Cursed to live....AGAIN

Royce

Royce

'This damn tree has got to come down' I thought to myself as I laid in the bed listening to it scratch against the window for the fifth night in a row. It had also been that long since I had moved into this home. It had been left to me when my aunt died under suspicious circumstances. I still didn't quite understand everything that the detectives tried to explain to me, but I figured it would all be in the report.

The house was a huge Victorian style affair with more room than I would ever need. I could have had six kids and still not have filled it up. It was lovely and also dark and unnerving at the same time. As I had gone exploring, I found a lot of the rooms were locked. Then there was a whole wing of the home that my aunt had blocked off with a makeshift wall of boxes. All very mind-boggling.

It was funny, I knew that I used to visit this house as a child before my parents passed away, yet, I had no recollection of it. The pictures of myself here with my aunt were the only reason I could even say that I had been here with any confidence. I had a great mind and remembered almost everything, yet my years here were lost. It was as if they had been wiped clean from my memory.

'tap, tap, tap..'

That damn tree again. I had the mind to get up, go and find a saw and get to it myself. Sitting up, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and let my feet touch the cold floor. I almost recoiled from how cold it was. As a matter of fact, I could see my breath when I breathed now and it definitely had not been that way an hour ago when I got up to use the bathroom.

I quickly slid my feet into the slippers that I had waiting there next to me and reached over to the rocking chair near the bedside table that I used to read before bed, and grabbed my robe. In doing so, I knocked into the bedside table and something fell from under it and slid out on top of my foot. I bent down to pick it and realized that it was a journal.

'Cool' I thought. It wasn't as if I had anything else to do, I decided against going to find a way to cut down a tree limb in the middle of the night and opened the journal. I thought that it would have been my aunt's. I was mistaken. It belonged to a Raynelle Getty. I had never heard of the name, but she had to be related since we had the same last name.

There was a picture of her that had slid out and she could have easily passed for me. Or me for her, since she was older than I. Her clear caramel skin came through even though the picture was in black and white. She wore a dress that was cinched at the waist and flared out, stopping just below her knees. She wore a crucifix as well as a string of pearls and had gloves that even in a colorless picture I knew were white. She was standing in what looked like the front yard of this very house in front of this very tree that had been robbing me of my sleep. She wore the prettiest smile that was adorned with dimples in the same place that I had them. The picture made me smile. Flipping it over it read:

Raynelle, March 1967.

'Well, hello, Raynelle...nice to meet you.' I said with a little laugh as I opened the first page and began to read. From the first sentence, I knew there was something wrong and it scared me senseless.

'April 3rd, 1967'

'Noone believes me. Not mother, father or my brother. They actually want to call the good reverend over to do a special blessing on me as if I am the one possessed and not this wretched family house, they have just moved us into that daddy had grown up in with grandmother and uncle. Even after his father died.

Daddy has cut that tree limb back four times since we got here and yet every night, it still seems to reach the window and tap, leaving me no time at all for a wink of sleep. I don't know how they expect me to keep up with my studies if I can't keep my eyes open in the mornings. What's more, and I can't believe I even have to say this, maybe I do need a blessing from the pastor, but I know my eyes were not deceiving me when I saw that shadowy figure in the East wing yesterday.

It was a woman with blood red eyes and dressed in a tattered blue dress. She reached out to me just before I felt myself being moved towards her. I couldn't stop it and to be honest, I didn't want to. There was something in those eyes that made me feel like I belonged wherever she was. It was only daddy coming up the stairs and calling for me that snapped me out of the daze I was in and just that fast, she was gone. I might have just chucked it up to sleepwalking, but I was wide awake and, on a mission, when I went up there to the room that had been used as my grandmother's sewing studio. When daddy finally found me and came in the room, it was only when he reached me, I realized that I was nowhere near the place that I had been before I saw her. I was standing at least thirty feet away, past the mirror and closer to the door that lead to the attic.

He said he had been calling me for at least five minutes and searching for me all over this maze of a house and could not find me. I told him the truth and when mama heard she thought for sure I needed help. I had wished I had kept the truth to myself and told them that I had only been exploring and had a fright from one of the mannequins that were used to pin and alter clothing on. With that, I just apologized for making him have to come and find me. That would have been the best thing to do.

I had learned that lesson and would not be sharing any more encounters with her to the two of them. Now, not ten minutes ago, the fire in the fireplace just went out and a chill that went down to my bones replaced the warmth. I could have sworn that I saw that same woman in the tattered dress standing at my doorway.

I grabbed my bible and held it out towards her and began to recite the 23rd Psalms. She almost hissed at the sight and hearing of it, threw her arm across her eyes and moved backwards as if being pulled away by my words and just the sight of the word of God. I pulled the covers over my head to hide myself away and decided that I needed to record this..

Now, here I am, sitting by the bed, journal in hand recording this encounter. There is no one who would believe me but I can't keep these happenings to myself. I need to know who this woman truly was. I mean, she couldn't really be my dead aunt Rue, could she? More than that, she wanted something from me and what it is that she wants I have to figure out so that will leave me in peace, and I need to do it now. Something tells me she is not here to be my friend.

When I see her, she gives me a feeling of wanting me to come and be with in this in between place that she must be trapped in with her. I don't know where it is that she dwells, but she doesn't exactly appear to me looking like she is having a great time wherever it is that she is from. I need to know more. Forcing myself from the bed and shaking almost uncontrollably, holding tight to my bible, I reached over and hung my pure silver crucifix that daddy gave me at my first holy communion around my neck. I was fixing to go back to that side of the house and find answers....and hopefully some peace.'