by Lisa Twombly

Created on: July 08, 2008

The Ghosts Have Come Outside

There were places in the house that the family avoided after dark. No mention was ever made of ghosts or haunts, spirits or evil for that would acknowledge their fear. No one could remember how long the house had been in the family or how they had obtained it. It was at one time a spectacular property sitting on top of a high hill looking over the village. One hundred years later it was still as straight as a bullet path but in sore need of paint and cleaning with neither forthcoming any time soon. It was unknown if lack of intelligence or outright stubborness anchored them there but the ones that were born with a brain in their head set off from that house as soon as their feet and circumstances would allow. Every man has a breaking point and a lifetime of burying your head in the bed linens to escape the sight of what lay just beyond your slowly opening bedroom closet could really wear on a person.

There were so many occasions of broken wrists and bruised arms that several times officials from the county had interviewed the family. Each time the agency ruled out abuse, though doubt always weighed heavy on the ones with a fair conscience. Why were these children falling down stairs and running into closed doors so much? What were they running from and who was chasing them?

It was rumoured that the house had burned partially down back in '58 but the town had rallied together and built it back to the surprise of the owner, Josiah Maycomb. Some say that day was the first time they had seen a smile on the old man's face. It had been attributed to the charity of the gesture, but actually he had had just come from putting a down payment on a mobile home outside of town on a little patch of dirt beside the town dump. When he saw the old house resurrected, the smile left his face and never returned. Manners and graciousness were not Maycomb features, but frugality was and even he couldn't turn away from a home with no mortgage. Three years later he hung himself in the barn, but the rotted beam gave way and left him foolish and bruised on the dusty floor. As punishment he lived to 102 and was miserable every day of it. He had sworn that he would never have children and with his death the old place would die too. On July 1, 2007, that's exactly what happened. With only one long-removed descendant, whom no one could find; the house was eventually taken by lien by the town of Foreside and slated for demolition. Which is what should have happened,

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