Footfalls In The Darkness

A week or so after my ill-fated sleep-over, I was visiting again, during the day, this time with my mother. "Nanny", I said, "I think your house is haunted".
"Well, child", she began slowly...
My grandfather, who was puttering around in the dining room laughed, "Don't listen to her, she's from the old country, ya know! She believes in leprechauns and banshees, she'll tell you a fairy story!" he chided.
"Tell me!" I demanded, and my grandmother began a tale of a time when she had just moved into the three family house on the south side of Boylston Street as a young bride, fresh off the boat from Ireland.
Pa was a policeman working the night shift in those days, and Nanny was at home alone from dusk until dawn. It was in those days before children had come, and she had only a small dog to keep her company.
One quiet, late evening as she occupied herself with household tasks, she became aware of the sound of footsteps coming from the bedroom. Her little dog was standing in the hall, in an alert position, his ears cocked, growling low in his throat and peering into the dark room. In the far, northwest corner of her bedroom, there was a pass door into the tiny back room. The footsteps sounded as if someone was walking back and forth from the back room into the master bedroom. From the small dog's reaction, it was clear that he thought so too! Nanny waited up all night until Pa completed his shift and returned home. In her shaken state, she told him what she had heard.
Pa thought that she was simply suffering from an over-active imagination and downplayed the incident, but the next night the footsteps came again, and the next night as well, until Nanny insisted that Pa board up the doorway that joined their bedroom with the little back room.
Nanny held out hope that this would solve problem, until later that evening when Pa was gone off to walk his beat in the city, and the knocking started! Something was pounding on the boarded up door between the rooms! Her little dog barked and whined furiously while she quaked in terror!
The next day she wasted no time in calling a priest from her parish, who came over and blessed the house. After the blessing, they hung a large picture of Saint Theresa, The Little Flower in the boarded-up doorway. Things were reportedly quiet from that day forward.
I turned to my mother and asked whether she had ever experienced anything out of the ordinary during her years of occupation of the back room and she dismissed the question with a laugh and a wave of her hand; "I never heard anything!"
My brothers had also scoffed at me...none of them had ever had anything happen to them in the back room either. But Nanny didn't laugh. She completely understood why I would never spend the night again.

The Terror In The Night

Around the time of my first sleep-over at my grandparent's house, I can remember having a major crush on Rex Trailer. Rex was the dark haired, lasso swinging good guy with a beautiful buckskin horse who graced Boston television in the sixties. Every Sunday morning for years I could be found watching Rex, Pablo and Sgt. Billy round up the posse in between the Hercules and Touche' Turtle cartoons.
That night as I waited for sleep in the back room, I was thinking pleasant thoughts of the kid's cowboy show as I drifted off, the lights and sounds from the busy road coming in through the door, which was open to the piazza. I felt comfortable and happy. Several hours later I awoke with a start in the darkness. I felt that I must have been dreaming, because I thought someone had called my name, waking me. It was long after midnight. My grandparents were in their seventies at the time, and fast asleep at that hour.
I have always loved animals. My mother harbors fear and loathing for anything with fur, so the only pets we were allowed to keep were goldfish, turtles and parakeets. More than anything else in the world, I wanted a cat, but it was not about to happen. Even so, I took every opportunity to beg and plead for one, and I fed every stray I could find in the hope that someday, I would get to keep one of them.
Alone in the dark room that night, I suddenly heard meowing. I pushed myself up a bit on my elbows, trying to determine where it could be coming from. Then I heard my name called in a loud whisper. I was wide awake now and there was no mistaking it. It was almost a hiss and it shot a bolt of fear through me. The sounds were coming from the doorway to the little stone balcony. Whatever was calling me, it was out there waiting. I suddenly felt certain that it wanted me to get up and walk out there. It was luring me with something it knew I wanted; a kitten. Strangely enough, I knew instinctively that it was a fake meowing. I knew there wasn't really a cat out there. The traffic was all but silent now in the dead of night, but the meowing continued and then it came again, louder this time...the hoarse, stage whisper...one word...my name. It had an other-worldly quality to it. Since the door was open, there was nothing to prevent the whispering thing from entering the room. I laid back slowly and drew the covers up to my face as I shrank down under them, paralyzed and barely able to breathe. I shut my eyes so tightly, they hurt. I felt like I was about to die, and I started to pray silently. I kept that position for what seemed like an eternity, afraid to open my eyes, afraid to breathe. At some point, I must have either fallen asleep or passed out from lack of oxygen.
In the morning I told my grandparents that I wanted to go home. I would not spend another night in that room. As I recounted the events of the night before, I saw a strange expression cross my Nanny's face and she turned to Pa with a knowing look. "Now Nell, don't be frightening the child with stories." warned Pa, before she could speak. I was not the first one to be visited in the back room at night! Eventually my grandmother told me whole story, and I will tell it to you in the next post.

Memories Of The Strange

One of my guilty pleasures has returned to television with new episodes recently. It's a reality-based show about college students who investigate paranormal phenomena and I find it addictive. It has had the effect of reminding me about some of the very strange things that happened to me when I was a child that were both terrifying and intriguing. One of the more memorable events occured when I was about twelve years old.
It was late in the nineteen sixties, and my mother's parents lived in an old three decker in Brookline, Massachusetts. The Boston city limits were a mere half mile away from their front steps. During school vacations, my brothers would take turns spending a few days with Nanny and Pa on the edge of the big city. This meant homemade chicken soup, puff pastry with real whipped cream and fudge sauce, swimming at "the tank",(an indoor municipal pool), a new Archie comic book and a fountain soda from the "Cypress Spa" with Pa, and fishing at Hammond Pond or the Brookline reservoir with my uncle Tommy. Since these pursuits were thought of by my parents as only appropriate for the boys, it was many years of lobbying and whining before I was allowed to have my turn, too. It sure beat hanging in the boring suburbs all week.
In the back of the house there was a small, cement patio area with a thin border of plants and trees surrounding it. The space was enclosed by a high fence, thus sheilding it to some degree from the raceway that was, and is Boylston street. The cement floor of this tiny yard was flecked wih pieces of blue and white pottery and cats-eye marbles imbedded here and there in the concrete with no particular pattern. When I close my eyes I can still see the bushes waving on a sultry day and smell the air of that place. Car horns, sirens and the barking of Lassie, the collie next door, created the soundtrack for my days there. It seemed to me it was a special little world.
At the very back of the house, off the kitchen was the smallest room. This had been my mother's childhood bedroom and now served as the guest room. My grandparents referred to it as "the back room." It was where all the grandkids slept during visits. It had a door leading outside to a little stone and concrete balcony (the piazza, as the family referred to it) that overlooked the patio/yard below. The first night I slept there was to be my last. More to come...stay tuned.