Last week, I was sitting on the couch, using my laptop to surf the internet do some really important work while Newt sat at the kitchen table sharing a snack with her friend Kelly. Since I was absolutely absorbed in my, um…work, they ignored me and started having a conversation about ghosts. I quickly opened a word document and transcribed their conversation.

Kelly: My house is haunted. Every morning I feel someone tapping on my shoulder and then when I wake up no one is there.
Newt: I wouldn’t want to go in a haunted house.
Kelly: You know the spooky house? I went in there and there was door but it was really a trapdoor and when I put my foot on it my foot got covered in blood. But it was fake blood.
Newt: eeewww!
Kelly: Oh, and don’t ever go in the shed. There is a menorah on the ceiling and everyone is trying to get it. My friend Tony went in there and disappeared. He was trying to get it and he disappeared.
Newt: What’s a menorah?
Kelly: It’s a light like that one, (pointing to the chandelier overhead) but it is covered with shells.
Newt: Did you ever see him after he disappeared?
Kelly: Yes.
Newt: Where?
Kelly: In the shed. He got a piece of it: a string that was hanging on it, and it was magic and he disappeared. Everyone was trying to get it but he climbed on the ceiling and got it first. It was his shed.
Newt: He shouldn’t have done that. I never would. We say hi to it when we pass by it.
Kelly: Do you take a walk near it?
Newt: No.
Kelly: (suspiciously) Then how do you say hi?
Newt: Heather and me just say “Hi, old friend” when we pass by on the bus.
Kelly: Newt, it’s not your friend. Really. It’s not.
Newt: Oh.

I admit it; I was eavesdropping on a private conversation, one that I knew that I would never be invited to participate in. Ghost stories and haunted houses are deliciously real in the realm of childhood, but like a favorite pair of shoes, they are quickly outgrown on the journey to becoming an adult. And though I knew my fully grown foot would never again fit into that shoe, as I heard them talk, I couldn’t help but admire it.
A nearby spooky house is a ‘must have’ for every successful childhood. It is useful place for keeping all of your fears contained.
An old witch that eats unsuspecting children? Into the spooky house you go.
A terrible monster chained in the cellar? Hope you like the accommodations.
Or one from my own childhood: a disembodied and white-gloved hand? Welcome home.
The neighborhood spooky house is large enough to hold them all, even a haunted menorah.
There they sit, safely tucked away from everyday life, but easily accessible whenever needed to raise a thrilling crop of goosebumps.
I still remember the haunted house from my childhood. It was on the next street over, Candlewood Drive. I don’t know how long it had been abandoned, but the children in my neighborhood speculated that the last owner had died in the house over a hundred years ago. And had never left…
There was a story circulating that a boy who had lived in the neighborhood had tried to trick-or-treat at the house. Alone. He was never seen again. His parents had been heart-broken so they moved to California. I wonder if his name was Tony…
The house really was a foreboding place. Darkness seemed to ooze out from behind the jagged panes of glass. At one time it had probably been painted a sage green color, but the years had faded it to a peeling greenish-grey. Oily looking moss grew on the roof while the yard was choked with blackberry brambles and poison oak.
Whenever I had to pass by on my bike I crossed to the opposite side and held my breath until I was safely past. My heart hammered in my chest, but not with fear exactly. It was more like triumph. The house didn’t get me! I felt powerful.
I have heard Newt talk about her spooky house before. I wasn’t exactly sure where it was located but I knew that her school bus passed by it on the way home. Also, the house has a shed behind it. She had thought the house was haunted but the shed was nice. And she did refer to it as ‘old friend’. At least until Kelly filled her in.
Today was a cold and gloomy day, perfect for looking at a spooky house. I grabbed my camera and had Newt direct me to it. I knew it would look old and maybe even a little creepy, but I was sure the haunted house of my childhood was much scarier.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
First of all, my daughter’s spooky house is invisible to grown-ups unless they know it was there. I know because we have lived in our house for nearly three years and I have driven by that house at least a dozen times a week, and yet I had never noticed it. My eyes simply slide over it as I negotiate the curves of the road. When she pointed it out I was surprised that it had been there, in plain sight, but I had never seen it. I felt a little better when my husband pointed out that the house is only visible in winter, when the many trees around it are bare.
It is set back a bit from the road, the same greenish-grey color as my childhood house. There is no driveway, not even a footpath, only impenetrable brambles surrounding the property. A line of trees at the back, just behind the shed, screen a large cemetery. I attended a graveside service there just this last summer.
I stood on the edge of the road holding my camera, wishing I could get closer and yet relieved that I could not. Seconds after my first shot, I was started by a movement at an upper window. Suddenly a large black bird, a vulture, flew from the darkness and settled into a massive tree above me.
I was stunned. “Wow,” I thought, “that was creepy. And cool.” Feeling disappointed that I had been unable to capture the creature with my camera, I turned my attention back to the house. Within seconds, another bird appeared in the same window. It observed me from its perch on the rotting windowsill for several moments while I snapped a few more shots. It then few out and joined its dark comrade. I could hardly believe it.
When I returned to the car, I looked back at the house one last time.
And then I exhaled.