Love from the Other Side

by Claire Plaisted

  White faced, they sat motionless. “That’s our house. Did someone tell you where we lived?” They sat in disbelief.

  “No. I swear Sarah took me there. I thought I was walking with her. Then there was a white short fence in front on the house and a little gate. Inside the gate were an older couple. Sarah said she was fine. She was with her Nanny Grace and Granddad Bill. Nanny had greyish hair up in a tight bun. She was wearing a grey long coat. It went down below her knees. She had white gloves on. A white leathery kinda purse hung on her arm. Granddad Bill had dark slicked hair with a nice black suit and white shirt. I don’t know why but he was holding a black book and a pen was on his ear. They were so happy to see Sarah. She ran to them. Then they waved to me and told me I had to go back cause my dog Lucy was waiting for me.” Sammy paused. She looked from Sharon to Nairn.

  Tears rolled down their face. They sobbed. They took Sammy’s hand, weakly smiling. They showed Sammy a picture of Sarah. Sammy knew that was who she saw that day. “Thank you. Grace and Bill are my parents. They passed away when Sarah was about two. They were in a car accident. They doted on Sarah. I know you must’ve seen them. My Dad always had a pen on his ear to jot things down in his little black book. He dabbled with writing as a hobby. My Mom always carried her little white purse around. She often wore her silky white gloves. It makes me happy that our little girl was found. We always wondered what happened to her. It looks like she slipped and fell. I wish we could have found her sooner. Luckily, she’s safely with my parents until we are joined again.”

  Sammy felt bad that the little girl didn’t make it back home like she did. However, she was glad that her family would be able to rest knowing what happened to their little bouncy happy girl.

  A tear trickled down Sammy’s face. It was bitter sweet. As winter passed, spring flowers popped up. Sammy and Lucy went back to the escarpment often. She planted little mums and wildflowers around the boulder. The area was altered slightly to allow for the proper excavation of the little girl. Lucy often sat near the boulder. She too, must’ve known that Sarah was safe and was finally at peace.

  The Screamers of Valentine Pond

  By Donna Walo Clancy

  Many years ago, when I was a young girl, I would visit my grandma for three weeks each summer while my parents traveled for their ministry. She lived in the back woods of West Virginia, far away from people.

  Her three-room log cabin sat on the edge of Valentine Pond. The first floor, one large room, consisted of a kitchen area, a living area and a walk-in closet where she kept all her personal belongings. The second floor, or loft—as grandma used to refer to it, had two equal sized bedrooms. A fieldstone fireplace we didn’t use in the summer—except when it rained and we couldn’t cook our meals outside, kept her warm during the cold winters when she was there by herself.

  There was no electricity or indoor plumbing, but the outhouse was only a few steps away from the back door so even going out in the middle of the night wasn’t scary. Each morning, it was my job to take the two wooden buckets to the fresh-water spring and make sure they were full for that day’s use. Back then, there were no cell phones or internet to miss in the absence of electricity.

  In her younger days, grandma had built an outside firepit she still used to heat water for dishes and cook her meals. There was nowhere to take a bath or a shower. You either washed up when the water was heated up for dishes or you took a swim in the pond, the latter of which was my favorite.

  I always looked forward to the time I’d spend with grandma during the summer. I respected and admired her. She was my hero. If something needed to get done, she could do it. All these years she’d survived, living on her own, far out in the woods, not depending on anyone but herself, or so I thought back then.

  Many considered her odd, even crazy. The locals of the area avoided her. On the rare occasion she would venture into town—mostly before the onset of winter for supplies, people would cross the street to get away from her rather than walk or pass near her. They believed only a person who’d made a deal with the devil could survive out in the woods, alone, the way she did year after year.

  She never hurt anyone, she was just different from them and because of that they treated her poorly and shunned her. Maybe this was why she hated the human race. She even hated my parents; her own daughter. I never understood why until I returned to her cabin, many years later, and found her diaries which told the strange story of her life as a young woman and the years right up until her death.

  “YOU HAVE AN ENVELOPE on your desk that looks pretty interesting,” Sammy Jo said as Brenda walked by her cubicle.

  “You been nosing around in my stuff again?” she said as she poked her head in to her friends work space.

  “Of course, I have,” Sammy Jo answered. “What else are friends supposed to do?”

  “You got me there. How’s the workload look for today?”

  “Pretty light. We may even be able to take a longer than usual lunch break,” she answered smiling. “Go open the envelope. I’m dying to see what’s in it. It’s from some law firm down south.”

  “Down south? The only one I knew from down in that area was my grandma and she died almost a year ago. I hadn’t seen her for at least fifteen years before that,” Brenda stated.

  “Wasn’t she the one you used to spend time with in the summer?”

  “Yea, she was. I loved her when no one else did. Now that I look back, though, she was kind of weird and a lot of things happened she just brushed off and told me to ignore.”

  “It’s funny how trusting we are when we are younger,” Sammy Jo commented.

  Brenda sat down at her desk and picked up the manila envelope. The return postmark was from Sawyer, Sawyer and Rose Law Firm in Little Tree, West Virginia. Her grandmother lived in Stone Creek which was just a few towns away from Little Tree. She carefully opened it and emptied out the contents.

