Hatchet School House

What did I see?

I moved forward and looked at the ground where the school had been. There was nothing to indicate it had been here moments ago. None of the weeds were disturbed, there were even a couple small bushes and trees there. As I stood there astonished the fog lifted and the sun shown in on the area. Sitting in my apartment sipping a cup of coffee I thought back over what I had seen. What I saw was quite clear, but how was it possible? I have never experienced anything like this before. I was still shaking from the experience. There had to be an explanation for this, though I could think of none. I can remember seeing old one room school houses in Pennsylvania, where I grew up. They were always out in the middle of no where, because they served the rural families who lived in the surrounding area. They were usually boarded up and no longer needed after the towns and cities nearby opened larger schools. Sometimes they were turned into homes.
I went to my computer, there must be some history of one room school houses in Nebraska. There were dozens of sites on the subject. They were filled with old pictures showing schools from very primitive adobe structures to larger clapboard buildings. Many of the pictures had lines of students in their best late 1800's garb standing in front of their school. One photo caught my attention, it was of a school house that was now a museum in Papillion. It was called the Portal School. This was the building that I had just seen, but this picture looked like it had just been built. It is now at 242 Jefferson street in Papillion. There is a legend attached to the building. It was built in 1890 in a town called Portal, which was just south of current Papillion. It was out in the country on a dirt road right next to a bridge. There are several similar accounts of the legend. Generally, the story goes that the teacher went crazy one day and killed all her students with a hatchet. She cut their heads off and put them on their desks. After cutting their hearts out she threw them in the stream next to the school. The bridge became known as "Heartbeat Bridge" and legend was "Hatchet House".  The town was eventually deserted by its residents because it flooded every year. The school remained there, boarded up, until 1990's when it was moved and restored as a museum. I only live fifteen minutes from Papillion, I have to see this building, is it the same one I just saw?                                                                                                                                                                                         This is it! But, of course it's been completely renovated. It has the two doors on the front and a sign hanging in the middle "Portal School". The bell structure is right we're it had been on the school I saw this morning. The museum was not open for business. But, I could see inside, it was a school in structure only now. There were displays and shelves throughout the room inside. I'll have to come back during open hours.
If the school was now here, how could I have seen it in the marshland this morning? If the legend was true the tremendous trauma that took place in that building could have left a permanent imprint of some sort. What do I know about these things? All I know is what I saw and that this thing was not over yet.
That afternoon at 4:30 I picked up my wife, Cat, at Christ The King School were she teaches one of the third grades. She has a couple of years left before she retires. On the ride home we made the usual small talk about how our days went. When we got home I told her my story. I have to hand it to her, I don't think I would have believed the story I just told her. I am not sure she really believed me, but she listened without calling our family doctor to have me put away. She knew of course that I had a vivid imagination and that my whole life I had been drawn to horror tales in all forms. She asked a couple questions then went to work on her papers. We didn't talk about it again.

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