“Is that what I think it is?” Ted asked, his voice soft and a bit shaky.
“If it looks like teeth and hair, then yeah.”
“What in the…” Alice began her brow furrowed.
“Beats me,” Josh replied. But unless I am mistaken, they are human. The teeth for sure, so I am assuming the hair is as well.”
“Holy shit!” Ted exclaimed as he drew back suddenly as if the contents of the compartment might come to life.
“All right everyone…” Alice said as she lowered the lid on the compartment and then closed the case itself. “No need to flip out here.”
“No need to flip out? Are you insane?” Ted cried out.
Josh looked at him with incredulity, never ever recalling having seen Ted so emotional and demonstrative before.
“First those revolting and repugnant drawings in the cellar and now human remains in Josh’s trumpet case. I’d say that’s plenty of reason to flip out!”
“Drawings?” Josh asked as he looked to Ted questioningly.
Alice indicated for him to fill in Josh, and Ted gave him an overview of what they had found. Alice was glad he had just given the facts and had omitted his ghost theory, but now she figured it was only a matter of time until Josh perhaps got on that bandwagon as well, considering the old abandoned cottage and the weather outside. Josh sat back and said nothing as he thought it over.
“How did they get there?” Josh finally asked, looking to Ted.
“Well…I…” he began before Alice cut him off.
“Please, Ted. Don’t go there…”
Josh just looked to Ted, ignoring Alice for the moment. She gave up and indicated for Ted to finish his thought, which he did.
“Like this place is actually haunted?” Josh asked, with more excitement than trepidation in his voice.
Ted shrugged.
“You believe in that stuff, Ted?” Josh asked as a tinge of fear now seemed to be taking over his speech.
“You have a better explanation? I’m all ears…”
“OK, that’s enough of that.” Alice interrupted. “You two are really letting your imaginations run wild now. It’s just an old abandoned cottage with a raging electrical storm outside, and we are trapped for the night. Probably a rational explanation for it all.”
“Such as?” Ted asked.
“Like…I don’t know…maybe some local kids have been coming in here and goofing around. Leaving some of this stuff to scare their friends maybe? We did this type of thing all the time when we were younger, guys…”
No one said anything as another clap of thunder struck, and the lightning flashed weakly in through the windows.
“Whatever happened to the stereotype of the over-emotional and irrational woman who jumps at every little snap of a twig in those pathetic slasher movies that get churned out every year?”
Both Ted and Josh felt a bit embarrassed at her jab, but they did not respond. With nothing more to discuss, they all went to their rooms to try and sleep. Neither Ted nor Josh was anticipating to get much shut-eye, since the “haunted house” idea had been seeded in their brains, but Alice was having none of it and fell asleep almost immediately, the rain on the roof soothing her just as it had when she had been a little girl living here.
Alice and Pixie
Kent, UK
October 2017
Somewhere in the middle of the night, Alice woke from a deep sleep. The rain was still falling but had tailed off significantly to just a gentle shower, and both the thunder and lightning seemed to have died off as well. She was normally a very deep sleeper, so it confused her initially as to what had woken her. It was like she had heard something unexpected in the cottage…maybe a strange voice or such…but as she sat up all she heard was the rain on the roof. Just a dream, she figured. She listened carefully for a few more minutes, but heard nothing and laid back down. However, before she could nod off, she heard the sound again. She cocked her head and concentrated. Sure enough, as unlikely and impossible as it seemed, there was the faint sound of a female child as if playing a board game or maybe inventing a game of her own with dolls or imaginary friends coming from the attic.
After the dressing down she had dealt out to her brothers, Alice did not feel like she was in any position to go running for help now. This would only further cement the idea of “ghosts” in the cottage for them both if there was nothing there, and if there was something real in the attic, they would never let her hear the end of being spooked by a child. However, at the moment, as she was definitely not buying into the ides of anything paranormal, Alice had to assume this was a real person above. And if that was the case, just how in the hell did a little girl get inside the house without them hearing her? Or could a runaway possibly be using the attic as a hideaway? The attic was the one place they had not ventured into yet.
