Authors: Thomas Cater
I was cynical enough to question the value of a bargain
and wise enough to know I could not tell the difference. I could imagine a week
from now suffering the throes and pangs of “buyer’s remorse.”
“It’s haunted,” he said, without the slightest attempt
to conceal his smiling face.
After years of standing knee-deep in killing fields
and gagging on the odor of decomposing flesh, I never encountered a ghost. Never
in ten years of photographing temples, battlefields, death camps or graveyards --
where bones
and skulls
were stacked like kindling -- had I experienced a wisp
of a spirit. I have met however, people who were not themselves; people who
seemed to be playing host to some parasitic, mind-altering consciousness. I
could never believe it was a spirit or ghost, but maybe they could.
“Haunted?” I repeated, surprised. I thought I had a
leg up when it came to discussing the shadows of life and death. “Are you
serious? You mean there are still people who believe in ghosts?”
If only for an opportunity to test my convictions and
prove the contrary, I was secretly delighted by that remote possibility. Everyone
knows doubters are more desperately seeking things to believe in than the most
devout
believers are
.
“That only makes it a better buy,” I continued. “You
know what the little old platitude makers say: ‘for every dirty little house
there’s a dirty little housekeeper; and for every house underwater, there are
ten divers; and for every haunted house…’”
“For every haunted house there is what? Mr. Case.”
“For every haunted house, there is a…skeptic like me.”
No, I did not forget how to deal with superstitions. I
had felt useful roaming through those death camps and graveyards, as if I were
performing some essential service, not for the living, but for those who had
suffered such meaningless deaths.
The dead, I firmly believed, had abandoned their
egocentric husks and evolved to a more enlightened form. They no longer cared
about a transient existence in a disease-ridden carcass, and they certainly
were not out to torment the living with tawdry tricks.
I was smiling and could not conceal it. Virgil, however,
was not smiling. In fact there was something resolutely grim hardening the line
of his jaw and the pupils of his eyes.
“I think you’re underestimating this ghost, Mr. Case.
Whoever or whatever it is, it is dangerous.”
I found that difficult to believe. The dead appeared
content with their lot. Morticians never received complaints. Dangerous was a
condition manifested by many kinds of people, but not dead ones.
“Let me tell you why a ghost is out of the
question,” I said. “Have you ever heard of the mathematical theory of
ignorance, or the law of extrema, or the law of entropy, which tend toward
minimalizing energy; it also explains the death of organisms and even stars.
“Many people would like to believe that ghosts leave
their non-physical realm to appear in our physical realm. If ghosts interact
with our material environment by becoming visible or causing objects to move,
they must be at least partially composed of matter. It is a fact that only
matter produces the radiation, gravity and mechanical forces that affect other
matter. Therefore, by disappearing from the spiritual domain and re-appearing
in ours, they violate the conservation of matter and energy in both worlds.
“This, however, cannot occur in our world. The dead
cannot come back to life for the same reason we cannot make an engine that uses
water for fuel. Water is literally the residue or waste matter of hydrogen and
oxygen.”
Virgil did not appear impressed with my
interpretation based ever so loosely on my limited knowledge of quantum
mechanics. He gave my words a thought and replied, “You can run a car on steam,
that’s the same as water.”
I stood abruptly and did not try to conceal my
impatience. “
I don’t care about dead
people or steam engines,” I said. “All I want to do is see the property
.”
“
I’ll show you,”
he replied, “but I won’t go beyond the gate. I’ll show it from the road.”
I could not resist a smirk, but something warned me
not to take his concern too lightly. I kept waiting for him to admit it was all
an old Appalachian joke local realtors indulged in to amuse clients, but his
expression never wavered.
“I’ve heard stories about haunted houses, but never
seen one people were afraid to enter,” I said.
“No one has been inside the Ryder house in years,” he replied,
“not since Elinore died, and no one is really quite sure when that
occurred
.”
“Elinore,” I repeated. I had heard the name mentioned,
but I could not remember the circumstances.
“Yes, Elinore: the previous owner. Her father built
the house; the family goes back a long time in this county.”
“What do you mean; no one knows when she died?” I
asked, wishing I had not.
“She’s been buried a long time, for nearly fifteen years,”
Virgil said. “Some say she died before that, but kept on going … and no one
knows how.”
“You mean on a life-support system?”
“Not exactly,” Virgil said. “Some people think it was
magic, or potions, but no one has been able to explain.”
“Explain what?” I asked impatiently.
“Well, her eyes for one. They were sewn shut when she
was a young woman. No one knows why, since she was nearly blind. She also had
very strange companions. Know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t. There must have been dozens of people
who knew her, talked to her, knew why her eyes were…sewn shut? You’re a realtor;
you must have talked to her at one time or another.”
He shrugged. His lower jaw, I observed, protruded a
little too much for nature’s intended purpose, which made me feel uneasy.
“Something happened when she was young,” he said, “and
she was never the same again. It occurred before my time, but when the
old-timers around here get to talking about the Ryders, someone always says, ‘it
wasn’t Ellie living in that house for 70 years; it was something else’.”
I enjoyed the company of those who create myths from
exaggerations, but I
could not sit still and listen to meaningless
innuendo.
“Let’s save the local legends and gossip for later.
Tell me about the man who built the house.”
Virgil sat on the desk and crossed his arms. I eased
into the swivel chair and turned to face him.
