Specters

Chapter Two

I sigh as I hear footsteps behind me. I turn around to see my mom, Cynthia. We stare at each other for a bit before I turn back to the graves before me. One is labeled: Carrie Grimms, Birth December 8th, 1642, Death September 13th, 1695. The one besides Carrie's grave is unmarked. 

"I know you're disappointed in me for not believing you." I hear my mom say. I turn to look at her. "Yeah, I am," I reply evenly. I had told her about Seria, only for her to not take me seriously and even laugh in my face. 

"I took some time to think about it and I looked into the history of the house, from what I found no one under that name has lived here. At least not in hundreds of years."

I look into her black, doe eyes then. "You found something?" I ask with a tinge of hope in my voice. She nods and then motions to follow her back into the house. As I follow her I think about the last words I heard from Seria before she vanished for a month. In this month I have been trying to gather information on her, look for her, and even got a job at a local diner. 

As we walk into the house I follow Cynthia into the kitchen, where the table is covered in old documents and old pictures. "Some things don't really add up, like how old this house is, or well this plot of land. This house was built in the late 1800's but this plot of land has been sectioned off way before then, ever since late 1600's," Cynthia says.

I nod and then ask, "Why - How was this land sectioned off before the house was built though?"

Cynthia then grabs an old document and looks it over. It says something about the sectioning of the land. "Here it says the land was granted to a Carrie Grimms, her daughter - Seria, and her husband." 

"Is the husbands name listed?" I ask.

"No, but it looks like the land was a gift from a local tribe to the couple to raise their child. I'm sorry but this is all I could find on Seria."

I look at my mom and give her a hug and thank her before heading up to my room.

As I look out my bedroom window I see a slight shadow in front of the graves I was looking at earlier. I head back down, shutting the front door quietly behind as to not raise suspicion. As I round the corner of the house I hold my breathe as I see Seria before me. I walk up to her and stand beside her. She acknowledges me barely but then suddenly speaks. 

"Carrie was my mother. Beside her is my father. They were both lovely people and lived a great life filled with love and hope."

I nod as I gulp in preparation for what I'm about to ask. I know this is a sensitive topic but the more I know, the better. "Who was your father?"

"My father is - was a part of the Houma people. When he meet my mother, an Irish woman who came to these lands on a Viking voyage and wondered south, well they fell in love. When they conceived me they decided to make a cabin so my father's tribe helped by allowing us to build upon this land - making it ours. For that we shall always be grateful. I miss them both terribly. The cabin suddenly caught fire one night while I was out playing with a little tribe girl. When I came back the cabin was lit and my parents were dead. The next thing I knew the tribe was under attack. No one but me survived and that was because a Spaniard captured me, and the rest is history." She tells me as she falls to the ground in front of her parents graves and cries softly.

"Maybe if I had been with them that night, or even close by, then I could have saved them. Then we could have helped my father's people. But no, I was too busy playing with a kid that I wasn't paying attention. Then I got kidnapped and they tried to convert me, but I was too stubborn. So they killed me and cut me up then buried my body all over the town so I would never know peace and never see my parents again." She's full on bawling now and I'm unsure on what to do. I've never been great at comforting people.

"We'll find all of your body and put you to rest," I say as I rest a hand on her shoulder, "I promise."