She lit a candle and eased into her shoes and slipped on her jeans and T-shirt to go take a look. One way or another, she had to check it out. She stepped silently into the hallway, minimizing the creaking of the old floorboards under her feet. Despite her certainty that this had a logical explanation as well, Alice could not help it as her pulse picked up as all the talk from her brothers on the ghost nonsense entered her mind. She figuratively shook her head to clear her thoughts and then treaded slowly and carefully up the small spiral staircase that led from the second floor of the cottage to the attic. She moved on the outer portion of the stairs to keep the sound of any loose or worn-out steps from crying out—she seemed to recall reading that this was best on old stairs.
With each step, the child’s voice and play got a bit stronger, and it soon became evident to Alice that she was indeed carrying on in an imaginary fashion, either with real dolls or make-believe friends. Apparently, her approach was undetected as the girl’s voice never stopped until Alice slid open the attic door and the squeak of the hinges made her look over at Alice as she stood in the doorway illuminated by her candle.
“I’m sorry,” the little girl said with a welcoming smile, “did I wake you?”
Alice had no idea what to say. She had a million questions, but at least she had confirmed that this was not one of Ted and Josh’s “ghosts.”
“How did you get in here, honey?” Alice asked as she moved closer, her candle’s flame overlapping the one of the girl’s own.
“Oh…I’m always here…” she replied as she looked away at whatever game it was that she was playing.
Always here, thought Alice? What the hell does that mean? Maybe she was just a runaway after all…
“You mean you live here?” Alice asked as she came and sat with the child.
“Yes. Isn’t it lovely?”
“That it is, sweetheart. Do your parents know you are here?”
“No. They died a long time ago.”
A stab of dread hit Alice in the solar plexus as this reminded her of the many disadvantaged children she worked with every day. However, unlike those kids, this child looked well-nourished and clean and healthy, other than being a bit thin and slightly pale. How was this runaway waif surviving, she wondered…?
“You playing with your friends there?” Alice asked quietly.
“You mean you can see them, too?”
“No, sweetie…I just thought maybe they were your own private friends. You know, for your eyes only.”
In her work back in Kent, Alice had found that framing imaginary friends as just that with the kids she worked with was a mistake. So, she had come up with other approaches to develop a better rapport. But now it seemed as if the girl was actually seeing these friends, not just pretending, though she had run into rare instances where children she worked with did actually see make-believe playmates. Sometimes it was as severe as hallucinations from schizophrenia, but more often it was just a child with such a vivid imagination that they really did see them.
“Oh…” she replied with disappointment in her voice, “I was hoping you could see them too, and we could all play a game together.”
This threw Alice off a bit. Perhaps this was a more serious pathology than she had initially thought.
“What’s your name, honey?” Alice asked as she kneeled down beside the girl.
“It’s Pixie.”
“That’s a pretty name. My name is…”
“Alice. Alice Porter, right?”
A cold shiver shot through Alice as she opened her mouth to speak again but could not find her voice. Then it hit her. Pixie. That had been the name of her childhood friend when she had been a little girl living in the cottage with her aunt. She looked harder at Pixie by drawing her light closer, and sure enough, it was her. How had she missed that? As utterly impossible and illogical as that had to be. That Pixie would have to be close to her own age by now, but this little girl was no more than 9 or 10 at best. Alice felt her heart thud in her chest as she closed her eyes, trying to reconcile what was in front of her at the moment with the fact that it simply could not be.
