Quill #85 - Halloween Memories #7

If you've ever seen the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis, with Judy Garland, you probably remember Tootie, the youngest daughter in the family, the mischievous troublemaker. Tootie had an obsession with all things ghoulish, though not of the harmful kind. Real danger frightened her just as much as anyone, but she had spunk. Tootie and my daughter could have been best friends, albeit competitive ones.

When Kyrie was eighteen months old, she memorized a poem called The Teeny Tiny Ghost by Lilian Moore.

TEENY TINY GHOST

A teeny, tiny ghost
no bigger than a mouse
at most,
lived in a great big house

It's hard to haunt
a great big house
when you're a teeny, tiny ghost
no bigger than a mouse
at most.

He did what he could do.

So every dark and stormy night
the kind that shakes the house with fright -
if you stood still and listened right,
you'd hear a
teeny tiny

Boo!

She would recite the poem and act it out, ending with a big jump on the "Boo!" She also had a black silk shirt that she borrowed from her daddy and she'd run around the house, arms outspread and flapping, with the silk streaming behind her yelling, "Bust, the Big Black Bat!" The red plush carpeting in our living room was lava and you couldn't walk on hot lava, so she'd build bridges across the living room out of books and toys that would help her navigate across the danger.

At two, my adorable daughter insisted on being a zombie for Halloween. At three, she wanted to be a werewolf. Similar progressions continued until she actually witnessed blood spurting from a stitch-worthy gash on her father's hand. After that, she was not quite as interested in lab experiments and dissecting.

She's still unique and fun, an interesting person to know, and she's planning on doing the Zombie Walk whenever possible. But, thankfully, I no longer have to worry about her becoming a sword-wielding murderess. She has a very kind and generous heart, eeeeeeeeevil laugh and all.

(Meet Me In St. Louis image from Reel Classics)

Quill #80 - Skeletons (2010)

Dana and I walked through the haunted house.
Mechanical ghouls jumped at us,
Vampires sprang from coffins,
Ghosts floated on wires to spook us.
Then we came to a completely dark room.
We were just nervous enough,
Knowing that something more, as yet unseen,
Would surprise us anew that
We couldn't move forward.

In spite of the silly nature of all
We had encountered, we knew,
Just knew, that the next ghastly thing,
Whatever it might be,
Would be the last straw.
Frozen, Dana and I waited for
Someone to save us, another customer,
An employee, anyone who would
Step ahead of us and trigger what we could not.

We stayed there until the owner came
To investigate our long presence in his
Fun House attraction.
Slowly, kindly, he led us the
Six feet through the last room,
Empty of all but darkness and air,
To the exit door which had been
Just one fear too far away.

Quill #78 - Guest (2010)

I couldn't see,
The room so dark there were no shadows.
Three globes of light rose from the floorboards,
Hovered two feet from my face.
My heart tattered in my chest;
My mouth hollowed.
I didn't blink once.
And, moments later,
The lights floated slowly toward the door.
For a few seconds, they left me in blackness,
Then I saw a gentle glow from
The other side of the door,
Luminescent yellow, which slowly faded.
There was no light source anywhere
To create such a display.
And when I told my hostess,
The next morning,
She scoffed at me.
She knew her house was haunted,
But didn't believe I could have seen anything.
In her mind, apparently,
She was the only living person
Allowed to perceive oddities.

Quill #72 - Spectre (2010)

A woman in a lacy white dress
Sat at a spinning wheel.
When I walked into my playroom

She nodded to me.
I was shy and ignored her,
Choosing some toys from my chest
To play on the braided rag rug.

She watched me as she worked.
After a while I drew some courage.
"Are you a friend of my mother's?"
I asked.
The lady smiled and stopped work.
"Lela knows me," she said.

I stood and walked to her,
Almost brushing the wheel.

Up close, her dress was like sheer curtains,
Sunlight shone through, making no shadows.
I put out my hand to touch
Nothing and saw nobody but momentary glare
From the windows behind me.

Perhaps I was lucky she disappeared
In the aurora of the day,
Before a shadow that meant me no harm
Could prick my finger.

I was not ready, then,
For the hundred year sleep.

Quill #36 - Tarnish (2010)

I brush away memory
Of grit, a ghost of sand, once
Present while shaping this stone
Forming the castle archway.

Built by distant relative,
An earl no more remembered,
Who passed this graceful eyesore,
Not one farthing for its care,
To child who died without heirs.

Strangers own it now, run as
An hotel sans doorknocker.
Traffic, night and day, circles
Like moat, or carrion birds,
Living off long-dead spoilage
And seasonal spillover.

The must reeks with decayed hopes,
Invading my mouth, my mind,
Poisoning the fresh drink of
Curiosity I brought
To share with a caring friend.

My hand drops and looks exchange.
Silently agreeing to
Not inhale any spirits,
We go seeking sweeter airs.

Quill #35 - Window Phantom (1990)

A window phantom peeked at me behind
The curtain which was covering her door.
Perhaps she thought I would pretend I'm blind,
As elevator occupants ignore
Each other till odd circumstance intrude.
Obliging though I am to some degree,
I did think "Peeping Thomasina" rude;
Capricious bones began to trouble me.
"Hello!" I shouted, waving with my right
Hand, curving left to better shade my eyes.
I must have startled her for, at the sight,
She moaned and dropped the curtain in surprise;
And must have given word to all the rest.
For privacy, my neighborhood's the best!

Quill #3 - Veneration (1999)

She would feel the Presence directly behind her,
Breath tingling the nape of her neck.
"Death approaches from the left," she'd read.
The Presence wasn't Death.

Once, in the birthing room,
Barely two years before her mother's passing,
The Presence had come to her,
Helped her disconnect the pain,
Kept her mind busy with words of
Kinship,
Motherhood,
The Nature of gods.
Important stuff.
Now it was the only mother left to her.

She, always a side-curling sleeper,
Would feel one lock lifted,
A cold sensation of air underneath,
Then the tress would be dropped.
Tense, awake, she would wait for another sign,
Another message of insight,
Some reason for the Presence's interest in her hair.
She was dissatisfied by its silence.

Later, she remembered a toddler game,
Favorite of her maternal grandfather,
Played regularly by her mother,
Brought over from Sweden by earlier ancestors.
Child positioned on lap,
The teasing elder would raise a rearward plait,
Murmur words, daring the child to respond.
The words meant, "I love you."
But that puzzle wasn't solved until her own daughter was born.

"You'd better not do that," was the challenge.
Her daughter, intrigued as she had been,
Wriggles from lap to back to repeat the ritual.
Child taking the mother's stance,
Giving the parent's command,
Giggling at her own audacity
And her mother's attempts to prevent the role reversal.

Repositioning the child for repetition,
"This do in remembrance of your great-grandfather,
Your grandmother, and me," she whispers to her toddler.
Prickles at the back of her neck complete a deja vu.
The Presence, finally honored, moves on.