The Unexpected Visitor

[Sherry]

I scanned the rows of boxes strewn and stacked in what was now my new living room,
I looked around thinking how often I had admired it on our visits there. A friend of ours had built this house you see, from foundation to chimney top. Not only was he a skilled craftsman, but since he was building it for himself, he had spared no expense in the materials, and used only the best. It was meant to last him a lifetime and he and his wife put a lot of thought into the features they wanted.

Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that it was a mansion, far from it, but for a working class family with a couple of children to raise it was perfect! Ample yard, three generously roomy bedrooms, a double sized living room; laundry room with, (god bless us), cabinets, counter, and a bar for hanging clothes; a fabulous kitchen/dining room complete with a skylight, and for the man in my life: a double garage located at the back of the property with it’s own drive in access from the alley! So when a sudden and unexpected job promotion necessitated that our friends move halfway across the country, we never hesitated a moment. We offered to buy their house, and then put ours up for sale immediately. It worked out great for all of us, at least that’s how it seemed.

I picked up a box marked “linens” and headed to the bedroom to see how my husband was coming along with assembling the bed. It was the last of the three bedroom’s basic lodging for the night, and he and I exchanged glances that needed no spoken words to understand, it had been a long and happy day!

So we settled in and everything seemed to find exactly the right place in our home and we were very happy…for a time.

It was several months later that my first indication came that there might be trouble in paradise. I came home from the store one day and as I was putting a bag of groceries on the island in the kitchen, I caught a glint of blue from the corner of my eye. I turned and saw that there was a flame dancing from the burner of the gas stove! On closer examination, I discovered the burner to be more than a quarter of the way turned on. I turned off the burner and just sort of stood there, puzzled for a moment, at a loss for how this could of happened? It was too early for my husband or the kids to be home, and stove burners don’t turn their selves on! A terrible thought suddenly popped in my mind, could it be that I was not alone? Was there someone in my house? Someone that I had, perhaps, interrupted! I turned slowly and surveyed the room around me, barely breathing, listening for all I was worth to hear: an errant breath, a creak of movement, the slide of a stealth filled foot fall. I shivered as a chill passed over me and I made my way slowly across the few steps to the back door. It was locked, just as I had left it, and my hand shook slightly as I turned the latch, and made my way out.

So there I was, standing in the back yard, looking at my kitchen door and wondering what to do next. If a burglar did pop out, what then? Would I be able to make it the distance across the yard and to the garage before he caught me? ‘And wait a minute”, I told myself, ‘there might not even be a burglar’, and ‘if there was a burglar… he was at this moment going through the contents of my purse which I had thoughtfully left for him on the kitchen island!’ “Well that will be a disappointment’ I thought, and suddenly began to giggle. Now that I was outside, the feeling of fear I had experienced only a moment or two ago, was completely gone. Being the practical creature I am, I circled a path around the house and looked for any sign that a window might have been jimmied or broken, finding no evidence of anything amiss, I went to my van and grabbed another bag of groceries and went back in the front door, hoping my erratic behavior hadn’t been noticed by any of the neighbors, and feeling more than a little silly at my panic. I made a mental note to mention the incident with the stove to my husband and have him check it out, and promptly set the whole thing aside as the kids came home and the evening routine began.

A little time passed, before a repeat of the incident brought that first afternoon abruptly back to mind. My daughter and I had just come home from an afternoon event at her school and she made her customary journey to the kitchen for an afternoon snack, I heard the door open and close and then I heard her ask: “Mom, why is the stove on?”

I walked in the kitchen and sure enough, the burner was once more turned on! A feeling of foreboding came over me. Not only was this not funny, it was downright dangerous! A little bit less of a turn on that knob and the pilot light wouldn’t ignite; I could come home to a house full of gas! Being a smoker, the thought of blowing myself up because of a faulty stove was not a pleasant one. But how in the world could the confound thing turn itself on! It just didn’t make any sense.

Children, in their own special way, make sure that any thing interesting in the day, especially if it involves one of their big people, gets communicated. As we were eating dinner, my daughter let my husband know that I left the stove on. And despite my protestations, that was exactly what my husband was sure had happened! And to think I had been planning on talking to him about it later so as not to scare the children! (By the time the conversation ended I almost believed it myself.) Maybe I brushed against it or one of the kids did, or so on and so forth, because after all… stoves can’t light their selves! But this one had!