“Don’t you recognize me, Alice?” the child whispered. “I missed you so…”
Feeling as if she was losing her mind, Alice pinched herself on the arm. Wasn’t that the test to see if you were dreaming? This had to be a dream, right? But the pinch let her know she was wide awake. She slowly opened her eyes again to look at Pixie, and now the former cherubic form was an old and decaying skeleton with shards of skin clinging to her bones. Her neat attire and scrubbed skin were gone. Only scattered teeth remained in her mouth, all chipped into jagged fragments and dark with a blackish/green coating. A tattered and mottled remnant of a sundress hung loosely on her frame and blew about her body though as far as Alice could tell, there was no air moving in the attic.
To top it all off, as Alice looked over, there were small rivulets of blood seeping from the skeleton’s eye sockets and from what at one time must have been ears. The red drippings gained volume, and soon the trickling rivulets were steadily running streams. Alice screamed, and the vision that had been Pixie just vanished in a cloud of vapor. Alice grasped for her candle, but it fell over and extinguished itself. She was shaking badly as she tried to convince herself that she must have imagined it all. Maybe a walking nightmare. But when she looked again, the candle that Pixie had set on a table next to her was still lit. And on the floor where she had been sitting were what had to be fresh pools of blood…
As deeply as she wanted to deny it, Alice, if she was to assume she was not insane, had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that perhaps Ted and Josh were onto something. For sure, the little Pixie she had known as a child could no longer be. Had her old childhood friend died as a child? Alice had no idea. Once she and Ted and Josh had been removed from the cottage when Aunt Cecilia had been committed, she had never seen nor talked to Pixie again. But the initial version of Pixie this evening, what Alice was calling Pixie 1.0, had been just as she had remembered her from years ago. A ghost. She had actually seen a ghost…
Alice Becomes a Believer
Kent, UK
October 2017
As Alice sat shaking and sobbing in the attic, both Ted and Josh came running, both panic-stricken that something awful must have happened to elicit such a shriek of total horror and terror from their normally reserved and stoic sister. They rushed up the attic stairs to find Alice hugging herself tightly as she rocked back and forth, muttering and mumbling to herself. Josh looked to Ted who looked as clueless as he felt. When Josh reached out and touched Alice gently on the shoulder, she jumped at his contact and drew back from him, swatting at his hands violently as if he had attacked her.
“Alice!” he cried, “It’s me! Josh! Easy…easy…”
She finally recognized him as well as Ted who was standing off to the side and threw herself into his arms sobbing hysterically, her eyes still wide and wild with fright. He hugged her tight and let her cling to him with all her might until she had calmed down enough to get to her feet and let them guide her back downstairs. Ted had no idea what had specifically gotten into Alice, but something in his gut told him it was related to the drawings in the cellar and the teeth and hair in Josh’s trumpet case compartment. With Josh still holding onto her and Ted bringing up the rear, the trio finally found themselves back at the dining table again. Josh eased Alice into a seat as Ted fired up all the candles he could find figuring lots of light would help. He sat with Alice at the table, holding her hands as she still trembled and quaked while Josh ran off to make some tea.
Alice was still highly agitated despite Ted doing all he could to comfort her, but he said nothing until Josh returned with the tea. Alice grasped one cup with shaking hands and took a long and welcome sip. Both and Josh just looked at each other, both a bit lost as to what to say or do next. They assumed Alice would take the lead and talk when she as ready, but when the silence was too much, Ted jumped in.
“Want to tell us what happened up there, sis?” he asked.
“Not really, but I guess I have to tell someone…” she replied as she let Josh refill her cup.
“You see something?”
“To put it mildly…where to start…”
“You sure you are up to telling us now, Alice?” Josh asked.
She nodded weakly as she drank again.
“You guys remember my friend, Pixie from when we lived here as kids?”
“That little girl from across Whitby that you used to be attached to at the waist?” Ted asked as he smiled thinly.
Alice appreciated his shot at trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah…her. Well…I heard these noises up in the attic tonight. Like someone playing around up there. Like a child.”
“Holy shit, Alice! Are you saying…” Ted began before she looked over at him, and he went quiet.
