Is It Just Me, or...

 

As I frequently mention, when I write, my house goes crazy. Here is an instance of craziness in my house when I wasn't writing.

My daughter and her son live with us. My grandson is seven years old, bright, funny, and cute, with huge sleepy eyes and a sweet voice that to me, is unmistakable. Usually. Also, my husband gets up for work around five, and I get up with him to give him some kind of breakfast and then pull his lunch together. We've been doing this for the past 38 years, so it's nothing new. However, since I work at home, after he leaves and I've finished my morning routine, I will sometimes tumble back into bed to either "rest my eyes" or, more likely, obsess about what's coming down the pipes at me for the day. Sometimes my grandson gets himself out of bed, and joins me in my room.

Last week, I was on my bed contemplating a story line when I heard a crashing noise from my daughter's room. I figured that my grandson had slid himself out of his bed and would soon be popping in on me. Sure enough, I heard the padding footsteps of a kid who sleeps in socks.. Then I heard my daughter's bedroom door open, and I heard him come toward my room. We have hardwood floors, so his steps make a pretty distinct sound. Instead of coming in, though, I heard him turn down the hall. I could hear his sweet, little voice talking a mile a minute, so I figured he was probably looking for his grandpa in case the man was still home. He didn't come back right away, and I thought he might have gone to the bathroom. I returned to my story line.

He didn't come back five minutes later, either. That was strange. After reflecting on that, I went looking for him. Sometimes he uses the powder room at the other end of the house. But no, he wasn't there. Not in the kitchen, or the living room, or the full bathroom. So I opened his door very quietly and...he was still in bed.

That was a bit of a shock. I KNOW I heard him get up. I KNOW I heard those footsteps, and I know FOR CERTAIN that I heard that little voice. Except it wasn't my grandson.

I wasn't frightened by it. I wasn't even really weirded out. Okay, maybe a little. More than that, though, I wondered exactly who or what I did hear, because I know I heard someone. And I know I wasn't asleep and dreaming.

The Grand Central Station house strikes again - I guess someone was passing through. Whoever it was, he sounded very young. I sure hope he found his way to wherever he was going.

Little Monsters, Little Wraiths

Children are not inherently frightening. Beyond noise levels that some people don't tolerate well, or maybe a mess that looks like a violent crime scene, children really aren't all that scary. Maybe that's why they make particularly creepy wraiths and monsters?

I was thinking about this as I drove back from daycare this morning: I love the sound of children playing in summer -the shouts, the laughter, the noise of hurrying feet and the occasional wail when someone's knee hits the sidewalk, or little hands slip off the monkey bars. There's something both refreshing and reassuring about kids in summer. Maybe it's half-nostalgia and half-hope for the future. 

Children's laughter and voices where they don't belong, however, are entirely different matters.

In the house where I grew up on the north side of Chicago, my sister and I frequently heard children's voices. We'd hear singing. We'd hear conversation. The only problem is that we were the only kids in that house, we were older than the voices we were hearing, and we usually heard these sounds coming from an empty room. And believe me, there's nothing like a baby crying in the middle of the night to keep you awake: especially when there's no baby in the house and the cries are coming from somewhere in your own room. Did I mention that my sister and I shared a bedroom that once upon a time was the home's nursery? I still get a little bit of a chill when I think about some of those experiences.

Maybe it's the idea that death during childhood is unnatural. I know the idea of losing a child is a nightmare like no other I can imagine, as a parent or as a grandparent. The thought of a sweet, bright youngster being taken before reaching adulthood, before fulfilling all the potential in those shining, innocent eyes, is too dark to even contemplate. So maybe the wrongness of a child's death is what makes the idea of a child's ghost more, for lack of a better word, haunting.

And I know it's not just me. Hollywood has had a busy time with dead children, from "The Innocents" back in the days of black and white, to "The Other" as well as George C. Scott's classic movie about a dead child's vengeance, "The Changeling." (Try watching that one alone at night - I dare you!) Sometimes movie makers take it a step farther and turn children into complete monsters. "Village of the Damned" comes to mind, even though the late Christopher Reeve, discussing the remake he participated in, remarked that it was hard to act frightened of his little costars when the cameras were running because they were as cute as puppies. 

Nevertheless, there is something just a little bit more chilling about a child ghost, and I'm still trying to figure out the why's and wherefore's of it. Maybe thinking about it more will give me a better handle on it. Or even better, the idea for a book.