“Samuel Ryder once owned half the land and most of the
coal, oil and gas in this county,” he said. “The Democrats wanted to run him
against McKinley for president in 1897, but William Jennings Bryan talked them
out of it. They said Samuel could have the vice president’s job, but when the
smoke cleared in the back room, Arthur Sewell was Bryan’s running mate. Ryder
was pretty bitter about the whole thing, so I’m told, but it didn’t stop him
from gaining control of the mining and railroad interests in this state.”
Raised in the nation’s capital by lifelong
bureaucrats, I had acquired a bad taste at a very early age for politics and
those whom it attracted. I learned the sole function of government was the
consolidation of power, the preservation of obscene wealth, and the
perpetuation of humane myths.
I chose instead the occupation of gadfly, much to the
dismay of my guardians. They blame it on a story that I was a throwaway baby
found in a Dempsey Dumpster and there is no telling what other influences are at
work in my genes.
“Do you know why and when he built the house?”
Virgil stared as if my questions were bordering on
impertinence. He seemed to be struggling with more than a concern for the
commission his efforts on my behalf would earn him.
“He built the mansion on an old Indian mound, like the
one in Charleston, or Adams County Ohio, which is the most famous; it is called
the Serpent Mound. This one however is bigger, and it may have been something
special, like a community center, or a communal grave. Mounds are
pre-Columbian, so they were old when Columbus got here. Samuel did not know he
was building on a mound, until the builders started unearthing graveyard artifacts.
The house also straddles the seam of coal the old
Elanville mine worked,” he said.
“A small winding stream circles the house like a
snake. I don’t know how it got its name, but for as long as I can remember,
it’s been called Scary Creek.”
“Scary Creek?” I repeated with a grin. I am often
amused when our distant forbearers begin memorializing illicit events.
“The name may have something to do with the Civil War
and the discovery of several ancient bodies found in the creek.”
“
Bodies?” Yes, I
decided, that would have been illicit.
Virgil brightened up and his eyes got misty, inspired
no doubt by the look of confusion on my face.
“That area was the site of a fierce Civil War battle. Many
soldiers died and ended up in mass graves. Occasionally, when we have a heavy
rain, bones and fragments wind up in the creek. People occasionally find
complete skeletons. There have also been reports of entire skeletons floating
in the creek.”
“Any bit of meaningful information ever result from an
examination of those bodies?” I asked, a note of whimsy entering my voice.
He hesitated and wiped his nose before proceeding.
“From local reports and histories, the kind people revise in the telling, some
of the bodies had no eyes.”
“No eyes?” I sensed a pattern evolving.
“In fact, if memory serves, even though they weren’t
into delving too deeply into autopsies in those days, some of the bodies had no
brains.”
“No eyes or brains?”
Virgil nodded and covered his chin and the corners of
his mouth. I took a deep breath and let my gaze fall on prints of old steam locomotives,
rustic scenes and wildlife hanging on the walls. My gaze wandered around the
room deliberating with the real: office furniture and equipment, photos of
white-hooded men wearing sheets and gathering around a flaming cross, and
someone’s
bucolic
children.
“Is the Klan still holding court around here?” I
asked.
“Worse than that,” Virgil replied. “They’ve all
converted and become Bible toting Republicans. This is the last Democratic stronghold
in a Republican state.”
I decided to chew on that gristle later. The kids in
the old daguerreotypes were thin, gnarly toothed and chinless. They looked as
if they harbored many
incestors
. Genes could fool you, take a turn for
the worse and pick up a latent message knocking around in the DNA for the past
200,000 years. It could make one’s babies look like missing links.
I remember a friend of Myra giving birth prematurely
to a dead fetus that looked like a scalded chicken. It was frightening. I was
still mulling however over the dates and period.
“Tell me more about the house,” I said, trying to
ignore the photos of the waifs.
Virgil rubbed his mouth with one hand to conceal a
grin, or so I thought, before continuing.
“A branch line from the railroad once ran to the mine
and the side of the house. Ryder had a private car to take him where he wanted
to go. The mine shut down in the early 30s or 40s and the C&O tore up what
remained of the tracks.
“There is no information about
Elinore, when she was born, or came from. She was here
in the early 1900s,” Virgil continued. “She was blind, or visually impaired, so
I’ve been told, but learned to read and write with the help of a ‘magic glass’
and a colored girl. What little sight she had did not improve with time. Of
course, that may have been a blessing, since Samuel resembled a distant
relative of our original ancestors. He was nearly seven feet tall with long
hair and a beard that looked like rusted barbwire. Some say it was his
appearance that kept him from being chosen Bryan’s running mate.”
“What about th
at
magic glass?” I asked.
“Just a piece of solid glass in the shape of a prism
from what I hear. There was nothing special about it.”
“What about her mother?”
“No one knows,” he continued, “but there were always lots
of women out there: nurses, tutors, companions and lots of guests: the cream of
polite society, including politician, painters, musicians, performers, artists,
carnival freaks, jugglers, clowns, wild animal trainers and wild animals:
lions, tigers, elephants and camels.”
I dared not venture a guess as to what that rustic sideshow
resembled.
“Samuel however kept to himself, except when he was
entertaining, which he often did.”
I wondered if any of those wild animals and freaks, or
their descendants, were still loose and roaming the woods.
“When I met Elinore, which was a long time ago, she
was supposed to be old, but she didn’t look it. From what I could see, she wore
dark glasses, scarves and gloves, even in warm weather. She had been in and out
of the state hospital as a patient and did not have much to say. She wanted me
to find workers to tear down the old board and batten rental houses on her
property. They were falling apart. There used to be abo
u
t thirty-to-forty
cabins, but now there are less than a dozen. You say you’ve never seen the
place?”