| The Rocking Horse |
Of course, not everyone who asks about the horse is told the real story it holds. Not everyone would understand. Most of the time I just tell them it is a family heirloom, and let it go at that.
What has it been, four years now since we moved in here? I still remember the day we first laid eyes on this property. Sure, it needed a lot of work. It had been sitting empty for a long time. But I knew it was just what we had dreamed of, a big Victorian on a hill in the historic section of town. The gazebo porch, that tower room, it was definitely calling our name, or mine, anyway.
Looking back, I think the realtor was kind of hesitant in showing this property to us. The paint, what was left of it, was peeling. There were windows to be replaced, the roof needed fixed. But I knew that it was our next home. The price was right, too. And not being sure how my new job in a new state was going to work out, that was a factor in the sell as well.
I wasn’t sure what Mary would say about the house at first, but somehow I knew I had to convince her that this would be our new home. But, happily, she was thinking the same thing about me! The boys weren’t all that thrilled with the idea of all the work that needed done, but then they really didn’t want to move in the first place. In the end, I think the house has won them over as well.
Of course, we did buy the house. We lived in a hotel for nine months as we worked every evening and weekend resurrecting the very soul of this old house. Walls were torn out and replaced. All the wiring and most of the plumbing was replaced. We were almost finished with the project when I first heard the voice.
I remember that evening like it was yesterday. Mary and I were here working, as usual. The boys were back at the hotel doing homework. I was hungry, so Mary headed down the street to a little deli to grab us a sandwich or two. I was working in the narrow stairwell, the one that leads up to the attic. Suddenly I heard a voice, “Mommy?”
It was a child’s voice. I just would have passed it off as one of our boys, even though they weren’t there at the time, but this voice was younger than our boys of 10 and 12 years old. And it had a distinct female ring to it. It was but one single word, but I could tell. Somehow I knew it was a little girl’s voice, asking for her mother. I got up and walked down the stairs, calling, “Hello?”
Yes, I knew that the voice had come from up over my head, but logic told me it must have come from someone below. A little neighbor girl must have wondered into the house. But a search of the house turned up no one. The house was empty. I could have been hearing things. I had been putting in a lot of hours. I didn’t see a reason to say anything to Mary when she returned with our food.
I heard the voice two or three more times after that. It was always just the one word, “Mommy?” Each time I was alone in the house, and the voice came from somewhere overhead. I couldn’t mention it to anyone.
After nine months of backbreaking work came the day when we moved into our new home. It was perfect! Still, I knew there was a presence in the house that I couldn’t explain. After we were settled in, I didn’t hear anything out of ‘the voice’ for about four months, but things were about to get more interesting.
I awoke about 3am one morning. Laying in bed, I realized there was a noise that had awaken me, creak, creak… What was that? As I slowly gained my bearings, and found that Mary was still asleep beside me, I quietly got out of bed and walked through the dark house. The boys were still asleep in their beds. The noise continued, creak, creak… Where was that coming from?
As I walked alone through the big rooms, shadows from the moonlight outside danced along the walls. An owl somewhere hooted. The hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up. Somehow, I knew where I was going as I followed the sound. At the base of the narrow stairwell to the attic I stood, listening to the continuing creaking from somewhere over my head. A cool breeze hit my sweating face and the sound came to a stop. As I hurried back to our bedroom, my heart was racing.
I was awaken to repeat that middle of the night escapade several more times in the following weeks. I was starting to loose sleep. What was going on? Was I loosing my sanity? Should I tell someone about it? Finally, on my way home from work one evening not long after this I had made up my mind, I had to tell Mary. But tell her what? That our house was haunted? That I was hearing things in the middle of the night?
My mind was spinning as my eyes met Mary’s when I walked into the kitchen that night. I could tell she already knew. “I need to tell you about something,” she told me with a flushed look on her face. “Something has been happening to me in this house.”
Yes, she had heard ‘the voice’, calling for her mommy. It had been particularly hard on her, being a mother herself. “I just feel like I should try to help her somehow,” she choked out, “but help who? Or what?”
