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The Evil in Kansas
• THE END...(This is the end of the story, in Kansas, as far as it's major incidents.. Yes, tons of other stuff happened that I couldn't put down here..
The car I'd purchased from my father, finally gave up, and I sold it to the neighbors. (who just happened to be a preacher, that was constantly trying to convert me) While trying numerous times to get the car hooked to another truck to tow, it would not go! He jokingly said it needed to be exorcized, which apon hearing this and watching the fiasco, I suddenly knew he shouldn't have said that, something bad was going to happen! On their last try, the car suddenly jerked up and back, pinning his son between it's back bumper, and the front bumper of his son's truck, almost crushing him. Another time, right after moving in, I had gone upstairs to find Ivy leaning out my open bedroom window, for what? I don't know, but I just barely caught her by her ankle, before she fell. The following July we moved back to Phoenix, leaving what I couldn't get packed in the house, which was a lot. During the following year's, I began to have sleep paralysis, and quite often. My drinking got worse, and I didn't care what others thought. I was a shitty mother during this time, and we almost became homeless . I finally was able to quit drinking during this time. I got back with my children's father, who from then until what we've found out, has said numerous times, that there is something different, off about me. He says that he thinks there's an evil attached to me. I used to argue with him until recently.. We have an on again off again relationship, and it's always a strain.. At around 16 or 17, Ivy began having sleep paralysis as well, and seeing a dark shadow in her room, watching her. I myself saw something crouched in a corner, during a terrible episode of S. P., that was still there AFTER I woke up! Then, what I considered the worse, yet wasn't, 4 years ago, I became homeless. I can't blame that on anyone but myself, I took my family for granted, and had no savings, and both my kids were adults, and not going to put up with my shit any longer. My Anger and attitude had changed so dramatically, even I was stunned at myself many times. I've lost pretty much any friends because of it and my mouth that lacks a filter. Neither one of my kids speak to me anymore... **** So here's what happened that made ALL OF US, the kids, their dad, and finally myself believe that when we lived in that house, Ian and I had both been possessed. I had also become oppressed with an entity that has been lurking within this entire time, we think. I didn't come to this conclusion, Ian and Ivy did and informed me. This after Ivy had a terrible, lucid nightmare , about an incident she never told me about, last June. ******** "Can you talk?" , the text from Ivy read. I'd been staying at their fathers house during the summer, as you can't survive anywhere in the open desert days on end, when the temperature daily exceeds 115 or more. My mother-in-law, hates me and always has, and the feeling is pretty much mutual, for the most part. So, me staying at his place had and has been a Herculean effort in Ninja tactics. I've learned TONS, living off grid, alone in the desert, and one of them is to not be seen or heard. I quickly texted back. "Give me 5 minutes, and I'll call you", to which she agreed. I relished any chance I got to talk to her. Married, and with a daughter of her own, our relationship, since she'd turned 18, had been extremely rocky. She had been the one person I'd used the most, living together in a house with her and her fiancé, but I never worked during that time. They'd kicked me out one day, after my temper, and mouth shot off, and I was completely on my own. It, I'd always thought, was my own god damned fault, and I'd gotten what I'd deserved! I was the only family member, not invited to my only daughters wedding.... But what came next, left me wondering ... I called her, after slipping quietly outside. "So, I had a dream about the house in Kansas, this morning.", She started without any minor chit chat. "A nightmare actually.", she started after a pause. " Oh? ", Was all I got out. " Well it was like I was there again, reliving something that happened a few times", she began to tell me. " Go on, Hun", I replied. Over the years, I'd found out tiny bits here and there about things that had happened to the kids, I never knew, that they hadn't shared. I wish sometimes, I had known then, maybe I could have done something, anything! " Well, it was on one of the nights you were up in your room, drinking and you had your stereo up so loud as usual, and I was laying on the couch facing the stairs trying to sleep when something started coming down the stairs towards me." her voice was strong, unwavering. " Oh wow, that is freaking scary! What'd it look like, bug", I inquired. I enjoyed talking to her, but when this subject