There Is No Place Like Home

I share with you a story from my past that has a touch of magic from my ancestors. It is a story that has brought smiles to the face of my mother when she needed them most. My tale is not about terror, but that of comfort.

The house I was raised in dates back well over 200 years ago. In fact, the attic above the kitchen has wooden pegs for nails instead of the metal nails. There is a wall in the basement that folds inward revealing a crude hidden room. I was told that this room was used to hide runaway slaves, although I have been unable to confirm this in my research of the area. My mother’s family has lived in this house for well over a century. My grandmother made renovations on this house and built more rooms. My mother inherited the house when her mother and father passed away. This house was built with no doors separating the rooms on the first floor except for the bathroom.

My mother’s bedroom and my bedroom were on the first floor. My mother continues to use the same room for her bedroom, the room that her mother used.

My eldest sister, Lucretia, who was not raised in this house will never enter after midnight. Long before I had been born, Lucretia had been staying in the house while my mother was away and she heard pacing on the second floor in the middle of the night. This pacing has been observed by my brother at a later date as well as a carpenter hired by my mother when I was a child. My mother’s theory is the pacing is her father. She remembers when her mother was in childbirth, my mother’s father would be on the second floor pacing in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, the childbirth’s were grim and the babies were stillborn. My mother was the first born and the only successful live birth in six attempts. These steps have been witnessed each time in one room, the dark room. We call this room “the dark room” for it has no windows, thus no natural light is in this room.

Another phenomenon in my house is various moans and screams from the basement. While this could be written off as old plumbing, when it occurs it is unnerving.

Through the years, my mother has lost many relics that she had tried to save in memory of her childhood. However, one cherished piece remains, it is a wooden back scratcher that was her mother’s which resides on a nail in her bedroom. This item is made of cherry wood. It has always been in her room on a nail by her bed.

Now starts the tale which twists around my personal past. This story begins around the time my mother was suffering a depression due to lack of funds. The bitter knowledge that we were days away from losing our home rode on the shoulders of my mother. Many days she spent crying at her desk feeling hopeless. Talks were had about us moving in with my brother who lived out-of-state and selling her family home.

One eve when I was a mere 13, my mother and I were sitting in the living room enjoying a show on the television. A noise came from my mother’s room that sounded like a chorus screaming off tune followed by a huge bang. We ran to her room and looked around. The only thing unusual was the back scratcher had fallen from the wall and was now lying on the floor near the head of the bed.

Shaking her head, my mother replaced her cherished item back upon the wall. We chuckled nervously and continued on our way.

The very next day, my mother was at her desk and I was in the next room. A feeling that I cannot put into words came over me. It was almost a feeling of dread or like a presence violating your space. I compare this feeling to how one would feel with someone reading uninvited over one’s shoulder. My mother felt the same thing at the same time. We both felt the need to go to my mother’s room. Upon arriving there, we noted the back scratcher had once again left the wall and was now lying on my mothers bed, part on the pillow and part on the bed.

At this point, my mother inspected the ribbon that she had used to hand the back scratcher which was intact. She checked the nail, which was also unaltered. She shrugged, giggled self consciously, and then placed the back scratcher on her head board, hidden from view behind a tissue box and other decorations.

“Perhaps it no longer wants to be on the wall,” she said as she left the room.

The next day at a church meeting, my mother told of the events of the last two days. We shared some laughter with the rest of our friends. They all prayed for our peace.

Upon returning home, we both went to her room. I do not know why we did, but it was an urge or desire that was deep inside myself that fueled the need to go to that room. Looking into the room, the back scratcher that had been hidden was now balancing on the nail it normally hung from.

I screamed.

When I could catch my breath I ran to Lucretia's who lived next door. In gulps of air, I explained what had happened. She came running over to check on our mother.

My mother was sitting on the bed staring wide-eyed at the back scratcher which was still defying gravity on the nail. Lucretia went to the back scratcher and it fell into her hands. She held the scratcher while she comforted my mother who now was sobbing.

As for me, I was just outside the room looking in. When I had tried to follow my sister into the room I had noticed a change in temperature. I was testing the temperature change while my sister and mother were on the bed. There was a definite drop in temperature in my mother’s room from the room I was standing in. Next, I was in my Lucretia’s arms and she was screaming at me, “who are you? Who are you?”

Later told by both my mother and sister, I had walked up to them staring at my mother. I placed a hand on her shoulder and had told her, “Stay here, Charlotte Ann, stay here.” My voice was that of my grandmother’s. The gestures and way I spoke was that of my grandmother. My eyes and facial features were those of my grandmother’s. My grandmother had died five years before I had been born. I never knew her.

After I had delivered my brief statement, I had collapsed and was caught by my sister.

Shortly after the events, my mother found the ability to finance our family home. I’ve asked my mother when I reflect back to these days, how she suddenly found the money to pay the back mortgage and she cannot remember.

I no longer live in the house I grew up in, but I often visit my mother. The back scratcher has been replaced on the wall lovingly by my mother. Much of my tale can be explained by those who so desire. However, my tale would not be complete without three more oddities…

While my mother was in the bathroom she heard a heart-wrenching scream by her great-grandson. She rushed out to see him crying and holding his arm in her bedroom. On the floor in front of him were scattered bobby pins. In his words, he tearfully told her about a “mean woman” who hit him when he was playing. Apparently, he had attempted to place a bobby pin into an electrical socket and this “mean woman” had hit his arm to prevent it. Only my mother and my great nephew were in the house at the time this occurred. Several weeks later while perusing family albums, he had painfully pointed to a picture of my grandmother and exclaimed, “That’s the mean woman!!”

In early December 2003, Lucretia awoke to the sound of our grandmother screaming her name. Immediately, she felt the desire to check on my mother. She hastily dressed and ran to the house to find my mother fallen on the floor, her Lifeline beeper out of hand’s reach. Lucretia was able to summon an ambulance and get treatment for my mother. After release the next day, my mother returned to her home. Could it be that my grandmother called for help for her only child? Or, could it be the maternal bond that my mother and her eldest child (Lucretia) share that alerted her to the accident?

The last of my tale is one of great sadness. About five years ago a fire broke out in my mother’s home caused by old wiring. A portion of the living room and a portion of the laundry room was badly burned. Peculiarly, my mother’s room lies between the laundry room and the living room and not an item was burned or was there any smoke damage inside this room . . . including the back scratcher.

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