Mary had not heard the creaking noise, but had experienced other happenings in the house. Objects that she had been using, a knife, or a towel, whatever, would be put mysteriously in an out of the way place when she would leave them, even for just a few minutes. She would have to get out the stepstool to get a towel down from where it would be draped over the ceiling fan, things of this nature. “Well,” I said, “if this is a ghost, she is a real practical joker!”
A few nights later I heard the creaking in the middle of the night again. This time I woke Mary and together we made our way through the dark house to that stairwell. “Have you ever been up there?” asked Mary, as we stood together watching the dark wood door at the top of the stairs.
“Up in the attic?” I answered, pointing up into the dark passage above us. “It’s just full of old junk.”
“Let’s look now,” was Mary’s reply, and before I knew what we were doing, we were slowly opening that narrow wood door. The creaking noise stopped immediately, and that cold rush of air hit our faces. As we slowly made our way up, into that full, dark room, the flashlight beam revealed dusty old crates and trunks. All sorts of cobweb-covered antiques lined the room. As our eyes followed the flashlight beam around the room, they fell on an antique child’s rocking horse. Was it moving ever so slightly? Mary and I exchanged glances and made our way over to it.
It was beautiful! It was carved from wood, and was about two feet tall and three feet long. It had what looked to be real horsehair for the mane and tail. The paint was still bright and shiny, even through the dust. “Look,” whispered Mary, “there isn’t any dust on the seat and handles.”
Slowly I reached out and rocked the horse. Creak, creak… it went with that now familiar sound. Further investigation revealed the name “Anna” painted on the side of the ‘saddle’, which was just a part of the horse’s wooden body. “So, her name is Anna,” I whispered. We left the horse where it was and made our way back down, to our bedroom.
We didn’t tell the boys about Anna for a while after this. But, as time went by, the ghostly jokes became more frequent, and eventually the boys started asking questions. When we finally sat them down and told them what we knew, they seemed skeptical at first, or maybe a bit spooked by it all. But slowly, we all grew used to the idea of living with a little ghost. We would even find ourselves talking, or usually scolding her, when something we ‘had just had’ came up missing.
The ‘jokes’ seemed to be getting more and more frequent as we grew used to the presence of this other spirit in our house as well. I was feeling like I should do something, show some leadship. Finally, I called a family meeting to talk about it. “What are we supposed to do?” I asked, “Call a priest or something?”
I think it was our youngest who suggested we make her feel welcome. We had moved into her house, after all. I have to admit, I felt silly sitting there, looking up towards the ceiling, as Mary started speaking. “Anna, we know you are here. We know this is where you live. But we live here, too. I know you want your mother, but we don’t know where she is. We are your family now. We need to live here together. We need to get along.”
We even went up into the attic and pulled her rocking horse out, cleaned it all up, and put it in the living room, where it is today. Things seemed to have calmed down after this. Yes, we still occasionally find objects moved around, but never out of reach. We can still hear the horse rocking in the middle of the night sometimes as well.
Eventually curiosity started working on us, and Mary and I started searching through some of the old trunks in the attic, trying to find clues to the house’s past. One trunk seemed to contain a lot of personal papers and things, which gave us names. It seems that a Dr. and Mrs. Clarence Strongburg had originally had the house built in 1869. We found old crumbling letters, and school papers, but no references to a daughter named Anna.
Finally, at the bottom of the trunk, we uncovered a box. It was a simple white box, tied with a crushed pink satin ribbon. Untying the ribbon and opening the box revealed a baby’s white christening gown, a bonnet, and two silk booties. Under these was an old cabinet card photograph, laying face down. Hand written on the back were the words, “Dr. & Mrs. Strongburg and Anna, age 3”. As trembling hands turned the photo over, our eyes fell on the image. There was the good doctor, with his bushy mustache, his wife beside him, and Anna, sitting on her rocking horse.
“Oh my, Mary, look,” I said, “that could be….”
“I know….” Mary interrupted me through teary eyes. We were staring into Mary’s face, from 120 years ago. Anna’s mother certainly wasn’t Mary, she was a bit heavier, her hair was different, and she was in a very Victorian gown. But her face, it was so similar to Mary’s.
“She thought I was her mother.”
The End