Without further ado or any interruptions from Ted or Josh, she went through all that had happened to her from that point on until they had found her. They both started gaping widely as she spun the events of Pixie 1.0 as well as Pixie 2.0. If it had not been Alice telling this story, Josh would never have believed any of it. Ted was shocked and shaken as well, but after the sketches and debris in the trumpet case, he was not totally stunned. Alice took a deep breath when she had finished and drained the last of the tea in her cup.
“So…” Ted began, “I know what I believe, but are we all in agreement now that there is something very, very wrong with this place?”
Alice looked at him with an expression akin to an atheist that has just “seen the light,” while Josh fell back heavily into his seat and ran his hands through his hair feeling just as unsettled and unhinged as he had when his addiction to heroin had seemed like an impossible hurdle to surmount.
“Just so we are all on the same page here, guys.” Josh said, “are we really buying into the idea that this cottage is actually haunted?”
“I’m always open to other theories, little brother…” Ted replied.
“Guess I owe you an apology, Ted…” Alice finally said.
Nothing more was said.
……….
With the realization that the cottage was, in their opinions anyway, possessed or haunted or whatever term might be most appropriate, none of the siblings wanted to spend another minute in the place. They stayed awake the rest of the night drinking tea for the caffeine and making sure none of the candles went out until the sun came up. Fortunately, the next morning dawned bright and sunny and all evidence of the previous night’s storm had moved on. They went outside when they heard the sounds of activity in and around Whitby of people pitching in to clean up from the strong winds and rain. A couple of men in town had even ventured out near the cottage and chainsaws were buzzing to cut way the trees that had fallen over the path that led from the cottage property back to Whitby.
“Definitely an improvement from last night…” Josh commented as they stood and stretched in the warm morning, trying to loosen cramped muscles and toss off the fatigue from having been up most of the night.
“Except for those creepy statues…” Alice added nodding at th
e courtyard collection.
“Amen…” Ted added.
Under other circumstances, they might have all laughed at that, but for the moment anyway, no one seemed to see the humor.
“We can vote on it,” Alice began, “but I say we just leave everything as is—well, maybe pitch the drawings in the cellar and the stuff in the trumpet case—and get a realtor to sell it off as is.
“Take nothing?” Ted asked.
“Help yourself, bro…” Alice shot back. “I just want to get back to my little life in Kent and put this nightmare behind me.”
With that, the debate was over, and Ted and Josh went into Whitby to find a realtor to list the cottage for sale at any price just to be done with it once and for all. While they did that, Alice got a taxi to take her over to the facility where her aunt had been committed to collect the personal items that had been left behind following her death. The cottage was one thing, but Alice did want to go through her aunt’s belongings in case there might be a memento or two to hang onto to remind her of the woman’s kindness toward them when they had been abandoned as kids.
She took what the administrator had collected and headed back to the inn to see who Ted and Josh had hired and to better look over all the things that Cecilia had left behind. Alice arrived to find that Ted and Josh had not yet returned from procuring a real estate agent, so she settled into the lounge of the inn next to a nice crackling fire as the sun was setting to look through the last remnants of her Aunt Cecilia’s things. There was not much there upon a first go-through…a few pieces of jewelry that Alice remembered from her childhood plus a kitschy snow globe that she had never seen before. However, when she set these items aside, Alice found a worn leather-bound book in the bottom of the box that the administrator at the institution had used to hold everything, as well as a thick manila folder that was full of newspaper articles.
The newspaper articles were not of much interest to her, just odds and ends that her aunt had held onto for reasons that Alice could not figure out. But the thick brown leather book was a different story. She slid off a loose band that was holding the thing together to discover that it was a journal. And not just any journal, Alice soon found out, but a detailed accounting of Cecilia’s life for many years before she had been committed. The early entries held no interest for her, but as the timeline got closer to when she and Ted and Josh had come to live with her in the Crooked Cottage, Alice read closely, hardly able to believe her eyes.
Haunted House Tales Page 121
