by Pete Altieri
It was the morning of July 4th, and Rosemarie insisted we meet at our usual spot. I was busy preparing for a family cookout we usually had at the estate. Since we were in the livestock business, family and friends would come to enjoy the best steaks around. Not to mention, the many other wonderful dishes that Amanda put together along with other wives who spent days preparing. Rosemarie was persistent, so I relented. I figured if we met at 7am, we would have some fun for an hour, then I would still have enough time to get things ready. She would also be at the cookout along with Beatrice. I knew I would be so busy trying to entertain everyone all day, that my only time to really enjoy myself was during the fireworks. From our estate, we could clearly see the fireworks in Brewster and Danbury. It was the perfect spot to enjoy both displays.
When I arrived at the cabin, Rosemarie was already there. She was sitting on the bed in her stocking feet and sobbing uncontrollably. I knew something was wrong, but what she told me nearly knocked me down to the hard wood planks of the cabin. Her pretty face shook with heavy sobs and tears streamed down as she told me she was pregnant. That alone would have been enough of a revelation, but she continued on, telling me we should run away and get married. Of course she knew I was married, but that didn’t matter to her. She was of an age where romantic notions were plentiful and rarely grounded in reality. It was when I sternly told her that we would do no such thing, and that she should not continue with the pregnancy, that things took a turn for the worst. Despite being Catholic, I knew the pregnancy could not continue.
She began to scream and throw things about the cabin. I tried to subdue her, and explain that it just could not be. I told her that my stature in the community, and my responsibilities of running the family business were too great, and appearances were important. Having a child out of wedlock was bad enough, but with a 16-year-old girl who was hired help, was simply not possible. It would be an abomination to the world. Rosemarie would have no part of that logic. She continued to scream and threaten to tell my wife about the affair if I didn’t at least let her have the baby. My mind was racing, and fully cluttered with every possible angle of the tangled web that was woven. As she continued to yell and scream, my temper began to burn out of control. Every venomous word she spat was like a searing hot dagger in my back. I knew that I had to do something to keep her quiet, but no good thoughts came to mind.
That was when I lost all control. I could see the face of my father and my grandfather, in total disgust at what I had done. I could also see the countenance of my humiliated wife, hurtful and crying over the illicit affair with the young and beautiful Rosemarie. Even though our boys were far too young to understand, I knew that eventually they would, and how it would hurt them to know their father did such a dreadful thing. It was all of these things at one time that pushed me to the breaking point.
It seemed like everything I did after that was in slow motion. There were no sounds. There was only her horrified face as my hands reached up and grabbed her by the throat, and threw her down to the bed with ferocity. Her face turned bright red as my hands clenched tighter. The once smooth and luxurious skin of her face and neck was now oxygen-starved and turning blue – veins protruding from her neck in a desperate cry. Her arms flailed as she tried to fight back, but to no avail. She even tried to kick me, but it was no use. Within a few minutes she succumbed, and took her final breath.
I stood up, gasping for breath myself at the outburst of rage. She looked as if she were sleeping peacefully in the bed. The same bed we had used as our playground for the sordid affair. I knew I did the right thing, but I felt horrible about it. I took a few deep breaths so I could formulate a plan to get rid of the body. Thankfully, in the shed behind the cabin, was a variety of supplies that would come in handy. I came back into the cabin with some rope, a black vinyl tarp, and an old rusty boat anchor. I laid the tarp on the floor and put Rosemarie in the center, rolling her tiny body into it, and then using the rope to wrap her up, I attached the anchor. I hoisted her up over my shoulder and walked down to the pond. There was still not a sound as my gaze scoured the horizon, making sure no one else was in sight. Thankfully, I saw no one.
I set her down at the shore, while I stripped off my own clothes, so I could wade out as far as possible before tossing her body into the water. I made sure to go into an area of the pond that was thick with vegetation, which no one typically used for fishing or swimming, and tossed her as far as I could. The tarp must have had too much trapped air, because it took a good minute to sink, even with the weight of the old anchor. That was when I thought I saw the tarp move, as if Rosemarie was breathing inside! I knew she was dead, or at least I thought she was. As the tarp slowly went under, I saw what I thought were a few bubbles rise to the surface. The idea that she was still alive inside the bundle gave me the chills, but I knew there was nothing I could do about it. It was unfortunate, but I was not willing to surrender my family fortune, my marriage, and my standing in the community over this young girl. Yes I had grown to love her, but it was not enough. I realized then that I had done something horrible, and there was no turning back from it.
The bubbles eventually stopped, and I made it to the shore, where I got dressed before anyone would miss me back at the farm. Beatrice spent the entire day asking everyone if they had seen Rosemarie, since she had not shown up at the cookout. I did my best to avoid her, because the image of the bubbles rising to the surface of the pond was all I could think about when the subject came up.
3
The next two months were difficult as the search for Rosemarie went on, with the police coming out to the farm to talk with me, my wife, and our employees. Her family was nearly hysterical with worry, but there was nothing that turned up at the farm, and thankfully no one said anything that would have tipped the police off about our affair. I spent many sleepless nights those first two months, worrying that someone might have noticed the two of us had become closer than we should, or that an employee might have caught a glimpse of us coming out of the hunting cabin. No one did.
