The Ghost of Oak (5 page)

       
When Katie finally did relax, her mother accompanied her
downstairs to the kitchen, and allowed her to help out with dinner,
regardless of her previous misbehavior. After all, she had just
encountered a ghostly being from beyond the grave. Although she did
think that the existence of otherworldly presences was possible,
the thought occurred to her that perhaps it was "just her
imagination." Either way, she had a serious problem that needed to
be solved.

        
At dinner, the two ate silently and solemnly. There was no
talk of anything, whatsoever. All that was on their minds was these
strange apparitions. Mr. Smith did not eat with them, for he was on
a business trip just as usual. Mrs. Smith was lost in thought. She
knew that she should notify Katie's counselor of the latest
hallucination. But, something was nagging at her.

       
This entire fiasco was off-color. No, she thought. They could
tell the counselor about this later. Katie's mother was going to do
a little research on all this locket biz. She was going to dig up
the dirt about this pesky old poltergeist. And she was going to
start her search now!

     
Later that night, long after Katie had gone to
sleep, Mrs. Smith opened up her laptop. Then, slowly and
hesitantly, she pressed the ON button underneath the screen. Just
seconds after it turned on, she double-clicked the Internet
browser. The concerned mother typed several keywords into a search
engine called Find It!

    
These included ghosts, lockets, curses and
numerous others that by half past midnight she had lost track of.
Mrs. Smith searched and searched and searched, but her endless
searches all came up empty. She didn't know enough information
about who the old woman might be, or anything about her. All she
new was that the old lady ghost had something to do with the
locket. But, come on! How many grannies out there had one locket or
another? She sighed deeply, then went off to bed.

      
The young girl's mother had, for the most part,
given up, and with much pain, tried her best to accept that her
daughter was either making this up, or was seriously troubled. It
would only be a matter of time before she had a nervous breakdown,
the poor kid. But, what could she do? Nothing, thats
what.

That next morning, Katie was
sulking in her room. For what seemed like hours, she twirled the
ends of her light brown hair. Then, for about twenty minutes, she
bit her fingernails, something that she couldn't do in her mother's
presence.

   
"Idleness, child!" boomed the familiar voice of the old lady.
"Go and help your mother!"

    
Katie, startled, looked up at the ugly specter
with haste. "Leave me alone! Double-cross, ghost get lost!" Mrs.
Smith came running into the room with tears streaming down her
face. She embraced the little girl knowing deep down that the only
option would be to have her admitted.

     
Old Mrs. McDonald's gaunt apparition remained,
though to Katrina's eyes, only air was between her and the closet
door. "And by the way, thats not how the silly rhyme goes." Katie
looked up once more and stuck out her tongue, before her wreck of a
mother struggled to carry her downstairs.

      
"You wouldn't DARE!"

      
Mrs. Smith turned around, for the first time
seeing the spirit. She quickly put her sixty-five pound daughter
down (which did much good for her arms) and in a daze, she reached
for the cordless phone and dialed 9-1-1. Katie wished that she
hadn't done so. Now, everyone was going to think that not only she,
but also her mother was insane.

      
Everything was a blur until the police came. They
were, of course, unable to locate an intruder on the premises.
Unshaken by the worthlessly pathetic trip, they left. The ghost,
now proud enough to be seen by all, stalked back and forth across
the floor like she owned the place.   Technically, she had,
just over forty years before.

      
"Honestly, Katrina. Why don't you just ask Andrew
what's happening; he knows all about it? After all, he is my
great-grandson.”

     
Mrs. Smith had had enough. She picked up a phone
book from the coffee table and threw it at the crone. The woman's
image disappeared, then returned almost in the same spot as before.
She knew that she had to listen. After all, she had suspected him
of knowing something herself. So, the poltergeist told her
story:

    
" If you looked back into my records, you would
find that my children had passed before me." She paused. " But,
that isn't completely true. Our first daughter was illegitimate, so
she was given up for adoption promptly after her birth. I was
already accused of being involved in witchcraft, which was true,
and I didn't need anything to add to it."

    
Katie and her mother were listening intently as
she continued.

" For years, I didn't know where
she was. Then, just days before I died, she had wrote me a letter
telling me that she was a grandmother. Her next grandson,  
born a few years later, was the man you both know well."

"That doesn't solve our problem,"
Katie replied curtly. The hag smiled a ghostly smile and said: "Let
me speak."

They waited what seemed like
forever. The clock ticked in the background of silence as they,
along with the nonphysical being, stared at the walls, lost in
thought. Finally, she was ready to go on.

   
" My great-great grandmother put a curse on it, dooming those
outside of the family who touched it, to death. That's what
happened to one of the men who helped raid my
grave."

    
Now it was coming into place. So, that was why it
was lying astray by the graveyard.

   
" They left right away to only who knows where; took the body
with them. And that's where you found it." She glanced towards
Katie, then continued.

   
" I know that since you're part of the family, you're
supposed to have the right to keep the necklace, but you are just
way too young and that thing can kill. Don't get too involved and,
I repeat, DO NOT in any way try to get those thugs in trouble.
They're dangerous."

   
"What do you want us to do then?" The youngster
questioned.

  
" I
want you to return it to where it came from." And with that, she
vanished.

     
That night, Katrina drove her daughter to the
cemetery, parking the car near the sidewalk. Little Katie retrieved
her small sand shovel and started digging a small hole in the
corner near the tombstone. After forty-five minutes or so, she
reached the top of the coffin, and next to it a small pit. She
stuffed her hand into the pocket of her shorts and grasped hold of
the necklace. Hesitating, the girl slowly dropped it down the hole
forever. She struggled to cover up the hole herself, then gazed at
it for a moment. Then, turning to meet her mother halfway to the
car, she looked back at tjie stone and whispered:

   
"Rest in peace, Ellen Mary McDonald."