Aurora Magazine 2017

fight with John. By the time Mom got home that night, Jeannie was not there and Richard was standing outside in the snow, refusing to go back inside. Whatever it was that he experienced made him give up his whiskey and he has never drank any alcohol since.” I sat there with my hand over my mouth. Grandpa had seen something in the house! I wondered if Grandpa had seen the man in Black? I sat and listened eagerly for more gossip. “Well, Helen I had an experience in the bathtub that one time after Gary and I got married and I were staying here. I swear something grabbed the soap right out of my hands while I was in there!” Aunt Pat replied. “I don’t even like thinking about it!” “I think you just dropped it on your own!” Mom laughed. “And remember when you saw that boy looking at you in the basement window and Gary, Richard and Larry and Uncle Bud ran out in the snow and no one was there? No footprints or anything?” “Yes, everyone said I was making it up but I know that there was a boy looking at me!” Helen laughed. “I don’t know how he got away without leaving prints but I know I saw him dark hair, dark eyes and he had on a t-shirt which was very strange since it was so cold out.” I quietly got up from the steps. My thoughts were racing and I could not believe that my Grandpa Richard had an experience in this very house. It sounded like Aunt Pat had too. I wanted to ask my Uncles if they had ever saw anything either. Instead I quietly walked out the basement door and into the yard to ride bikes with Grace and the neighbor kids. Later that night Grace and I had fallen asleep laughing about our day. We had decided to make a girl only club. The only issue we were having is that we were the only girls who lived on our street. The neighbor boys kept trying to join our club. We fell asleep trying to scheme ways to make our girls only club work. Awhile later we woke up to hear my mother scream loudly. Grace and I both sat up in bed. Grace flipped on the bedroom light since her bed was closest to it. I jumped on Graces bed and we both peered around the corner out into the dining room. We looked toward the back of the house where our parents’ bedroom was. There was Mommy standing with a

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