Beatrice became ill, likely from worrying about her niece, and from her advancing age. At Christmas of 1924, she put in her two weeks’ notice and decided to retire. I was relieved, actually, since seeing her every day made it nearly impossible to not think about Rosemarie. We gave her a handsome bonus and set her up with a nice apartment in Danbury, where she lived close to the rest of her family. I figured it was the least I could do after what had happened. My wife always liked her, so she didn’t seem suspicious at the gesture.
The following 4th of July is when things began to change. We had just cleaned up after our annual cookout, and the last of the guests had gone home. Amanda had gone to bed early, as a busy day in the hot July sun had gotten the best of her. The boys were also asleep, and I was drinking a beer on the back porch, enjoying the solitude, when I heard a distant sound that put the hairs on my neck standing at attention. It was an eerie high-pitched laugh that came from the direction of the old hunting cabin. I noticed that it was almost midnight, so I knew it was unlikely that any of the guests could still be around. As I sat there holding my beer, the laughing continued. It sounded like it was getting closer! My eyes were fixated on the blackness of the woods that surrounded the back yard, but I couldn’t see a thing. I noted that the usual choir of crickets and typical night sounds were strangely silent. Then I noticed a horrible odor that almost made me gag. It smelled like rotting meat, or a dead animal of some sort, wafting my way. It was faint at first, but then it got increasingly stronger. Now I stood up, not knowing what direction the smell was coming from. It seemed to almost surround me from every direction!
Suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder, forcing me back down in my chair! It was ice cold and wet. The rot smell was never stronger as my body froze in fear at what was behind me. I closed my eyes tight, hoping that this was all a dream and that I would awaken and be in the comfort of my own bed, with Amanda sleeping next to me. When I did open my eyes, the horror
show that unfolded before me made me cry out. It was a terrible sight to behold! It was Rosemarie. She was dead, but I knew it was her. She was standing before me, dripping wet, her rotting flesh gone in places, leaving bone visible. Her face was eaten away from being underwater all this time, and her body was as lithe and lean as I remembered. The black tarp that I covered her in was mostly gone, and some of the rope I tied her up with remained. The dress she had been wearing was falling off her in places, exposing a sickly, molded grey flesh that was stretched tightly to her frame. Her eyes bore gaping holes into me, as I could not take my glance away from them. Those once gorgeous blue eyes were now black pools of hate. She let out another one of her high-pitched laughs, exposing a mouth full of rotten teeth and black tongue, and a whiff of that rancid breath brought tears to my eyes.
She told me that I was cursed for what I had done. Her voice was different than I remembered it. It was inhuman. It was rough with a gravelly texture, as if she had been gargling with broken glass for the past year. As she stood before me, uttering her hate-filled words about what I had done, she told me that my life would now be plagued with horrible cursed events. I tried to respond, but I was frozen. I found myself unable to retort, and it was probably best, because the sooner she would go back to her watery grave, the better. The image of her rotten face and cackling laugh haunted my dreams every night since that one year anniversary of her murder. From that night forward, as soon as I closed my eyes, I would see her. I could not escape her clutches to me in the dream world. Some nights I would wake up screaming, covered in sweat and praying for the sun to come up.
4
It was almost a month after Rosemarie’s return in 1925 when the curse began to show itself. A strange parasite attacked the apple orchard at the farm, and we lost an entire crop of apples. This was strange, since that had never happened since my father started the orchard part of our business. Since this was approximately 15% of our business income, it did hurt us financially and did cause me to have to let go eight employees who I hired to pick apples and tend to the trees. Then in September, we experienced a series of strange occurrences at the farm. We had a majority of our cows, hogs, and chickens die from some inexplicable disease that no one was able to diagnose. I knew what it was, though. I knew it was Rosemarie and the curse she told me about on the 4th of July. With all of these uncanny events happening, the farm was in real danger unless things improved in the spring. I could only hope that the curse would not continue, but I could not have been more wrong.
As if the bad things we had experienced were not enough, then we had several bad accidents that resulted in deaths of our staff. One of our long term employees, Sammy Ray, who ran the hog farm, died from a fall when repairing one of the hog confinement roofs. Another employee who worked in the dairy was killed by lightning just before Thanksgiving, and one of our housekeepers was found hanging in the back yard for no apparent reason. A series of strange things happened around the house too – such as electricity going on and off, water pipes bursting for no reason, and doors that would lock on their own. Amanda was convinced the house was haunted. I knew she wasn’t far off with that assessment.
In January 1926, the curse ratcheted up even more. Amanda had been feeling tired all the time and finally decided to go to the doctor. Our local family doctor set her up with some tests in New York City, where they had the best technology available. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She got bad quickly and was bedridden in less than three months. Elijah and Christopher took it hard, not understanding why their mother was not able to play with them, read to them, or do much of anything as the cancer took hold and refused to let go. Her constant crying and moaning in pain was maddening, and I did my best to keep my composure, despite the overwhelming guilt, knowing that it was because of my terrible sin that she was looking death in the face. Amanda died in May of that year in a fit of incredible agony, that caused her to scream out for pain medicine that couldn’t come fast enough. To watch her die slowly was my penance, and I knew it. To see the pain in the boys’ faces was almost enough to push me over the edge with guilt.