  A copy of her grandmother’s will, two sealed letters addressed to her in her grandmother’s handwriting and a letter from the law firm landed on her desk. First, she picked up the letter from a Patrick Sawyer, one of the firm’s partners.

  He sent his condolences on her grandmother’s death and stated that he represented her estate. He apologized for it taking so long to get in touch with her, but her grandmother had been dead for several months at the cabin before anyone knew she’d passed and then they had to do a title search on the property Brenda was now about to inherit.

  The will stated that Brenda was the only beneficiary listed and she would inherit everything in her grandmother’s estate, including the cabin and surrounding property on Valentine Pond.

  It also stated her grandmother had several safety deposit boxes at the Little Tree Community Bank which held a large sum of cash grandma had received from insurance policies when her parents died. She had little use for money except when she needed winter supplies, so most of the money sat in the bank for many years, untouched. The attorneys, however, couldn’t find the keys that had been in her grandmother’s possession for said boxes.

  “Well, are you going to keep me in suspense?” Sammy Jo yelled from the next cubicle.

  “Come here,” Brenda answered.

  “Check this out. According to my grandmother’s will, I’ve inherited everything from her, even the cabin I used to go to in the summer,” Brenda claimed. “Catch is, I’ve to go down to West Virginia to the attorney’s office and sign for everything.”

  “Wow! I wonder how much money’s in the boxes,” Sammy Jo commented, perusing the papers Brenda handed her.

  “Leave it up to you to find that part,” Brenda laughed. “Do you want to take some vacation time and go with me to West Virginia?”

  “No offense, but I save my vacation time for the white beaches of the Caribbean and the tanned guys partying there,” Sammy Jo grinned.

  “I figured as much,” Brenda chuckled. “Fine, I’ll go by myself. It might be nice to go back to the cabin again now I’m older. I wonder ho
w much it’s changed in sixteen years.”

  “Only one way to find out, girlfriend. When do you think you’ll go?”

  “We’re in the middle of our down time right now, and I’d really like to go back to cabin in the summer. I hope the pond hasn’t dried up. I loved swimming there even though the stupid fish used to bite at my toes and bump into my legs,” she said, reminiscing.

  Brenda and Sammy Jo owned and ran The Get-A-Way Express, a travel agency specializing in winter vacation traveling. The beginning of the summer was always the slow season for their business with a few walk-ins here and there setting up their cold weather escapes.

  “That’s what’s nice about running your own business; you can take a vacation without asking the boss,” Sammy Jo stated. “We can cover while you are gone. One week or two?”

  “I think I’ll plan on two. I have to drive down and back which will take four days right off the top. I’d like to spend a little while at the cabin going through grandma’s stuff and relaxing. And, I want to see exactly what’s in the big closet I was never allowed to go in to. Do you think you and Pat can handle things around here for that long?” Brenda said.

  “No sweat. When are you leaving?”

  “Probably Saturday morning. I’ll get down there by Sunday night and I can go to the attorney’s office on Monday morning before I go to the cabin. I’ll call them to set up an appointment right now,” Brenda said, reaching for her desk phone.

  She spoke to Patrick Sawyer and set up an appointment for the following Monday morning at ten. Next, she called in a reservation for a room at the local bed and breakfast. The lady who answered the phone was pleasant until Brenda gave her name and credit card number, but she did confirm her room would be ready when she arrived Sunday night.

  That was strange.

  Brenda picked up one of the envelopes addressed to her in her grandma’s hand writing and opened it. Three small keys were taped to the bottom of the page. It was a short letter explaining what the keys were and the box numbers they were associated with at the bank.

  “Well, now we know where the missing keys are,” Brenda said, folding the letter and placing it back in the envelope.

  “Are you talking to me?” Sammy Jo asked, standing at the copier.

  “No, just to myself,” Brenda answered.

  She opened the second envelope. It, too, was a short letter, but very strange.

  My dearest Brenda,

  You were the only one who loved me for who I was. I know people talked about me behind my back. I could not let outsiders influence my thinking and actions knowing what my responsibilities were. When I am gone, it will be your turn to takeover and protect the innocent from the screamers of Valentine Pond. I cannot trust your mother to do it as she never believed a word I told her about them.

  You’ll love living at the cabin once you get used to it. The winters will seem long at first, but they will provide you with plenty of company to see you through. I’m sorry to thrust this responsibility on you out of nowhere, but someone must live at the cabin or they will begin to kill innocent men again.

  When you go to the cabin upon my death, look for my diaries. They’ll explain everything you need to know. You’ve already been touched by the spirits and they trust you. All the times you swam in the pond, it was them you felt grabbing at your legs, not fish as I told you when you were younger.

  Be brave as there will be many things happen that you’ll not understand at first. I love you and have missed your visits.

  Grandma

  “Sammy Jo, you have to come read this,” Brenda called out to her friend.

  She gave her the letter and waited a few minutes for her to read it before she spoke.

  “So, what do you think?” Brenda asked. “Pretty weird, ha?”