came up, I generally shied away from it. Nineteen years had passed, and I was still shaming my family. Kansas and anything related, usually just made me feel terrible. " Mom. This wasn't just a dream my mind made up from bits of memories. This actually happened! I dreamed about something that happened a few times, to both me and Ian! ", I heard a tiny hint of my little girl at four years old, crying out, mixed with the young woman's voice that I had raised. I began to pay better attention to her. Ian never talked about the house in Kansas, at least not to me. Ivy had, off and on, but had never really told me of anything that happened one on one between her, much less Ian, and any spirits in the house. I listened. "Ok, I get you, bug. What happened? What did it look like,", I asked her again. "It was just this large, blackish almost solid black shape, but without any real form, 'ya know?", I could understand what she meant. Anything, at night described as a black shadow, or shape, wasn't anything good with good intentions. "Mhmm", I hummed, and waited for her to continue. "I'd started screaming for you, for help, to come downstairs, but you didn't hear me!", she said quietly. I felt a heavy sadness within both our hearts. If she'd been there face to face, I don't think I'd have been able to look her in the eye. "So this really happened?" I asked her. She said yeah a couple times not just to me but to Ian too. And it always happened when you were upstairs drunk and you couldn't hear us over your music, she'd told me. I was astounded, and a little pissed that they had never mentioned anything like this to me at least! Not that I could remember. I felt terrible for her to have been so young and to see something like this,. This demon thing, or whatever it was! If it was even that coming slowly down the stairs for her and not having the one person she needed to protect her and her brother available in any way shape or form, must have been truly horrifying for her! God I was a damn bad mother! I was ashamed. She went on. "Well this was about 3:30 fourish, in the morning.", she started, " And of course I couldn't go back to sleep so I got on my phone and started doing some research. A lot of it was just simple you know public records and things, but I didn't find out what I really wanted to find out, what I really needed, so I actually paid for a lot of the information I got. " I had done background searches myself and knew the cost of trying to get land records, property owner records, and death records, things of that nature and it was not cheap! Luckily my daughter was smart and had married into money! "Well you know the house is still there.", she informed me. We had been told that the fire department in Phillipsburg decided to use the house as a training facility and had set it ablaze. That had been untrue, and I'd google mapped it a few times and saw it's nasty facade, watching and hidden by it's trees. "Oh I know! I've seen it on Google maps a few times”, I told her. "Well , so how many people do you think died in that house Mom?", she asked, the hint of a game in her voice. I chuckled inside. Ivy could be pretty damn smart when she tried to especially if she had references right in front of her and judging from the tone in her voice she did. I decided to play along. I was honest and told her what I'd heard. "Well I know of at least three possibly four that I'd heard of dying in the house maybe." I told her. I waited for her response and when I got it I was so completely and utterly shocked to hear what she said, that I didn't speak for more than 10-15 seconds. She actually had to ask me if I was there still. " No, "she paused seemingly hesitant. I could feel her wondering if maybe this was such a good idea to inform me of what she found out. "The house has 20 or more, and that's just from the owners and family members who either died under mysterious circumstances murder, execution or natural causes. This isn't including the property which had an uncountable number that were murdered on the property! " again she said this quietly. " Mom are you there?" she asked, a bit nervous it seemed. I cleared the brain fart from my skull, and stuttered, "yeah I'm here honey. What the hell did you just say?", I exclaimed questioningly. I wasn't sure if I'd heard her correctly and what she had said. "Okay well here's what I found out the first owner who built the house in 1909 was married and had had five children. His first daughter, died in Ian's room around the age of 6, of tuberculosis. His youngest daughter, somehow drowned in the bathtub at age two. The record states cause of death as "accidental", she said. Notes by the examiner state that he wasn't quite sure that this was the actual cause of death so they weren't really sure how she drowned in the bathtub.", she started with what she'd paid for to find out. "Not only that,the oldest of the two sons, tried choking his younger brother to death under the stairs.
