Story-A-Day #330: Lanternalia

LANTERNALIA

Why do they carve jack-o-lanterns for Halloween?  Would you believe me if I told you that it was simple matter of warding off the evil spirits?  Look around this neighbourhood, son.  See the porches and decks of the people who live near us?  Pumpkins at every turn.  Am I right?

It's okay that you don't fully understand why, just know that those legumes, those gourds, are there for us.  They will become a deterrent to us, an omen of ill portent.  I know, right now they look no more intimidating than Mrs. Howarth down the street, but come our night, they will be different.  For now they are a dumpy insult on all that we are, and all that we represent, just like that tacky home maker Howarth and her horrendous wreaths.

Here's the thing son, the thing I have been trying to communicate to you for a while now.  You know that we are different.  You know that we are not like them, but we must do what we can to fit in.  We must do whatever we can to ingratiate ourselves unto them.

It is easy for us to be ignored, but we can be ignored no longer.  We are in the witching season no, which means that over the next few weeks, they will be hollowing out those gourds and carving hideous faces into them.  They will be creating their lanternalia once more and when they do, they will seek to cast us out.

I understand how difficult this is for you.  I've been trapped in this prison for far longer than you and I have learned that there are times when we must stalk the shadows, and times when we must make our presence felt.  This is one of those times.

Should we delay too long the lanterns will cast us back into the gloaming.  Are you with me?

Story-A-Day #97: The Old Mill

THE OLD MILL

When I was young, my parents bought an overgrown acre of land on a lake. Over the next several years, they cleared chunks of land: a lane from the main road and a path to the beach. The biggest clearing effort was easily the great big chunk that soon became a hole, then a cinder block foundation, and over time, our two-story cottage. It was an interesting and protracted transition, and while I remember the summers spent in our tent trailer with great fondness, it’s nice going to bed with a solid roof above, and a warm comfortable bed below.

Spending most of my summers there provided great opportunities for growth and adventure. When we were really young, we were content to frolic in the lake, pulling out giant pieces of driftwood and chasing down tadpoles and crayfish. That eventually led to the building of forts, and eventually, my ambitious multi-tiered tree fort in the plot of vacant land between ours and the neighbours.

I stumbled across the old foundation when I was scouting for locations for that tree fort and wound up picking a triangulation of tottering tamaracks nearby as the basis for the fort.

As I entered my teens, I still spent hours building up the fort, adding new platforms and railings, an observatory platform almost 30-feet above the main structure, a half-assed roof over the main “floor”, even a series of narrow 2x6 walkways that angled off through the treetops.

I had good motive too. There were a couple girls who would come up and stay at a campground across the bay and my tree fort became an annual showcase that I used to impress them. One summer we set out to spend the night on the large main platform. It was a cool night in August and a friend from town and I hurled our sleeping bags up onto the platform and helped the girls climb the ladder.

We sat up there in the dark, shining our flashlights out through the trees and telling ghost stories. The trees fluttered eerily and the haunting song of the loons echoed up and down the lake. It was probably not even midnight before we had fully creeped ourselves out. At one point, we even managed to convince ourselves that there was a ghostly figure wandering through the forest below. We spent a sleepless night huddled together in the safety of the fort and silently vowed never to repeat the process.

We did again the next summer and over my remaining years of high school, and even into college, I would often return to that platform and spend the night searching the forest for the figure of that ghostly woman.

I eventually looked into the history of the area and discovered that there had been an Old Mill in that nook of the lake. It had thrived until the early 1900s when a massive fire burnt it to the ground and killing the millwright’s wife. There had been speculation that there might be more to the story, but her death was officially declared an accident.

Over the years, I have often felt a presence in the woods though. I chalked it up to the innate creepiness of the forest, but there were times when it felt like I was being watched. I was never positive, but when I took this photo, I realized that there was something out there.

The rectangular flash seemed like an anomaly, but when I inspected the site closely, there was nothing there that would create such a reflection. It was just dirt and rocks and wood. If you look long enough into that rectangle, you start to see a face. It almost looks like a woman peering anxiously out a window…