A Halloween Tale

 

With Halloween almost here, I have thought all week of writing down for you one of my tales from Mohawk Road. I went back and forth with myself and I decided since it keeps waking me up in the night, it really wants to be written. So pour yourself a cup of tea and settle in for a story, told by the fire with the wind tossing  the branches on the trees looking like ghostly galleons out upon the seas. The winds moan around the house, as  leaves go running down the street.

In 1963 my parents with my grandparents moved out to Mohawk Road. Back then it was farm land and  dairies. At that time there was a Old farm house that had been moved here in the early 1920s. My brother and sister were babies and I was four years old. My grand parents lived in the Quonset hut and we lived in the old farm house. The place was a treasure trove of things that the people before us had left. My Dad and my Grandpa decided that they needed to get up in the attic to check the wiring. The house was so old that the wiring was cloth. The house had those huge 12 foot ceilings and getting in the attic was a challenge.

 

The things I remember them bringing down was a very old doll, a beanie with a propeller and a very old Ouija board. My Dad just freaked out about that. Being only four, I had never seen my big strong Dad be afraid of anything and I had never seen him react like that. I wanted to look at it, but he grabbed it and took it out to a big, deep pit that was on the property and threw it in and thew boards on top of it. Since I had been threatened with death if I went near that hole I didn't think too much more about it, but to ponder my Dad's reaction. When I was four, at my house, people didn't explain much.

 

A year or so passed and my parents bought a house that was going to be moved and brought it out here. It was now about 1964 When they moved the house in they kept it up on blocks and my Dad poured the foundation under the house as it sat there. I can still remember that feeling of crawling under that house with it above me and the silence. I would stay under the house with my Dad while he put in wiring and plumbing. I must have been at school when they took it down off the blocks as I have no memory of it. It was way up on the blocks and I must have been about five. I couldn't get in the house and I don't think anyone else did.

 

After the house was finally on its foundation. We could go in the house. In one of the front bedrooms in the corner was a Ouija board. Just sitting there, I stood there and stared at it. I remembered my Dad's reaction so I went and got him. He came and started yelling at me." Where had I got that! Had I gone down into that pit!" He went crazy again. I was crying, telling him I had no idea where it came from. He grabbed that one and took off with it to that pit that was now covered up with big boards. I still didn't really know even then what made him get so mad or what one was used for.

 

The years passed, In 1969, my Dad remarried. My step Mom was not like my birth Mom. She was always interested in the Occult and things like that. One night, she brought an Ouija board to my room and sat on the bed. I about fell off the bed trying to get away. It wasn't the same one as I had seen on the other two occasions.This one was cardboard while the other two times it was wooden. She said she was going to show me how it worked. She has a rhyme that she said to it and placed her hands on the board. It began to move as she asked it questions and I was so afraid, about this time my Dad walked in the room. I really thought he was going to loose his mind that time. He started yelling and grabbed that cardboard and began to break it into little pieces while stomping the pointer thing into bits of plastic.  It was quite a ruckus.

 

 As  I have thought about it this week, I have let my mind wonder. Is that Ouija  board still down in that pit? I could take you to it if you were here. The old boards are still on top of it like when I was little. How did that second Ouija get into the the house and how long had it been there? The old house always creaked and you could hear the sounds of steps on the porch at night. My Mom was afraid of that house and wouldn't stay there alone.  My grand mother once she moved into it, she said all of the ghosts were friendly. I wasn't sorry though, when they tore it down.

I guess sometime I should write down the stories about the people who would look in the windows at night. Maybe next year.

I hope you have a very Happy Halloween.

~Kim~

 

--- A Old Scottish Prayer---
. "From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!"