Lady in Black
Robby McPherson was only three and a half years old when the mysterious Lady in Black first appeared to him in his nightmares. He was so young that he could not tell his concerned parents what it was that frightened him. In fact, it was not until the boy was well past his fourth birthday that he would attempt to describe the horrible, terrifying image that haunted his dreams.
"It's a lady covered in black," he cried, trembling with fear. "She breathes smoke and fire at me, and it burns."
After these alarming episodes, Anne Marie McPherson would hug her son and rock him gently in her arms.
"Hush, my little one," she would croon soothingly. "It was only a dream. There's nothing for you to fear. Mommy and Daddy will never let anyone or anything hurt you."
Despite his mother's tender ministrations, little Robby had great difficulty falling back to sleep, for the terrifying Lady in Black waited in Morpheus's realm to entrap him when he slipped into a deep slumber. Night after night the child would lie in bed, hugging his stuffed bear and praying that the Lady in Black would leave him be.
Then in the autumn of 1954, Robby entered kindergarten. An exciting new world of going to school and making new friends opened up for him, and his bad dreams became less frequent. They did not cease altogether, however. Once or twice a month the child still woke up crying that the Lady in Black wanted to kill him.
* * *
When Robby was nearing the end of the third grade, his father's company opened a branch office in Chicago, and the owners urged Fergus McPherson to relocate to the Windy City. While Anne Marie was glad for her husband's promotion and substantial increase in salary, she was not exactly overjoyed at the prospect of moving out of New England, especially to a place like Chicago. She was a small-town girl who disliked cities and mistrusted the people who lived in them.
"Honey, you've seen too many James Cagney movies," her husband laughed. "Chicago isn't overrun with gangsters. Besides, Prohibition is over and Al Capone is dead, or haven't you heard?"
"Very funny!" his wife replied. "I don't expect to see innocent bystanders mowed down with Tommy guns on the city streets, but I doubt it's an appropriate place to raise a child. What he needs is a safe place in which to play, fresh air and friendly neighbors."
"We can only do what most other parents have done in the past: give our son a decent upbringing and hope for the best."
"There may be something more we can do," Anne Marie said hesitantly.
"What's that?"
"Put Robby in a Catholic school instead of a public one."
Fergus's jaw tightened. While he tolerated his wife's religious beliefs, he was an agnostic himself and didn't want to see a bunch of nuns filling his son's head with what he considered to be centuries-old superstitions. Yet rather than protest on these grounds, he chose a more practical route.
"The cost ...."
As usual, Anne Marie had anticipated all his objections and was armed with a reasonable argument for each.
"You'll be making a lot more money at your new job. I'm sure we could afford it if we watch our spending. I can give up my weekly trips to the beauty parlor, and I'll cut down my clothing allowance, too."
It was not his wife's promise to economize that swayed Fergus McPherson's decision; it was the beseeching look in her eyes, one that conveyed her deep-rooted love for their son.
* * *
The McPhersons relocated to their new home on July 12. A moving company had already transported all their belongings, and now it was up to Anne Marie and Fergus to unpack and organize their rooms. The couple spent most of the first day filling closets and drawers with clothing and kitchen cabinets with food and housewares.
"Tomorrow we'll unpack all your toys," Anne Marie promised her son when she tucked him into bed.
After she kissed the boy goodnight, Anne Marie turned out the lamp on his dresser and partially closed his bedroom door. Exhausted, she ran a hot bubble bath and sat in the tub to soak. Suddenly, Robby's screams rent the air. Anne Marie quickly pulled on her terrycloth robe and ran into her son's room. Robby was under his blanket, sobbing.
"What's wrong?" Fergus asked breathlessly as he dashed into the bedroom. "I could hear him screaming all the way outside."
Anne Marie scooped her son into her arms. The boy's body was bathed in sweat.
"He's had another nightmare," she replied.
"It's been a while since he's had one, hasn't it?"
