Secrets

Ordinary life

My great granddad was a man who knew how to make a living. He worked at the local slaughterhouse like everyone else in town did at that time, but he also had a mink farm and made money from playing music at parties. He was the first in town to have a modern toilet with flush installed and everyone around admired him. He had 7 children and they were all dressed well. This was unusual during the second world war but he knew how to do everything. He raised his children harsh, they never misbehaved, when he was looking. My grandmother stole bread from the kitchen and biked down to the local refuge center and fed the German refugees. She could have been punished very badly by the guarders but luckily she was never caught. 

Her brothers grew up to become musicians and the two girls both became house maids. My grandmother married a soldier and settled in Copenhagen, her sister stayed in the hometown and married a local biker. He worked on the mink farm till the day it closed down. 

Many years later I was born. I grew up in Copenhagen but my grandmother never forgot her roots and brought me to visit my great grandparents four times a year; Summer, Autumn, Christmas and Easter. We usually slept in a cabin which was built where the mink farm used to be. One winter a harsh storm hit and the cabin could not stay warm. We packed up and decided to sleep with my great grandparents. I was scared as my great grandmother had always told me stories about Magda, who haunted the house, she lived in the basement and the toilet and she was very mean. I was afraid to face Magda. My sister was just as scared but she would never admit it. We were placed on the upper floor which honestly wasn't much warmer than the cabin. Heating it up was almost impossible. I slept in a room with my sister while my parents slept in another room. My grandparents had decided to sleep at the local hotel in town. I somehow succeeded in falling asleep. I woke up because my sister was pushing me, "shut up!" she whisper shouted. I pushed back "I was sleeping," I replied grumpy and pulled the blanket over my head. Then I heard it too, the laughter. It came from the tea kitchen next door. I looked at my sister "it isn't me" I said. She sat up and looked at the door "ghosts don't exist." "What about Magda?" I asked and not without fear in my voice. She laughed "it's just something they say to scare us." She went out of bed and said "I have to pee. What about you?" I nodded and stood up. I did not have to pee but I did not want to be alone. I went with her down stairs. While she was at the toilet I heard the laughter again but this time in the basement. My sister was shivering though she tried to hide it in the dark. However my night vision is better than she knew. "It is just the wind howling, that's normal in winter storms." But we knew better. That did not sound like the wind. I was just 5 years old but I had listened to the wind many times. A door slammed downstairs and we both jumped. "We have to see who it is," my sister said, "maybe someone homeless is hiding." I thought it was better to call the police but I had no idea how to use their old dial phone. We walked downstairs towards the basement with a little flashlight my sister had found. The laughter was higher and closer this time. The door slammed behind us and we both jumped down the last few steps and hit the floor. My sister looked around with the flashlight and we walked towards the room where a lot of old furniture was stacked. something ran passed us in a blink of an eye and none of us had a chance to see who or what it was. We saw a shadow behind an old cabin. "Who is it?" my sister asked, the flashlight was shaking in her hand. "Behind you," a voice said and we both turned around and saw a barefooted woman with long white hair and bloodshed eyes. "Who... Who are you..?" She took a step closer to us, her feet where blue and I noticed that the rest of her looked pale and blueish too. "We all came here for shelter. We were hiding from the Germans. The nazis tracked us down all the way to the Danish border then they lost track of us. They kept on searching for us but we manage to get here." Another woman appeared from the shadows her mouth was sewn together and her neck was bleeding. She had big eyes and looked at us. "What are you doing down here?" my sister finally dared to ask. "She fed us.. The little girl, but then her father found out and how angry he was. He said if we wanted his food we should get here and eat." "But.. The people from the war died," my super smart sister said. She was 9 and loved history books. The woman with the mouth stitches grinned and the broken stitches did not seem to bother her, "so did we, he locked us down here and starved us out. That's how Germans were treated in Denmark." she said "and now we feed on fresh blood. We are starving, we haven't eaten since John fell down the stairs." My sister stepped up "he was hit by a car, my grandmother always talks about how here brother died. We visited his grave this summer." The woman with the bloodshed eyes laughed, this time creepier, "that's what they told you? interesting. But all family have secrets. This is yours!" They jumped upon my sister and began to eat her raw flesh. I ran out towards the fire exit screaming, tearing up and looked at the backyard. The snow was shining cold. I sat down underneath a tree and hugged myself to keep warm. 

My parents woke up the next morning. It was my dad who found me and asked what had happened. I pointed at the basement door and he walked inside and found whatever was left of my sister. I never saw it. 

At her funeral it was said that she died from a cardio arrest. That was just another secret added to our family secret list.