Just when I thought the curse couldn’t get much worse, the apple trees began to wither and die. As spring came, one by one the trees died. I hired the best arborists on the east coast to come to the farm and try and save them, but it was no use. Each one that came out said they had never seen anything like it. I had the same problem with my livestock. I brought in veterinarians with the highest pedigree to try and save the animals, but, like the tree experts, they were equally baffled. I lost 90% of my animals before the 4th of July. Due to the dire circumstances at the farm, and my wife’s recent passing, it was the first year we decided to not have our annual cookout. I also found it difficult to imagine enjoying myself at the cookout, knowing that the anniversary of that dreadful day would bring with it a visit from Rosemarie. I knew she would come to see me again, gloating with the knowledge she had brought such pain in my life.
It was close to midnight on the 4th of July, and this time instead of waiting on the back porch, I locked myself in my bedroom on the first floor. I did my best to stay awake, but with the lack of sleep I had been getting, I began to doze off sitting in my rocking chair. I kept a loaded shotgun at my side, as if that would help me against the undead lover from my past. I was partially in a dream state when a pungent odor woke me up. It was the familiar putrefaction that I experienced a year ago when Rosemarie first made herself known. As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, her horrific face was only an inch from my own. Her mouth was agape, black and rotten teeth bared, and a hideous, cackling laugh reverberating. I was unable to move, terrified at the sight of her once again. She told me that she knew of my pain, and all the misery that had descended upon my family, and there would be much more to come. She also told me that this visit on the anniversary of her death would be a regular thing between us. I was so fearful of her presence that I forgot all about the shotgun at my side, although I knew it was useless to me against the apparition. Within moments she was gone, and only the lingering odor of her rotting corpse would allow me to reminisce on our encounter.
5
It was two weeks after our last meeting that I decided to confide in a priest. I was concerned about anyone local knowing about the situation at my farm, but already the rumor mill was going around. Almost all of my employees were gone, with only a bare-bones crew left that helped me keep the house in shape and to watch the boys while I did what I could to save the business. Thankfully, I had other sources of income from rental properties, and the trust fund my father had established, providing a monthly stipend that now was vital to keep the bills paid and to meet payroll. To avoid further rumors going around the county, I decided to talk to a priest in the small town of Bethel, Connecticut, which bordered Danbury.
Through an old family friend, I learned of Father Dominic Caruso, a retired priest, who might be the right person for me to explain the curse. Of course I could not tell him about the murder, for fear that he might break the seal of the confessional, if I were to bare my soul about every detail. I knew I couldn’t take that chance.
I met with Father Dominic in a small apartment in the rectory at St. Mary’s Church. He was very old and somewhat hard of hearing, but he was willing to listen to my story. I told him about a young girl who had died at my farm, that I believed was haunting the grounds. I detailed all the bad things that had happened with my wife, employees, crops, and livestock, and that in my dreams, the girl said it was due to a curse. The old priest listened intently and told me that he knew of something he thought might help. He told me that when he first entered the priesthood, he went to a seminary at a secluded institute, St. Bede Academy, in Peru, Illinois. He said that there was a very devout sect of monks there that grew crops to feed the staff and students, and that he remembered a terrible plague that wiped out their crops for two seasons. He remembered that they were able to ward off the plague with a special holy tree that was called the Jesus Tre
e. He said the tree was blessed and watered only with holy water until it was strong enough to grow on its own. Father Dominic believed that the monks at St. Bede could grow me a Jesus Tree and have it shipped to my estate in New York. He performed prayers for me with a rosary and promised he would contact them on my behalf. It sounded a bit far-fetched to me, but in my desperate state, I was willing to try anything. I gave the priest a sizeable sum of money to have this tree shipped to my estate and asked him to keep me informed.
Several months later, in April of 1927, I received a call from Father Dominic, who explained that the Jesus Tree was on its way to me. He said that the monks were also sending six experienced arborists along with the tree and that they would also be planting an additional twelve oak trees that were to be situated next to the Jesus Tree, to serve as a symbol of the twelve apostles. The priest assured me that this was suggested by the monks of St. Bede, as an extra precaution to help ward off the terrible curse that had fallen upon me. Once again, I was so overwhelmed with grief from my situation, that I was all too eager to let the monks plant the trees.
A week later, the trees were planted. The largest of the oaks was the Jesus Tree, which they said would bear an uncanny resemblance to what Jesus Christ looked like when crucified, as the tree grew to full height. They planted it to the side of the main gate that was accessible from Federal Hill Road. The other twelve trees were a bit smaller, and were arranged six on one side of the Jesus Tree and six on the other, along the property line to serve as a sort of talisman against the curse. The monks told me that it would take at least twenty years for the trees to grow to their maximum height, but that spiritual powers were already in effect and should ward off the curse immediately. They stayed on the property in the former employee cottages for a month to ensure the trees would take, and then left to return to St. Bede in central Illinois.