Prologue
Troubles
The year was 1923 November 19th it was a cold and windy night I remember distinctly because it was a hard winter. The hardest that I could remember when I was a boy and until today as my feet crunch through the hard pact snow and seeing the large icicles hanging down the trees in the Maple Grove Cemetery near where my parents are buried. My name is Brian O’ Donald my Da’ Oliver O’ Donald his friends called him Ollie and his closets friends called him scamper he recently died a year ago today and it was about this time the troubles started. I know what you might think… “Troubles” everyone’s got them, but my troubles weren’t that kind that everyone has, certainly not here in the burrows and not here on 22nd Saint Christopher Street in very small town called Dover in the state of New York where everyone knows everyone and everyone’s business as it were.
The “troubles” started two days after he was put into the cold hard ground. It seemed so strange now and almost obvious now that I think about it. The first night after his passing things seemed to go missing. Simple things like an ear ring or misplacing my house keys, things of that nature always seemed to go missing and turning up in the strangest places. For instance finding my Da’s watch in the ice box, still ticking with the time stuck at three O’clock. It was soon after that when things really got weird, me and my wife Sera started to hear whisperings in rooms we thought were empty and would stop the minute we walked in or opened the door. Not so much the dust had been moved except the night when the heavy storm blew through these parts did we see strange going on’s. For instance wet footsteps left behind in the entryway where my Da’ would hang his coat and leave his outdoor shoes by the door.
At first I thought I must be going crazy when the closet door would bang closed hard enough, knocking a vase over or a picture would fall off the wall and our cat Lucy a white ball of fur with a gray spot just above her head would howl and spit with her hair raised as if her tail was put in light socket staring into empty space finding nothing there. One night my wife woke hearing piano music coming from the pallor, thinking it was me tickling the ivories and went down to see if I was coming to bed soon, but finding nobody there. The music seemed to stop yet a soft moan or whispers seemed to pass her leaving her breath cold as ice seemed to crawl up the side room mirror before cracking.
No these “troubles” are not what everyone has and now things are getting worse much worse and nobody seems to believe us as they point and gossip behind our backs accusingly. We know now or we think we know someone or something is sending strange messages beyond the grave, but what and why and whom? Is the question.