  “I think your grandma lost it in the last few years she was alive. Does she seriously think you’ll just pack up, give up your life here and move to the cabin forever? And screamers? Really? What the hell is a screamer?”

  “I’ve no idea, but you know what’s strange? I can remember hearing screams coming from the pond area when I was little. Grandma used to tell me they were just wild animals and sound carried over the water and I didn’t have to be afraid,” Brenda confirmed.

  “Don’t get sucked into your grandma’s illusions,” Sammy Jo warned. “I think all those years of living by herself she had to invent some kind of companionship to keep her sanity; even though it looks like she totally lost it in the end.”

  “You’re probably right. It’ll be interesting to read her diaries, though,” Brenda admitted. “Okay, back to work. I need to go over the new graphics submitted for our new fall trips.”

  Brenda didn’t get much accomplished the rest of the day. Her mind kept returning to the letter she’d read from her grandma and to the screamers of Valentine Pond.

  Chapter 2

  Brenda left at sunrise from Upstate New York. She planned on driving for five to six hours and then finding a hotel somewhere in southern Pennsylvania when she got tired. On Sunday morning she would leave after a good breakfast to complete the second leg of her journey arriving in Little Tree in the early afternoon.

  As she drove the miles by herself, her mind kept returning to different events that happened at the cabin when she was younger which her grandma would just brush aside. She could remember hearing the screams on many occasions, but her grandma insisted it was racoons in the woods across the pond.

  Then, there was the one night when she came out of the outhouse and a woman was standing several feet away from her; a woman she’d never seen before. At the time, she could’ve sworn she could see the trees right through the figure standing before her. They stood there, in the dark of the night, just staring at each other until the woman turned and walked away in the direction of the pond. Brenda never told her grandma about it because she was afraid she wouldn’t be allowed to come back if there were strangers in the area.

  How many times did she complain to her grandma that it felt like hands were holding her legs when she would stand up in the water? Again, her grandma brushed it off as fish or eels swimming around her legs.

  There were so many little things which happened that she could look back on now and not understand. Brushes, books and bracelets would disappear from where she’d put them down, only to show up somewhere else days later. She’d always chalked it up to her grandma moving them and forgetting she did.

  Did she really want to go back to the cabin by herself? She had to, at least to get the diaries left behind. She chided herself for letting her grandma’s ramblings get the better of her.

  That night at the hotel, she didn’t sleep very well. The woman she’d seen when she was younger kept appearing in her dreams and waving at her to come closer. She would take Brenda’s hand and lead her to the edge of the pond. Words were being spoken, but the lady’s lips weren’t moving.

  ‘The others want to meet you.’

  At this point, she’d walk into the pond. Standing knee-deep in the water, she would just vaporize into thin air. Brenda was jolted out of a sound sleep twice from the same dream and couldn’t get back to sleep the second time it happened. She turned on the television hoping to be distracted from the reason that she was awake.

  She dozed off sometime later, not waking up until housekeeping knocked at her door. Checking her watch, she realized she’d over-slept by four hours. She yelled to the women she’d be leaving in the next twenty minutes.

  Packing quickly, she left without breakfast. She stopped at a gas station and topped off her tank and grabbed a coffee and muffin from the attached minimart. She bought some snacks and bottled water so she wouldn’t have to stop for lunch as she’d started out later than she’d planned to.

  She turned on the music to shake the memories of last night’s dreams and drove on. Five hours later she pulled into Little Tree and parked in front of the bed and breakfast. She stepped out of the car and stretched. People walked by, staring at her and shak
ing their heads.

  Wow! Word sure travels fast around here.

  She grabbed her pocketbook and suitcase and entered the Red Rose. There was no one at the front desk so she rang the little bell sitting on the counter. An older woman appeared in the doorway behind the desk. She stopped short in her tracks, her eyes growing wide.

  “You look just like your grandma,” she whispered.

  “You knew my grandma?” Brenda inquired as the woman walked forward.

  “Yes, I knew her for many years. We went to school together,” she answered. “Flora and I used to be very close.”

  “What happened? Why did you stop being friends?” Brenda asked. “What’s your name, by the way?”

  “My name’s Margie Evans. As to your first question, when we were seventeen we went on a double date for Valentine’s Day. After the movie, each couple went their different way. Your grandma and her date went to Valentine Pond to make-out. I don’t know what happened out there, but Tommy Holden was never seen again, and your grandma changed drastically,” she commented.

  “What do you mean she changed?”

  “She started to skip school and would be found out at the abandoned cabin on Valentine Pond. She had no memory of what happened to Tommy that night and the police could never prove anything as they never found his body. Flora never graduated high school. After a while, her mother and father gave up trying to reason with her. She withdrew more and more from the people who loved her and started staying at the cabin all the time.”

  “Couldn’t her parents do anything to bring her home?”

  “By then, she was eighteen and pregnant. No one knew who the father was, but it was assumed it was Tommy. Anyway, their hands were tied as she was considered an adult. I tried to go visit her at the cabin; she asked me to leave and never come back. When her parents died, she used some of the insurance money to buy the property and after that, she never left the woods except occasionally to come to town for needed supplies.”