The six-foot artificial Blue Spruce tree leaned against the corner of the garage. In spite of its size, fullness and majestic beauty, it went unnoticed by the many people meandering about the huge yard sale. Having recently relocated from New York City, I was unaware that people in Williamsport, Pennsylvania were loathe to celebrate Christmas without a freshly-cut tree. Killing a tree seemed barbaric to me, and a potential fire hazard, yet I had promised my kids we would have a real tree this year.
After greedily purchasing antigues and psuedo-antigues, I started to load my treasures into the station wagon. I glanced back at the tree. If a tree could look wistful, this Blue Spruce was gazing at me like a condemned puppy in a dog pound.
The kids raced out to the car to help unload as I honked the car and pulled into the driveway.
“What’s with the fake tree? Mom,” my oldest asked. Kimber was the “straw boss” among my six terrors, four of them in their teens. They feared her more than their parents for reasons I chose not to explore.
“Yeah, Mom,” ten-year-old Noelle, quipped. “This tree sure looks dead to me.”
“C’mon guys,” I said. “How could I let this beauty be put out for garbage? No one at the yard sale wanted it and it just seemed to call out to me.”
“Right, Mom,” smart-aleck Dante chimed in, “Trees talkin’ to you now?”
“Hey, Pal, it isn’t me who claims our new house is haunted, now, is it?”
With the smart mouth and know-it-all attitude that comes with turning fourteen, he stood his ground. “It is haunted. Got nothin’ to do with bringing home a stupid fake tree.”
“Michael,” I called out to my oldest son. “Come help your brother get this lovely tree into the house and be careful.”
Kelly, at thirteen, was more concerned with acne to care and six-year-old Nicole was happy to have any tree. And so the Blue Spruce became a fixture for the next six years, watching the family grow, sharing in our good times and bad. It was so exquisite that it stood year round in the corner of the living room, adorned only at Christmas. Somehow it belonged to the one-hundred-year-old farmhouse from the day I brought it home.
In the meantime, the antics of the supposedly haunted house continued. I never saw or heard anything remotely ghostly, but the kids reported cold spots, shadows darting across rooms, footsteps pounding up and down the steps to the finished attic: where all the kids except Nicole chose to sleep. They claimed that their beds vibrated, not accepting my theory that it was just trucks rumbling down the road shaking the house.
The red hot lips balloon hanging over Kimber’s bed spun wildly from no apparent breeze, yet never in my presence. One incident did give me pause. On a day when none of us were home, we returned to find the nails had been pulled from the dormered attic walls and the wallboard lay across the attic floor. Clothes in the kids’ closet were strewn about the room, but only the red-colored ones.. Still, when in doubt, odd things were blamed on Dante, usually with good cause.
The Shetland sheepdog refused to venture into the attic, much as she loved the children, Our kitten made the mistake of exploring the attic one day, again when we were not home, and we found him looking like road kill for his actions. He lived, barely, and never got curious again. Kittens are accident prone, I told myself.
Odd things did happen in the house but I figured it was poltergeist activity activated by my teenagers, some of whom were psychic on many levels. One night, I awoke to the sound of heavy breathing. I nudged my husband, a light sleeper, and noted that the resident bear must be checking out the garbage cans again on his nightly trek from the hills behind us to the hills across the road.
“Nope,” my husband said. “The house is breathing. It breathes every night about this time. This is an evil house.”
Well there you have it, I thought. I am the only sane person in this family. A feeling of peace and fullfillment enveloped me from the day I first saw the house. No other dwelling had made me feel so safe, comforted, so loved. Remembering the last Christmas when the kids had used the Ouija board, a present, only to find that it spelled, “Get Mom, get, Mom” over and over, sending them screaming to their beds, made me
smile at the imaginations of my kids.
My husband grew a bit concerned over the the fact that I rarely left the old house anymore. A bout of agoraphobia had kept me homebound over the past few years. Just stress from raising so many kids, I insisted. It will pass.
The fifth year in the old house brought tragedy. Noelle, now fourteen, grown into a beautiful, yet comedic teenager, was struck down in late August by a drunk driver. It happened in broad daylight on the country lane a few blocks from our home. She lived ten days in a semi-coma, the longest days of our lives, and then left us forever.
Despite unconsolable grief, we celebrated the following Christmas, her favorite holiday, as she would have wanted. The stately Blue Spruce stood extra tall, decorated and lighted as a beacon of hope, a staunch reminder of better days. Our family could no longer live in the house without Noelle, nor walk or drive past the spot where she was run down.; a dark red spot remained there, not washed away from repeated rainfall. The
house was sold.
It was a mistake, I told myself. We need to be here. But I acquiesced to my husband, who was near a breakdown. I mourned as only a mother can, but the house gave me solace, heard my screams in the night, comforted me, soothed my nightmares.
Packed up and ready to move back to the City, I begged to be left alone with the house, to check and make sure nothing was left behind. I waved as the family drove off in the moving vans, promising to meet them at the bridge in a few momnets.
Wandering throughout my beloved house, I soaked up memories. I usually avoided the attic because I never felt comfortable there, plus it spared me the the horror of the messy rooms of my kids. Yet now I was compelled to climb the long narrow steps and open the door that the children swore opened and shut at random. Ridiculous, I thought. It was so warped it had to be forced open.
Confident that all was packed, I turned to leave the attic rooms. Slam! The door shut tight and would not open. I pounded on the small window in a frenzied panic. To no avail. My screams went unheard. It was when I rested my bruised and bloodied fists
upon the window sill that I noticed my car was gone. They are looking for me, was my first thought. I could finally draw in a deep breath.
Relief was short- lived. The Oak tree that shaded the front of the house was gone and the forty-foot pines on the side of the house were now two-foot seedlings. Curiousity overcame my terror as I gazed through the glass pane into a different world. My neighbor’s house across the road was no longer there. In its stead was a small dairy farm.
Horses hitched to wagons stood patiently where the driveway had been. I turned away, my mind unable to grasp the images sent by my eyes. Surely, this was but a dream. I turned aside and saw the empty attic now filled with furniture from a bygone century. The attic door creaked open slowly, compelling me to walk through it to the narrow ladder leading to the Widow’s Walk on the roof; a place where women walked, worriedly searching for signs of their men. It now sported firm wrought-iron railings along the sides. I knew not what I was looking for as I scanned the tops of trees, hills, and old houses from another era. . . searching for something,someone.
I could see all the way to the Susquehanna River, where the logging boats sailed back and forth, taking freshly hewn lumber to neighboring towns. Drawn to the ships, I forgot the past, caught up by the present, more fascinated now than frightened.
The nearly full moon rose up over the mountains, lighting my way back down into the house. I walked downstairs and sat down in a soft, cushioned rocking chair, newly made, but an antigue in my world of moments ago. I rocked and rocked, soothing my soul, easing my fears, slipping into another reality.
No one was coming for me. No one ever could. Nor could I find my way back to my own time. Blurred memories of my loved ones caused tears to roll slowly down my cheeks, and then dry up.
The house that had wanted me for so long breathed out a contented sigh. Across the room in its special corner, stood a six-foot live Blue Spruce, decorated for Christmas with homemade ornaments. At long last, I had come home.