• What’s worse,the father he was a slave owner. Remember how we could never get down in the cellar? Well that's because the owner after him destroyed it after he found out that that's where he would punish and torture this leaves if they disobeyed him. He would chain them down there to the walls about three at a time and sometimes just leaving there to die! There's at least three slaves that had been left there to die that were recorded. He also loved to hang runaway slaves they were caught or disobedient slaves in what was our backyard!" she said matter of factly. "Here I'm sending you pictures.", sure enough my phone vibrated with incoming file! incoming file!, flashing across the screen. I downloaded them. The first was a black and white photo of a very astute looking, proper family dressed in early 19th century clothing. "Notice where his slave is being hung from?" she asked me as I looked at the second picture. I shuddered. It was literally one foot from the eve of what had been our back porch, the cellar mere feet from that. "You know Mom, God knows how many slaves he actually punished, tortured, killed, or murdered!? Call it whatever you will, he murdered them!”, she said with anger in her voice. "How many of those people, those poor people, did he do that to? They didn't keep records of any of it because they were considered property! ", of which I was aware how slaves and their deaths were documented during that time. "So you know how he did it?" Slaves that were trying to escape the South would get on the train which went right through Phillipsburg and the train station right across from our house. They were thinking they were going to get a good job, maybe eventually own some land, be free and he was there to purchase them and put them all back into slavery! All of them that he did this to had no idea what was waiting for them when they got off the train in Phillipsburg", she said slowly, sadness in her voice. "I'm fucking stunned!" was all I could say to her, and I literally was stunned. "Oh it gets worse mom, just wait", she said. God Almighty how could it get any worse? But in my heart I knew it was going to get almost unbearably worse. Somehow some part of me didn't want to hear this. "So after he died, his younger son inherited the house, where he lived with his wife. He hated kids, so they had none of their own. "His cause of death is listed as, "murdered by wife", who choked him and then pushed him down the staircase where he died at the foot of!”, she said without drama mostly just stating facts. "She was publicly executed in the backyard, on the property. I have uploaded a picture of the actual announcement for the execution that invites the public to come attend and watch!”, she told me and sure enough my phone blinked with another incoming file. "So the house was sold to a new owner.”, she continued, as another file flashed on my screen. "This one's the one that kind of got me Mom.”, she said, a bit of hesitation creeping into her voice. "So what was it? Who was it?" what happened?” I asked completely enthralled at this point. "The new owner died in his mid 30s and the cause of death was listed as alcohol poisoning. They found him dead in the dining room slumped on the dining table. His wife died a few years later, in the house as well, she committed suicide in your old room.” she continued. "After she passed away the house was once again up for sale and bought by another family. This was a man and his wife and their daughter and son. The daughter seemed to have some sort of mental problem and her cause of death is unknown. She just disappeared one day and they never found her or her body. The son died in his mid thirties of alcohol poisoning in the dining room, at the table. ", She told me pausing to let that sink in for a minute and it was a minute before I'd actually caught what she said. What the hell? I thought. "He died of alcohol poisoning too!?" I asked astounded. "Yep! In the dining room!" she said. "And they're not the only ones." She continued. "The family that owned it before Uncle Rex’s grandfather also had two girls die, and the father committed suicide in my old bedroom.” She fnished. "My God", I heard myself whisper. After 19 years, trying not to enter that memory, I was suddenly right up close, seeing it. The hair began to raise on my neck, and I felt prickles of adrenaline sparking through my already quick beating heart. I was breathing fast, and I had to make myself slow my breathing, count, and calm my thoughts. I let her continue, as I chewed the information, before digesting, or commenting "Holy fucking shit! I don't know what to say!", Was all I could get out. "I know, right!?", she exclaimed. How much anger, sorrow and death was attached to that place? And think about the slaves, with their own religious beliefs and magic! They could have cursed the place 'ya know? " She said quickly, her words had no pause. It, all of it, was pure insanity. I was having a hard time digesting all of it. " As far I can find out, we were the last family that lived there, ", she told me. I'm curious to find out if the new owner has had any issues?", she was contemplating out loud. "Well, call them and ask", I told her , mostly as a joke, thinking it would lighten the mood of our conversation. "I've thought about it, but