us as we
ran down the front stairs and out the front door. He could have gone through the dining room
and kitchen to the back hallway (without our hearing him) and be waiting to
catch us if we tried to retreat that way.
We were trapped and helpless if anything happened to Mother. We were frightened for our mother as we
listened to her footsteps. We could tell
exactly where she was and what she was doing.
She was checking each room twice, looking in the closets in the
downstairs bathroom, dining room, living room.
Each door creaked with a distinct sound as it opened and after what we
were certain must have been a thorough search, closed again. We could even hear
the keys turning in the locks of the closets.
Mother never locked the closets.
They had large, old skeleton keys that she left in the locks so that they
would not become lost. We heard her lock
each closet door and move to the next room to search again.
Father
arrived home just as Mother finished her search. We almost all screamed as we heard his key in
the door and the door open. We wanted to
run to him for safety but were frightened and did not want to be
discovered. Mother ran to him
immediately. We saw them hug one another
at the bottom of the staircase. We could
hear Mother’s voice as she told Father what had happened. Father left her and quickly checked all of
the downstairs rooms again. We heard him
announce that no one was there.
Mother
told him again what had happened and then they went on to talk about Father’s
meeting. We heard Mother go into the
kitchen to make tea. She and Father
always had a cup of tea together before bed.
We could hear them talking to one another for the house was now
otherwise quiet. We knew that they would
be up for awhile.
Meanwhile,
with the crisis over, my brothers and I now faced a mini-crisis of our
own. We did not know what time it
was. We did know, however, that it was
quite late. If we went downstairs,
Mother and Father might be angry that we were up so late (even though it was
Mother’s calls that had awakened us). We
would also have to admit that we were scared.
My older brothers did not want to do that. Tom and I were just tired. We wanted to go to our parents, just to be
held and comforted by them, but we, too, did not want to be found out. We wanted most of all just to return to our
beds and sleep. Quietly and as
stealthily as we could, we all tiptoed back to bed. As tired as we were, we would not sleep well
that night, for none of us, and we knew that included our parents, none of us
knew who or what had caused the footsteps.
We had never heard such footsteps in our old house. We hoped that we would never hear them again
but that was not to be.
Chapter
Three
Today
was Day 35. The house had been quiet
since the night of the footsteps. My
brothers and I have discussed it among ourselves usually when we are alone for
we do not want our parents to know that we heard. We do not want them to know that we were
frightened by the footsteps or that we were up without permission. I do not think that my older brothers want to
admit to Mother that they, too, were scared.
Father had not hesitated to check the rooms when Mother told him what
she had heard. Father is a brave
man. My brothers seem embarrassed that
they are not as brave as Father is. None
of us knows what the footsteps were. We
hoped that they would never return.
Today, they did.
Father
and Mother were both home this time. It
happened again as before. That is, after
we were all in bed. The footsteps seemed
to almost echo through the house for we could all hear them. They started at the front doorway, proceeded
slowly down the hall toward the dining room, then turned and came back down the
hall to the staircase and with slow, heavy creaking sounds, began to climb the
stairs to our bedrooms on the second floor.
Father
challenged whomever it was to show himself. When no one answered him, Father went looking
for whoever was in the house. Father is
a brave and strong man. He is five-foot
ten inches tall and has a big chest, large shoulders and strong arms and hands. When he plays with us, Father is always
gentle, but we also know that he can be stern.
His eyes are the color of a clear sky on a summer’s day when he is happy
but seem to change colors when he is not.
From the sound of his voice as he called to the unwanted intruder,
Father was not happy now. He did not
hesitate as he went downstairs to look for the intruder as Mother had
done. He went quickly down the stairs
and through the hallway and rooms. He
found no one.
As
Father returned to our parents’ bedroom, we could hear him telling Mother that
the sound must be caused by the wind or the pipes that carried the steam to the
radiators or the settling of the house.
Steam moving along the pipes could cause listeners to mistakenly think
that someone or something was moving because the pipes expanded with the heat
as the steam moved through them.
Mother
did not challenge Father’s explanation.
She knows that once Father sets his mind to something, it is no use to
question his decision. I wonder however,
if Father is correct. There is no wind
tonight. Also, even I know that there are
no steam or plumbing pipes near the staircase.
I guess houses are always settling, although Father once told me that
houses are pretty much settled five years after they are built. This house is over a hundred years old. It should already be settled on its
foundation. I wonder if Father only gave
those explanations because he knew that my brothers and I were listening at the
bedroom door again. We were not as
scared as we had been the first time.
Maybe because it was Father and Mother were home or maybe because
whatever was causing the footsteps was now a mystery or part of a mystery to be
solved. My brothers and I had found
more arrowheads in the backyard. We also
had found old, old bottles. We now
wondered what else we would discover in our new house.
