Lurking in the Shadows

Ch. 5: A Face in the Window

When I looked back at the groundskeeper, he'd already been staring at me. He tossed me a pair of gardening gloves and gestured for me to follow him to the small garden in the far corner of the yard. He got on his knees and began to harvest some leafy plant.
     "Basil," He pointed at a little tag at the beginning of the row. "Sprinkle it on the floor. It should keep her away."
     "Her?"
     "Her. She's not like the rest. She's hateful and angry. She doesn't want to play with you and tease you like those children. She'd kill you if she could. And she might try if she's strong enough." He said simply. I felt panic well up inside me but I squashed it down. He placed the basil in a small pouch, labelled it, and set it in a wicker basket between us. He moved onto the next row of herbs and began snipping some off.
     "Sage. Burn it, preferably when your sister and mother aren't home. Gets rid of negative energy." Like the basil, he tied it up in a labelled pouch and set it in the basket.
     "Rosemary. Make it into an incense and burn it." Pouch, label, basket.
     "I don't know how to make incense," I admitted and he looked disappointed.
     "Well, I guess I better teach you," He sighed, getting to his feet. He led me along a dirt path to a small shack behind the shed. When he opened the door, I was hit with a sweet scent. He led me into the shack, which was filled with a bluish smoke, and I was greeted by an old woman who was even shorter than the groundskeeper. She had a kind face with rosy cheeks and a large smile. She seemed like one of those hippie types. Long silver-white hair, long skirt, lots of bracelets.
     "Robert," She greeted the groundskeeper with a hug and a kiss on the cheek before hugging me.
     "I'm Gloria," she said as she pulled away. "What brings you here?"
     "He needs to learn to make incense," Robert cut in, going to a cabinet and pulling out bowls, a mortar and pestle, a jar of powder, among other things. He spread them out on a table and beckoned me closer.
     "Here's what you need to do and listen closely because I'm not going to repeat." He said and Gloria shushed him.
     "Be nice Robert."

        After watching carefully so I wouldn't miss anything, I left for dinner and was instructed to visit every day to rotate the incense sticks. Gloria walked me home after bidding Robert to clean up, which he did reluctantly.

     "Oh, we lived around here back when it was an orphanage," She said when I asked about the house. "The matrons were nasty old women who beat the children every day over the smallest of things. I remember working in the garden one day in the summer and seeing the head matron, Miss Ida, ordering a girl not much older than me to wash the windows. When that little girl made a face, not even that bad of one either, Miss Ida beat the poor thing with a switch. Beat her within an inch of her life, I'd say. Poor child had welts on her back and legs for weeks." Gloria's eyes were full of sadness.
     "So much hurt in that house," She stared up at the same window Robert did. I glanced up quickly and I could have sworn I'd seen a face.
"That was Miss Ida's room," Gloria was looking at me now. "Sometimes she would watch the children from here and they all knew it. Those children didn't need ghost stories in that place. She was their ghost story. She outlived most of them. Someone set a fire there, killed most of the children and half the matrons. Not Miss Ida though. She lived till 1976. Eighty six years old while those poor angels didn't live to see twenty. There's a cemetery for them out past the shack."