I don't know how I'd approach the subject." "Seriously, Bug, I was just kidding ", I told her. I didn't want her in contact with anyone from that town. " I don't know, I'll think about it", she trailed off. I heard her daughter, Laylani, who I affectionately called " Scoot", fussing and babbling in the background. " Lemme call you back, mom ?, she asked. " Yup, when you can", I responded, and hung up. I was still sitting outside 20 minutes later, mulling everything she'd told me, over in my head, when she called me back. " I called the owner, and you're never going to believe this!", She blurted out, excited to tell me her news. I was intrigued, but apprehensive at the same time. "Do I want to know?", I asked her. A warm summer breeze suddenly blew my hair into my eyes, and I dropped my phone trying to get it out of my eyes and mouth. It strengthened, swirling the branches around me and the old collapsed tree I was sitting in. It felt cold, and had an odd feeling of electricity in it. "Dammit!, Are you still there Ivy", I asked hurriedly, retrieving the phone, the breeze still whipping around me. I didn't like the feeling I had bubbling in my gut. There was no response. I hung up, and dialed my daughter's number. " What happened Mom? ", she asked. If she thought this tiny incident was strange, like I did, she said nothing. She wasn't surrounded by some weird vortex of cold wind, in July, as far as I knew though either. "Sorry, I just dropped the phone. So you called the owner!? What did they say?", I asked expecting something completely different than what she told me. I sat and was astounded at what followed. "Well the first time I called him, and explained who I was, he hung up." she told me. Ha! That's probably what most people would do, I thought. The new owners probably thought my daughter was a nut prank caller. That or like the rest of that damned town, knew about the house and refused to talk about it. "Can't say I blame them", I replied. "They probably thought you were nuts!", I laughed. She didn't return the joke though. This was serious then. Oh , Lord, what was it, I asked myself. The cool breeze had slackened a little, but swirled around me again. I ignored it. "Well, we know the new owner, Mom", she spat out on her end. Then a muffled gobble of words, followed by a loud, "NO!", then crying. "Laylani you can't eat my wedding ring, stop!", Ivy was scolding my granddaughter, who suddenly laughed, and babbled back at her. I smiled. Kids are such a blessing. Their pains in your ass, but still a blessing! I chuckled. "She trying to eat you?", I laughed into the phone. In that moment, the cool breeze that had been pestering me, just stopped. Not softly or gradually, but like someone had put a wall up in front of it, and cut it completely off. Laylani laughed again, as Ivy responded. " She's cutting teeth and wants to chew on anything she can. Right now, it's my wedding ring! ", she whipped out. I could feel her frustration. Ahhh, those were the days! " ANY-ways!," she continued. "The owner called me back. He was pissed at first because I was asking questions about the house, and that's why he hung up. He said he calmed down after a few minutes, and that's when he called me back. We know the owner. He inherited the place after his father passed away." she explained. " Really. So we knew his dad then? " I inquired. Her words became softer then. " Do you remember Richard, Uncle Rex's son? " she asked me. I did, and said as much. Then it dawned on me what she was saying. Oh, no... " Uncle Rex is the one who purchased the property back from Max's window, and he and his new wife, moved in. Uncle Rex died in 2017. He was found at the dining room table, and he passed from acute alcohol poisoning ", she said softly. My shoulders slumped, and my head hung low. Man, oh man! What a goddamn fuckaroo! I didn't know what to say. She wasn't done though. "A few years later, his wife also died in the house. It was from complications due to cirrhosis of the liver." she said. Rex's son, Richard of course inherited the property. " She finished. " I don't know what to say. ", and I really didn't. I just sat there, silently, my head a cafeteria room filled with hundreds of thought ghosts. " Me and Ian talked about it several times, and we both agreed that we think that something in that house was causing you to drink, and that's why you became an alcoholic. ", she said to me. My heart broke. Over the years, as they got older and began to find their own voices, I began to realize just had badly my drinking had effected them both. How much damage my inability to control myself had done to my kids. Ian, I knew had been angry about it, but had seemed to let most of it go. Ivy, on the other hand couldn't seem to. She would tell stories about my drunken escapades occasionally, and even if they were humorous, and quite a few were, the anger and resentment would crawl into her voice, and reflect in her green eyes. I had hurt them so. I chuckled to her. " Yeah, your dad has told me that I have an evil or dark being attached to me so many times, I forget! ", I said, laughing. Ivy just said, " Maybe you do, Mom.. "Have you ever thought of the possibility of it?", She asked. "No, and I think I would know if I did, being empathetic", I snorted. "I don't know Mom... Anyways, I