Chapter
Four
Day 60. The footsteps have continued
almost every night. They always follow
the same pattern. They start at the
front door as though someone had entered and walked down the hallway to the
dining room and back before climbing the stairs. We now recognize the footsteps
for they are distinct in their slow, deliberate pace and heaviness. They never quicken, run or lighten. They are like those of a sentry who has
walked the same watch many times. He
(and the family has decided that it must be a man because of the heaviness and
gate) knows where he is going and does not vary. My brothers and I had decided to ignore the
footsteps and not to be scared of them any more. I sometimes think that whoever it is heard us
when we made a pact in the back yard. We
all swore that we would not to be scared by the footsteps (only weaklings are
scared). It was as though whoever or
whatever it is heard our oaths and decided to play with us. His footsteps are
now also sometimes heard in the afternoon when one or more of us is alone in
the house. We tried to talk to Father
about them, but he still believes that his explanations are correct. Mother is more open to our questions,
especially after what happened today and two recent incidents. In one incident, Mother’s money was
stolen. The other incident happened only
this afternoon while she was making supper in the kitchen.
The
incident where our mother lost money happened one afternoon when she came home
just before we were due home from school.
Because mother had a few moments before we arrived, she decided to go
downstairs to the laundry room and start a wash. We are a large family and with so many boys,
we always have laundry to do. I try to
help Mother, but Mother only lets me fold, iron and put away the clothes. She does the actual washing.
Mother
knew that she would hear us when we arrived for you can hear every sound from
up above when you are in the laundry room.
She had just put the wash in the washing machine and was about to start
the machine when she heard the footsteps start at the front door, walk down the
hallway to the dining room and then retreat down the hallway again. She knew that the footsteps were not ours. None of us arrived home alone. There were always at least two of us. The footsteps sounded a little lighter than
our “friend” as we had come to call our nightly visitor, but Mother thought
that the walk seemed different only because she was in the cellar. We normally were upstairs when we heard our
“friendly sentry”. Because Mother had
decided that the “friend” was acting as a sentry, keeping watch over us, she
had accepted the footsteps. She was no
longer frightened of them. She seemed to
think of them as a friendly sound. When
she heard the footsteps above her, she thought it was the sentry again. However, when she finished putting the
laundry in and went back upstairs to wait for us to arrive, she found that she
had been robbed! Someone had indeed come
in the front door and taken money from her purse that she had left on the
dining room table. She had had a hundred
dollars in her purse that day, but when Mother told us about the robbery that
night at supper, she was not upset. She
said that she knew that the footsteps had sounded different and should have
responded and did not. She almost
laughed as she said that the friendly sentry had obviously fallen down on his
job.
The
next day at school, one of Sean’s friends had a hundred dollars. The boy was from a family that had less than
we did. Sean challenged his friend who
confessed that he was the thief. He
returned the money. He told Sean that he
had heard the story about the footsteps and had seen our mother as she rushed
into the house just before we were due home.
He knew that it was the end of the week and that she might have money on
her for groceries. He followed her up
the steps of the house and when he looked in the window in the front door and
saw her throw her purse on the table as she rushed toward the kitchen and out
of sight, he decided to enter to see what he could steal. I do not know what Sean did to the boy. He no longer calls him friend. He says that the boy will never do it
again. He also says that the boy will
never come to this house again. I think
that he must have punched him or told all of their other friends. I never liked that friend of Sean’s
anyway. None of us did.
The
incident this afternoon was different.
It was as though Mother and I had an experience together. It happened late this afternoon, just before
supper.
We
were preparing chicken potpie and strawberry shortcake for supper. Mother and I bought the strawberries from Mr.
McCarthy who grows them on his farm. I
helped Mother wash and remove the stems from one quart of berries when she
asked that I set the table. The potpie
was in the oven, and from the smell of it, it was almost ready. Father likes to have supper right at
When
Mother heard the doorbell, she turned to look out the window next to the
door. She could see the back stoop
clearly from the kitchen. No one seemed
to be there. Thinking that one or more
of my brothers or their friends might be trying to play a trick or that a
salesman was at the door, she went to open the door. No one was there. Mother looked for a child, for someone who
might have thought no one was home and begun to leave. If someone had rung the doorbell, they would
have to be either in our backyard or on the walkway. No one was in either place.
Mother
returned to the sink. Thinking that she
must have been mistaken about the doorbell’s ringing, she picked up a large
metal spoon and began to bang the spoon against the sides of the bowls and pans
in the sink. She said that she was
trying to duplicate the sound that she “mistook” for the doorbell. I watched her as she hit the pans and bowls
again. None made the sound of the
doorbell. I told her that I had heard
the doorbell ring, but Mother did not answer.
At
supper, Mother mentioned the doorbell incident to Father. Father quickly decided that either both
Mother and I were mistaken in what we heard or a prankster had indeed rung the
doorbell. He would not accept any other
explanation or any more questions. Mother and I decided not to say more. Maybe Father is right. Maybe it was a prankster. Certainly, Mike, Sean, Mat and Mark’s friends
are all capable of such a cruel joke.
Maybe my brothers opened their big mouths and told them about the
footsteps so they decided to play another trick on us. Perhaps they ran and hid in the bushes when
Mother went to the door. If they used
sticks to ring the doorbell and ran real fast, maybe she would not see
them. Mother is usually pretty sharp
when we try to trick her, but I suppose one or more of my brothers’ friends
could have done this. They all denied it
tonight when I asked them. We were all
in our rooms after supper when I went to each of them. I decided to ask each one separately on the
theory that the culprit might brag to me about having fooled Mother and
me. They all denied any
involvement. I do not know for they
sometimes all have denied that they have done something when, in fact, they
were guilty of it.