"Over two months now. Maybe it's all the excitement of the move."
Anne Marie wiped the perspiration from her son's brow with the sleeve of her robe.
"Shhh, baby. Don't cry. You're safe. It was only a dream."
Robby's eyes were open wide and staring.
"She wants to kill me," he cried.
"No one wants to hurt you, darling."
"She does, the Lady in Black."
"There is no Lady in Black," Fergus declared adamantly. "There aren't any boogiemen or ghosts either. There's no one in this house except you, me and your mother."
"She breathes smoke and fire," the boy persisted despite his parents' attempts to calm him.
Fergus felt his son was too old to believe in monsters and was on the verge of losing his patience with the boy.
"There's no Lady in Black. Now lie down and try to get some sleep. Your mother and I have another busy day ahead of us tomorrow, and we both need our rest."
* * *
Throughout the summer, Robby experienced at least one nightmare a week. Anne Marie began to wonder if she should take her son to a doctor. Fergus vetoed the idea, however.
"Things will probably improve when he starts school next week," the father said hopefully.
The first day of fourth grade was a harrowing experience for mother and son alike. Robby, who had never seen a nun before, screamed when he saw one of the sisters clad in her somber habit and clung to his mother's waist, his whole body violently shaking.
"What on earth is wrong?" Anne Marie asked.
"That's her: the Lady in Black," the boy cried, pointing to a nun. "She wants to kill me."
"Oh, for heaven's sake! Sister Rafaela isn't a monster. She's a teacher. She works for the school and the church. Her black dress is only a type of uniform she must wear."
It took almost an hour for Anne Marie to calm her son enough so that he would go up to his second-floor classroom.
"I'm sure this won't happen again, sister," Anne Marie apologized.
"I hope not," the nun replied sweetly. "Next time I'll have to mark him tardy."
* * *
To his parents' dismay, the frequency of Robby McPherson's nightmares increased rather than diminished with the beginning of school. Three to four times a week he woke up screaming, terrified that the fire-breathing Lady in Black was about to kill him. But, thankfully, as September passed and October brought shorter days, brilliant foliage and chilly temperatures, Robby went from three to four nightmares a week down to two, and in early November, the rate dropped down to roughly one a week.
"I think he's finally beginning to adjust to the move," Fergus announced with a sigh of relief.
"It appears so," Anne Marie agreed. "He even seems more comfortable around Sister Rafaela, but he still won't get too close to her."
"You have to admit those stiff black habits the nuns wear are pretty frightening. It's no wonder they triggered another onslaught of nightmares."
Thanksgiving was a delightful time for the McPherson family, and they had much to be thankful for. All three of them were in excellent health, they were relatively debt-free and life in Chicago was much better than either husband or wife had anticipated.
When the long holiday weekend came to an end, everyone's thoughts turned to Christmas. Anne Marie was anxious to begin her holiday shopping and asked Robby to write his Christmas list, which the boy was only too eager to do.
On the morning of December 1, Anne Marie walked her son to school. When the bell rang and the boy went inside, she took a bus to Goldblatt Brothers Department Store with Robby's Christmas list in her pocketbook.
* * *
At two o'clock that afternoon, a fifth-grade boy in Robby's school raised his hand and asked to go to the bathroom. On his way back from the lavatory, he took a detour to the basement. Like many of his fellow students, he thought the Thanksgiving weekend had been too short and the Christmas break too far away. It occurred to him that if there were a fire, the school might have to close for a few weeks until repairs could be made. With the hope of getting an extended vacation from school, the fifth-grader reached into his pants pocket and took out a book of matches. He struck one and tossed it into a cardboard wastepaper bin near the basement staircase. When the boy saw the flames multiply and start to spread through the pile of discarded paper, he ran up the stairs and back to his classroom.