got to feed this little monster right now. I'll call you soon and we can talk more", she was saying bye. "Ok bug, thanks for calling me, I love you!" And we hung up. *** (Three days later) "So Richard, Rex's son called me again", Ivy told me over the phone. "You're not going to believe this", she said with a tone that told me whatever it was, she couldn't believe it either. " What is it, bug?", I was nervous waiting for her response. "He called to ask me if I would be interested in buying the house!" "WHAT!? OH HELL NO!!, I said loudly in response to what she told me. " Yup! He's put it up for sale for $30,000, and nobody has been interested, so he called to ask if I'd be interested in buying it! ", she said incredulously. " Yeah, only if we can burn that bitch down! I replied. "What did you say?", I asked. "I politely said, No.", She laughed. I laughed with her.. "THE END"...I hope😉❤️❤️❤️
© M.E.Purdy
The car I'd purchased from my father, finally gave up, and I sold it to the neighbors. (who just happened to be a preacher, that was constantly trying to convert me) While trying numerous times to get the car hooked to another truck to tow, it would not go! He jokingly said it needed to be exorcized, which apon hearing this and watching the fiasco, I suddenly knew he shouldn't have said that, something bad was going to happen! On their last try, the car suddenly jerked up and back, pinning his son between it's back bumper, and the front bumper of his son's truck, almost crushing him. Another time, right after moving in, I had gone upstairs to find Ivy leaning out my open bedroom window, for what? I don't know, but I just barely caught her by her ankle, before she fell. The following July we moved back to Phoenix, leaving what I couldn't get packed in the house, which was a lot. During the following year's, I began to have sleep paralysis, and quite often. My drinking got worse, and I didn't care what others thought. I was a shitty mother during this time, and we almost became homeless . I finally was able to quit drinking during this time. I got back with my children's father, who from then until what we've found out, has said numerous times, that there is something different, off about me. He says that he thinks there's an evil attached to me. I used to argue with him until recently.. We have an on again off again relationship, and it's always a strain.. At around 16 or 17, Ivy began having sleep paralysis as well, and seeing a dark shadow in her room, watching her. I myself saw something crouched in a corner, during a terrible episode of S. P., that was still there AFTER I woke up! Then, what I considered the worse, yet wasn't, 4 years ago, I became homeless. I can't blame that on anyone but myself, I took my family for granted, and had no savings, and both my kids were adults, and not going to put up with my shit any longer. My Anger and attitude had changed so dramatically, even I was stunned at myself many times. I've lost pretty much any friends because of it and my mouth that lacks a filter. Neither one of my kids speak to me anymore... **** So here's what happened that made ALL OF US, the kids, their dad, and finally myself believe that when we lived in that house, Ian and I had both been possessed. I had also become oppressed with an entity that has been lurking within this entire time, we think. I didn't come to this conclusion, Ian and Ivy did and informed me. This after Ivy had a terrible, lucid nightmare , about an incident she never told me about, last June. ******** "Can you talk?" , the text from Ivy read. I'd been staying at their fathers house during the summer, as you can't survive anywhere in the open desert days on end, when the temperature daily exceeds 115 or more. My mother-in-law, hates me and always has, and the feeling is pretty much mutual, for the most part. So, me staying at his place had and has been a Herculean effort in Ninja tactics. I've learned TONS, living off grid, alone in the desert, and one of them is to not be seen or heard. I quickly texted back. "Give me 5 minutes, and I'll call you", to which she agreed. I relished any chance I got to talk to her. Married, and with a daughter of her own, our relationship, since she'd turned 18, had been extremely rocky. She had been the one person I'd used the most, living together in a house with her and her fiancé, but I never worked during that time. They'd kicked me out one day, after my temper, and mouth shot off, and I was completely on my own. It, I'd always thought, was my own god damned fault, and I'd gotten what I'd deserved! I was the only family member, not invited to my only daughters wedding.... But what came next, left me wondering ... I called her, after slipping quietly outside. "So, I had a dream about the house in Kansas, this morning.", She started without any minor chit chat. "A nightmare actually.", she started after a pause. " Oh? ", Was all I got out. " Well it was like I was there again, reliving something that happened a few times", she began to tell me. " Go on, Hun", I replied. Over the years, I'd found out tiny bits here and there about things that had happened to the kids, I never knew, that they hadn't shared. I wish sometimes, I had known then, maybe I could have done something, anything! " Well, it was on one of the nights you were up