I began to feel nervous about my house. I worked at home, you see, and in the quiet of the day I began to hear the occasional bump and creak. The unexplained rattle of something moving, when no one else is there.

One day when I was out in the garden with my flowers, Mrs. H was passing by and decided to come over and chat.

“Hi, I just love those roses you put in, where in the world did you get them?”

We chatted for a few minutes about gardening and other things and then she told me how she never would have believed how quickly the yard had recovered from the destruction of the fire when the last house had burned down there. I told how her I was sure that was due to my friend putting in so much elbow grease on restoring the yard after they had built their house. I new about the former house burning down of course, that was why they had gotten such a good deal on the land, they had to clear out the remains of the old house that had stood there. Then she went on to tell me about the older gentleman that had lived there. What a nice man he was, and how he had lived there all alone, how he was kind of a grandfather to the kids in the neighborhood and didn’t seem to have a family of his own. I asked her if she knew where he had gone to after the fire and she got a strange look on her face, “To heaven… I guess. He died in the fire.”

“Oh, oh my goodness” I said. “I didn’t know”. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach and asked, “How did the fire start…do you know?”

“Let’s see.” she said, “ pondering for a moment, “I believe it was a gas line.., or was it the stove?”

My breath drew into me at the words.

“Are you alright dear?” she asked.

“Oh”, I said,” I caught a thorn”. Trying to cover my shock at what she had revealed. “I guess I better go get it out”.

We said our good bys, and I retreated into the house, my mind spinning. ‘He died in the fire!, He died in the fire! ‘, This, I hadn’t known! Suddenly it all made sense, the stove and the creaking, and I was sure I was sharing my house with the dead spirit of the former owner! I was sure he was the reason for the mystery of the stove. By the time my husband came home, I was convinced. Scared and fearful for my family I laid it all out for him and was surprised that he was seemingly not impressed! I asked him if he had known about the old man that lived there before and he said he didn’t but he doubted that it had anything to do with what was going on with the stove anyway. He thought it was much more likely that one of us was brushing against it, than that a ghost was spinning the dial! Really, let’s be practical! He refused to consider it, and in my heart I thought I knew why, neither of us wanted to think that our Dream Home was really a Haunted House… but there it was.

When you have invested everything you have into a piece of property you cannot simply walk away, that’s not how real life works. So the days passed and occasionally I would find the stove on and turn it off, and try to put it out of my mind, but worse than my fear of what might be happening was the way the unspoken worry lay between us. Little did we know that things would soon come to a head, and action would have to be taken!

It was a Sunday, on one of the first cool days of autumn. I was preparing a chicken for baking and set the oven to warm up, shortly there was a foul smell in the air, I began to cough and choke, and realized-it was the smell of burning hair and flesh! I opened the oven door and confirmed there was nothing inside but nonetheless, I could smell it! I called my husband and he stepped into the kitchen. I didn’t have to say a word as his hand went immediately to cover his nose,

“Geez…what is that?” he asked, cringing at the stench. I went into the backyard and just lost it!

“That’s it!” I said when he followed me out, “I’m done!” I want that stove out of here!”

He looked at me incredously and asked, “What?”

“I want the stove out of there, didn’t you smell that? It smelled like someone was on fire, I’m tired of worrying about this, whether I am going to come home and find the house burned down. Or maybe wake up in the middle of the night to a wall of flames! And now that smell! I am not going back in there until the stove is out and the gas is disconnected!”

By this time, the kids had joined us in the yard. I stood my ground!

“But then what?” My husband asked, “It’s just not that easy…” he began.

“I don’t care!” I said, “We will put in an electric stove or something, but I am not going back in there until that stove, and the gas is gone!”

He put his head down for a moment and his shoulders shrugged a little, then he raised his eyes to mine and shook his head, ”Ok, I’ll take it out.”

I felt a rush of relief!

He went to the neighbor and asked him to give him a hand. The two men went in, wrenches in hand. The kids and I waited outside, I could hear them through the open door as they moved the stove, and then, suddenly… they burst into laughter! My husband’s grinning face appeared at the door and he gestured for me to come inside.

“Come on” he said. “Come and meet your ghost!”

I went in and he shined a flashlight in the space where the stove had been pulled out, and there it was, “my ghost”,


a mouse!

Postscript
I was recently inspired by a friend of mine to try my hand at spinning a tale. This was the result!