At quarter to three, as sixteen hundred students impatiently waited for the final bell of the day, the fire crept up the northeast stairwell and into the hallway. The school, built in 1910, had only one fire escape, no fire-safe doors, no automatic fire alarms and no sprinklers. To make matters worse, the interior of the building was made entirely of wood and, as such, was highly combustible. By the time anyone in the six classrooms on the second floor of the north wing learned that the building was on fire, the main hallway, the only escape route, was engulfed in smoke and toxic gases.
Sister Rafaela opened the door and, seeing that the hall was impassible, quickly shut it again. She then instructed her students to sit calmly at their desks and pray for God to rescue them.
* * *
The Chicago fire department received a call nearly a half hour after the fire had started in Our Lady of Angels School. Firefighters responded quickly. Unfortunately, when they arrived at the address given to them by the dispatcher, they discovered that they had been mistakenly sent to the rectory rather than to the school. The firemen had to spend valuable time repositioning their trucks and equipment to battle the blaze that was around the next corner.
One group of firefighters observed the terrified faces of students pressed against the windows of the three inner classrooms overlooking a small courtyard. When they attempted to rescue the children, though, they discovered that the gate to the courtyard was locked. More precious time was spent breaking down the gate.
Inside his fourth-grade classroom, Robby Ferguson cringed in the corner, watching in horror as his classmates scrambled for the window, often trampling smaller children to climb onto the high window sills. He put his hands over his ears to block out the screams of his fellow students as they fell twenty-five feet to the ground below. Sister Rafaela desperately tried to maintain order, but when the children saw the flames approaching, panic broke out. Heat and smoke sent them to the windows seeking fresh air and escape.
Through the smoke, the nun saw a small boy huddled in the corner, trembling with fright. She stood over him and reached out her hands.
"Come with me, Robby. You have to go to the ledge if you want to be rescued. The firemen will carry you outside."
Since his first day at Our Lady of Angels, Robby had been frightened of the nuns, yet Sister Rafaela spoke to him so gently that he raised his hands toward her. She pulled him up and was about to take him in her arms and carry him to the window when the hem of her long skirt caught fire. Within moments, the nun was engulfed in flames. Robby saw his worst nightmare come to life. Sister Rafaela became the Lady in Black, and she appeared to be breathing fire and smoke as her body fell forward onto the screaming boy.
The terrified child crawled out from underneath her and ran toward the classroom door and the inferno in the hallway. His only thought was to escape the hideous image that had haunted his dreams. Choking and nearly blind from the smoke, he tripped over a body and fell to the floor.
Just as Robby was about to lay his head down and surrender to the smoke and flames, Sister Rafaela rose from the floor. Her nun's black habit had been replaced with a white light that shone brightly through the thick, dark smoke. The sister smiled lovingly down at the boy, took his hand in hers and led him to the window. Then she lifted him up and placed him on the sill. He felt no sensation of falling, just the security of Sister Rafaela's arms.
When Robby's eyes finally cleared, he could see that he was on the ground outside the school. Firemen were hosing down the flames and rescuing survivors from the second-floor windows. A crowd of spectators had gathered around the school, and anxious parents were crying and screaming for their dead or missing children.
"Robby!" Anne Marie Ferguson sobbed with relief. "Oh, my darling, I was afraid you were ...."
The mother cried tears of joy, elated that her son was alive.
"Are you all right?" she asked, looking at his blackened face and clothing. "Were you burned?"
"I'm fine, Mom," he assured her. "Sister Rafaela, the Lady in White, saved me."
* * *
After the flames were finally extinguished, the bodies were counted: ninety-five lives were lost in the fire that day: ninety-two students and three nuns, including Sister Rafaela. Yet despite his traumatic experience at Our Lady of Angels, Robby McPherson was never again bothered by nightmares of the Lady in Black.
This story is based on actual events that occured at Our Lady of the Angels school. The characters are fictional, however. The image in the upper left corner is the fire at the Chicago school.
In memory of the teachers and students who died in the tragic fire at Our Lady of Angels.
I can sympathize with little Robby. I'm plagued by nightmares about a cat in black.