in your room, drinking and you had your stereo up so loud as usual, and I was laying on the couch facing the stairs trying to sleep when something started coming down the stairs towards me." her voice was strong, unwavering. " Oh wow, that is freaking scary! What'd it look like, bug", I inquired. I enjoyed talking to her, but when this subject came up, I generally shied away from it. Nineteen years had passed, and I was still shaming my family. Kansas and anything related, usually just made me feel terrible. " Mom. This wasn't just a dream my mind made up from bits of memories. This actually happened! I dreamed about something that happened a few times, to both me and Ian! ", I heard a tiny hint of my little girl at four years old, crying out, mixed with the young woman's voice that I had raised. I began to pay better attention to her. Ian never talked about the house in Kansas, at least not to me. Ivy had, off and on, but had never really told me of anything that happened one on one between her, much less Ian, and any spirits in the house. I listened. "Ok, I get you, bug. What happened? What did it look like,", I asked her again. "It was just this large, blackish almost solid black shape, but without any real form, 'ya know?", I could understand what she meant. Anything, at night described as a black shadow, or shape, wasn't anything good with good intentions. "Mhmm", I hummed, and waited for her to continue. "I'd started screaming for you, for help, to come downstairs, but you didn't hear me!", she said quietly. I felt a heavy sadness within both our hearts. If she'd been there face to face, I don't think I'd have been able to look her in the eye. "So this really happened?" I asked her. She said yeah a couple times not just to me but to Ian too. And it always happened when you were upstairs drunk and you couldn't hear us over your music, she'd told me. I was astounded, and a little pissed that they had never mentioned anything like this to me at least! Not that I could remember. I felt terrible for her to have been so young and to see something like this,. This demon thing, or whatever it was! If it was even that coming slowly down the stairs for her and not having the one person she needed to protect her and her brother available in any way shape or form, must have been truly horrifying for her! God I was a damn bad mother! I was ashamed. She went on. "Well this was about 3:30 fourish, in the morning.", she started, " And of course I couldn't go back to sleep so I got on my phone and started doing some research. A lot of it was just simple you know public records and things, but I didn't find out what I really wanted to find out, what I really needed, so I actually paid for a lot of the information I got. " I had done background searches myself and knew the cost of trying to get land records, property owner records, and death records, things of that nature and it was not cheap! Luckily my daughter was smart and had married into money! "Well you know the house is still there.", she informed me. We had been told that the fire department in Phillipsburg decided to use the house as a training facility and had set it ablaze. That had been untrue, and I'd google mapped it a few times and saw it's nasty facade, watching and hidden by it's trees. "Oh I know! I've seen it on Google maps a few times”, I told her. "Well , so how many people do you think died in that house Mom?", she asked, the hint of a game in her voice. I chuckled inside. Ivy could be pretty damn smart when she tried to especially if she had references right in front of her and judging from the tone in her voice she did. I decided to play along. I was honest and told her what I'd heard. "Well I know of at least three possibly four that I'd heard of dying in the house maybe." I told her. I waited for her response and when I got it I was so completely and utterly shocked to hear what she said, that I didn't speak for more than 10-15 seconds. She actually had to ask me if I was there still. " No, "she paused seemingly hesitant. I could feel her wondering if maybe this was such a good idea to inform me of what she found out. "The house has 20 or more, and that's just from the owners and family members who either died under mysterious circumstances murder, execution or natural causes. This isn't including the property which had an uncountable number that were murdered on the property! " again she said this quietly. " Mom are you there?" she asked, a bit nervous it seemed. I cleared the brain fart from my skull, and stuttered, "yeah I'm here honey. What the hell did you just say?", I exclaimed questioningly. I wasn't sure if I'd heard her correctly and what she had said. "Okay well here's what I found out the first owner who built the house in 1909 was married and had had five children. His first daughter, died in Ian's room around the age of 6, of tuberculosis. His youngest daughter, somehow drowned in the bathtub at age two. The record states cause of death as "accidental", she said. Notes by the examiner state that he wasn't quite sure that this was the actual cause of death so they weren't really sure how she drowned in the bathtub.", she started with what she'd paid for to find out. "Not only that,the oldest of the two sons, tried choking his younger brother to death under the stairs.
