A woman moves into the county’s most famous haunted house and the children think she is crazy.
A big U-Haul truck was parked outside the haunted house. Someone was moving in! Tommy Henderson, who lived across the road, immediately reported it to other children in the neighbourhood.
The haunted house was about to be repopulated for the first time in 20 years, which meant that the curse was about to be reactivated and a horror was about to rule the streets! That was what Tommy had hoped for!
Tommy, Reggie and Harley look through binoculars for birdwatching through the fence of Tommy’s grandmother’s house. The U-Haul men carried boxes of belongings and furniture covered in blankets, but nothing particularly exciting.
“Look,” said Tommy, “whoever bought this house must be crazy or…”
“Or what?” – Reggie asked anxiously.
Tommy stepped closer and whispered: “Or that this person is in alliance with the dark forces!”
Reg’s eyes grew even bigger. “You think? My mother says it’s a woman from Cincinnati…”.
“What you don’t know, Reg,” said Harley, “is that when the Salem witches escaped, they escaped to Cincinnati… CINCINNATTI – do you get it?”
At that moment, an old, battered car stopped in front of the haunted house, and a tall, thin woman with long black hair got out. “She looks like a witch,” thought Reg. The woman started talking to the U-Haul men and looked disgruntled.
Then she suddenly looked over her shoulder. “What are you children doing there?” – she asked sternly. “It’s not polite to spy on people. This isn’t a show!” The three boys jumped out from behind the bushes and ran towards Tommy’s house.
“How did she see us?” – Tommy asked, his heart pounding in his chest. “We were behind the hedge!”
“A witch’s vision!” – whispered Harley.
“I want to go home,” said Reg, who was trying not to cry.
At that moment Tommy’s mother walked in. “What’s going on?” – she asked.
“The lady from the haunted house was shouting at us!” – complained Tommy, “And we were just watching…” He didn’t tell his mother that they were looking through binoculars hiding behind a hedge. Tommy was not confused.
“How dare she?” – shouted Tommy’s mother, “I was going to go over to her house later with a pie, but now she can forget it!”
Word soon spread that the woman in the haunted house was arrogant and rude and shouted at the children, so the usually friendly neighbours ignored her.
A lady whose real name was Alice Harrow could show some kindness and say a few welcoming words. Alice had recently divorced her husband, with whom she had lived for 12 years, and who had told her that he did not want the child she was carrying in her womb.
Alice didn’t think she wanted children either, but when she found this little person growing inside her, she knew she had to meet him or her. So she divorced her rich husband and received a tiny allowance.
In fact, the only house she could afford was an old ruin that nobody wanted because of an old story. But Alice was a journalist, and a good one, so she did a little research and found out that there were no ghosts, no murders or zombies in the house’s past.
Many years ago there lived in this house a nasty man who treated his family badly, so one by one everyone left, even his wife. The ghost story comes from the fact that towards the end of his life the man was standing at the highest window and looking out onto the street.
As a result, the silhouette of a man in the window became a ghost haunting the house, and the price of the property dropped. This did not bother Alice. She bought it cheaply and intended to do the restoration herself.
Kindness overcomes all barriers and heals all misunderstandings.
At first Alice felt very lonely. She had no family and her friends were dispersed all over the country. None of her neighbours showed any interest in getting to know her.
Then, one afternoon, Alice found a black kitten stuck on the roof of her porch. She lured it in with milk and immediately adopted it. She did not know that everything she did was carefully controlled.
Tommy, Reg and Harley were convinced that Alice was an evil witch, and when she adopted a black cat, that was the deciding factor for them. They spread the word, and now all the children in the neighbourhood knew that a witch lived in the haunted house.
Tommy was walking with Reg and Harley when they bumped into Fred Solinski, two streets down. Fred started asking questions about the witch and then said: “I bet you three pee your trousers just by looking at this house!”.
“No, we don’t!” – Reg said bravely. “Tommy touched the fence once!”
“The fence!” – laughed Fred Solinski. “I bet my new skateboard that Tommy won’t touch the front door!”. A huge argument broke out, with both sides saying “would” and “wouldn’t”.
Finally they decided to meet at midnight at the haunted house, where Tommy would prove once and for all that he was not afraid to go in and touch the witch’s porch.
They all managed to slip out of their houses and lurk by the fence, while Tommy cautiously made his way inside. Step by step he approached the porch until suddenly he was there!
Tommy reached out and touched the wall of the house, then turned to run, at which point everything went wrong. Tommy’s leg seemed to buckle under him, and the other boys heard a strangled cry.
At that moment a strange white figure crossed the garden and headed towards Tommy. “Run, Tommy!” – shouted Fred Solinski, who had forgotten he was the bravest. “RUN!”
But Tommy couldn’t run, his leg wasn’t holding him, so he waited and saw that the figure was a witch in a long flowing white dress. “Please!” – shouted Tommy, “Don’t kill me!”
Alice knelt down beside the boy and touched his ankle. “I’m not going to kill you,” she said calmly. “But your ankle is badly twisted. You need a doctor.”
Tommy had to give Alice his mother’s phone number, and it turned out to be a very interesting conversation that promised many limitations in the future for Tommy. Alice then called 911.
She also went to get ice for Tommy’s ankle and held his hand while they waited. Tommy liked it a lot. Alice was cool. She told Tommy she was renovating the old house for her and her baby.
“But aren’t you afraid of the ghost?” – Tommy asked.
Alice laughed. “No, Tommy. The only ghost here is the ghost of anger and fear, and I think we’ve just banished it!”
So they did. As soon as the neighbours knew the truth about Alice, they all got to work to help her repair the house, and one of the biggest helpers and closest friends was Tommy Henderson.