• What’s worse,the father he was a slave owner. Remember how we could never get down in the cellar? Well that's because the owner after him destroyed it after he found out that that's where he would punish and torture this leaves if they disobeyed him. He would chain them down there to the walls about three at a time and sometimes just leaving there to die! There's at least three slaves that had been left there to die that were recorded. He also loved to hang runaway slaves they were caught or disobedient slaves in what was our backyard!" she said matter of factly. "Here I'm sending you pictures.", sure enough my phone vibrated with incoming file! incoming file!, flashing across the screen. I downloaded them. The first was a black and white photo of a very astute looking, proper family dressed in early 19th century clothing. "Notice where his slave is being hung from?" she asked me as I looked at the second picture. I shuddered. It was literally one foot from the eve of what had been our back porch, the cellar mere feet from that. "You know Mom, God knows how many slaves he actually punished, tortured, killed, or murdered!? Call it whatever you will, he murdered them!”, she said with anger in her voice. "How many of those people, those poor people, did he do that to? They didn't keep records of any of it because they were considered property! ", of which I was aware how slaves and their deaths were documented during that time. "So you know how he did it?" Slaves that were trying to escape the South would get on the train which went right through Phillipsburg and the train station right across from our house. They were thinking they were going to get a good job, maybe eventually own some land, be free and he was there to purchase them and put them all back into slavery! All of them that he did this to had no idea what was waiting for them when they got off the train in Phillipsburg", she said slowly, sadness in her voice. "I'm fucking stunned!" was all I could say to her, and I literally was stunned. "Oh it gets worse mom, just wait", she said. God Almighty how could it get any worse? But in my heart I knew it was going to get almost unbearably worse. Somehow some part of me didn't want to hear this. "So after he died, his younger son inherited the house, where he lived with his wife. He hated kids, so they had none of their own. "His cause of death is listed as, "murdered by wife", who choked him and then pushed him down the staircase where he died at the foot of!”, she said without drama mostly just stating facts. "She was publicly executed in the backyard, on the property. I have uploaded a picture of the actual announcement for the execution that invites the public to come attend and watch!”, she told me and sure enough my phone blinked with another incoming file. "So the house was sold to a new owner.”, she continued, as another file flashed on my screen. "This one's the one that kind of got me Mom.”, she said, a bit of hesitation creeping into her voice. "So what was it? Who was it?" what happened?” I asked completely enthralled at this point. "The new owner died in his mid 30s and the cause of death was listed as alcohol poisoning. They found him dead in the dining room slumped on the dining table. His wife died a few years later, in the house as well, she committed suicide in your old room.” she continued. "After she passed away the house was once again up for sale and bought by another family. This was a man and his wife and their daughter and son. The daughter seemed to have some sort of mental problem and her cause of death is unknown. She just disappeared one day and they never found her or her body. The son died in his mid thirties of alcohol poisoning in the dining room, at the table. ", She told me pausing to let that sink in for a minute and it was a minute before I'd actually caught what she said. What the hell? I thought. "He died of alcohol poisoning too!?" I asked astounded. "Yep! In the dining room!" she said. "And they're not the only ones." She continued. "The family that owned it before Uncle Rex’s grandfather also had two girls die, and the father committed suicide in my old bedroom.” She fnished. "My God", I heard myself whisper. After 19 years, trying not to enter that memory, I was suddenly right up close, seeing it. The hair began to raise on my neck, and I felt prickles of adrenaline sparking through my already quick beating heart. I was breathing fast, and I had to make myself slow my breathing, count, and calm my thoughts. I let her continue, as I chewed the information, before digesting, or commenting "Holy fucking shit! I don't know what to say!", Was all I could get out. "I know, right!?", she exclaimed. How much anger, sorrow and death was attached to that place? And think about the slaves, with their own religious beliefs and magic! They could have cursed the place 'ya know? " She said quickly, her words had no pause. It, all of it, was pure insanity. I was having a hard time digesting all of it. " As far I can find out, we were the last family that lived there, ", she told me. I'm curious to find out if the new owner has had any issues?", she was contemplating out loud. "Well, call them and ask", I told her , mostly as a joke, thinking it would lighten the mood of our conversation. "I've thought about it, but I don't know how I'd approach the subject." "Seriously, Bug, I was just kidding ", I told her. I didn't want her in contact with anyone from that town. " I don't know, I'll think about it", she trailed off. I heard her daughter, Laylani, who I affectionately called " Scoot", fussing and babbling in the background. " Lemme call you back, mom ?, she asked. " Yup, when you can", I responded, and hung up. I was still sitting outside 20 minutes later, mulling everything she'd told me, over in my head, when she called me back. " I called the owner, and you're never going to believe this!", She blurted out, excited to tell me her news. I was intrigued, but apprehensive at the same time. "Do I want to know?", I asked her. A warm summer breeze suddenly blew my hair into my eyes, and I dropped my phone trying to get it out of my eyes and mouth. It strengthened, swirling the branches around me and the old collapsed tree I was sitting in. It felt cold, and had an odd feeling of electricity in it. "Dammit!, Are you still there Ivy", I asked hurriedly, retrieving the phone, the breeze still whipping around me. I didn't like the feeling I had bubbling in my gut. There was no response. I hung up, and dialed my daughter's number. " What happened Mom? ", she asked. If she thought this tiny incident was strange, like I did, she said nothing. She wasn't surrounded by some weird vortex of cold wind, in July, as far as I knew though either. "Sorry, I just dropped the phone. So you called the owner!? What did they say?", I asked expecting something completely different than what she told me. I sat and was astounded at what followed. "Well the first time I called him, and explained who I was, he hung up." she told me. Ha! That's probably what most people would do, I thought. The new owners probably thought my daughter was a nut prank caller. That or like the rest of that damned town, knew about the house and refused to talk about it. "Can't say I blame them", I replied. "They probably thought you were nuts!", I laughed. She didn't return the joke though. This was serious then. Oh , Lord, what was it, I asked myself. The cool breeze had slackened a little, but swirled around me again. I ignored it. "Well, we know the new owner, Mom", she spat out on her end. Then a muffled gobble of words, followed by a loud, "NO!", then crying. "Laylani you can't eat my wedding ring, stop!", Ivy was scolding my granddaughter, who suddenly laughed, and babbled back at her. I smiled. Kids are such a blessing. Their pains in your ass, but still a blessing! I chuckled. "She trying to eat you?", I laughed into the phone. In that moment, the cool breeze that had been pestering me, just stopped. Not softly or gradually, but like someone had put a wall up in front of it, and cut it completely off. Laylani laughed again, as Ivy responded. " She's cutting teeth and wants to chew on anything she can. Right now, it's my wedding ring! ", she whipped out. I could feel her frustration. Ahhh, those were the days! " ANY-ways!," she continued. "The owner called me back. He was pissed at first because I was asking questions about the house, and that's why he hung up. He said he calmed down after a few minutes, and that's when he called me back. We know the owner. He inherited the place after his father passed away." she explained. " Really. So we knew his dad then? " I inquired. Her words became softer then. " Do you remember Richard, Uncle Rex's son? " she asked me. I did, and said as much. Then it dawned on me what she was saying. Oh, no... " Uncle Rex is the one who purchased the property back from Max's window, and he and his new wife, moved in. Uncle Rex died in 2017. He was found at the dining room table, and he passed from acute alcohol poisoning ", she said softly. My shoulders slumped, and my head hung low. Man, oh man! What a goddamn fuckaroo! I didn't know what to say. She wasn't done though. "A few years later, his wife also died in the house. It was from complications due to cirrhosis of the liver." she said. Rex's son, Richard of course inherited the property. " She finished. " I don't know what to say. ", and I really didn't. I just sat there, silently, my head a cafeteria room filled with hundreds of thought ghosts. " Me and Ian talked about it several times, and we both agreed that we think that something in that house was causing you to drink, and that's why you became an alcoholic. ", she said to me. My heart broke. Over the years, as they got older and began to find their own voices, I began to realize just had badly my drinking had effected them both. How much damage my inability to control myself had done to my kids. Ian, I knew had been angry about it, but had seemed to let most of it go. Ivy, on the other hand couldn't seem to. She would tell stories about my drunken escapades occasionally, and even if they were humorous, and quite a few were, the anger and resentment would crawl into her voice, and reflect in her green eyes. I had hurt them so. I chuckled to her. " Yeah, your dad has told me that I have an evil or dark being attached to me so many times, I forget! ", I said, laughing. Ivy just said, " Maybe you do, Mom.. "Have you ever thought of the possibility of it?", She asked. "No, and I think I would know if I did, being empathetic", I snorted. "I don't know Mom... Anyways, I got to feed this little monster right now. I'll call you soon and we can talk more", she was saying bye. "Ok bug, thanks for calling me, I love you!" And we hung up. *** (Three days later) "So Richard, Rex's son called me again", Ivy told me over the phone. "You're not going to believe this", she said with a tone that told me whatever it was, she couldn't believe it either. " What is it, bug?", I was nervous waiting for her response. "He called to ask me if I would be interested in buying the house!" "WHAT!? OH HELL NO!!, I said loudly in response to what she told me. " Yup! He's put it up for sale for $30,000, and nobody has been interested, so he called to ask if I'd be interested in buying it! ", she said incredulously. " Yeah, only if we can burn that bitch down! I replied. "What did you say?", I asked. "I politely said, No.", She laughed. I laughed with her.. "THE END"...I hope😉❤️❤️❤️
© M.E.Purdy
