When I was 25 my father passed away suddenly. My siblings and I were all adults, and living on our own. My parents still lived in the place where all of us were raised when my father passed. It was way back in the country and about a 30-45 minute drive from town.
My mother didn't drive as she had never learned to. So now she was living on her own and decided she should move closer to town. So she found a place in walking distance of everything she needed. All of us kids helped as much possible when she needed to go somewhere but she liked the idea that she could walk to the store whenever she wanted. Some kind of independence for her I suppose.
After she lived there for a little while, I moved across the street from her. I felt better knowing I could keep an eye on her. I lived by myself so we hung out a lot.
On my nights off from work I would go over and we would just talk or watch movies, just spending time. One night while hanging out we got on the subject of paranormal things. I asked her if she had ever experienced anything growing up that she couldn't explain or that she thought may have been a ghost... Anything of that nature. She started to tell me stories about her great Uncle Albert.
She was a child and he was much older. Family talked, and she heard that Uncle Albert was crazy, he was mean, something was wrong with him. She was confused as to why they would say that. She liked Uncle Albert. He was fun when he was around. Played with the kids in the family. Her, her sister, and a few of her cousins all around the same age liked to go around where Uncle Albert was.
At the time, when all the children were so young, they didn't realise that the things Uncle Albert did were not things everyone else could do. It wasn't scary to them, they had fun with him.
She went on to tell me that when family members would say these bad things about Uncle Albert, they would also say he had (what I can only assume was a term used either by only her family or back in the old days as I had never heard of it) a "rapping spirit." Of course, as young children they didn't know what that meant.
While I was already getting a little creeped out, I still had to ask what kind of things he would do that caused the family to label him as they did.
Uncle Albert wasn't married and since his parents had passed, his younger sister, Alice, had taken over the mother role for him and made sure he was taken care of. Even in their older age.
So they would have get togethers at Aunt Alice's house. My mother told me about how when they were small children, Uncle Albert would pick them all up and place them on the kitchen table in the house of Aunt Alice. While they sat there Uncle Albert would wave his hands around and the table would begin to (what she described as) dance around.
The kids would laugh and try to hang on to each other. To them it was a fun ride and nothing they thought to be strange. The adults, however, didn't like it and would yell at him to stop that nonsense. I thought, well maybe he could just maneuver the table somehow and to young kids, it was "magic" then she told me another story.
When she was a little older, too big for a ride on the kitchen table, she sat next to her mother as Aunt Alice told her mother (my grandmother) how she was so upset with Uncle Ablert for something he had done the day before.
Aunt Alice was washing laundry (not a task back then that was as easy as it is for us now) when Uncle Albert came in and asked her to make him some chicken and dumplings. Aunt Alice was busy and told him she couldn't do it. He kept insisting she stop what she was doing and cook for him. He told her "I'll go kill and clean a chicken for you and you can make me some." Repeating her answer of NO he got upset with her and said "FINE".
He opened the front door and stormed into the yard. As Aunt Alice peeked outside to see what he was going to do, this is what she saw. He walked out into the yard, out stretched his arm and waved his hand slowly from one side to the other. As he dropped his arm, every chicken Aunt Alice had roaming in her yard dropped dead.
The last thing she told me kept me from going home that night. Maybe she wanted to scare me so I would spend the night, I don't know, but if so she sure knew the trick to make that happen.
She was much older now. One of her cousins, a few years older than her, but one that use to take the kitchen table rides with her as youngsters, had gotten married. Soon she was pregnant and so very happy.
The day came for the baby to be born. She went into labor and everything seemed to be going good. The baby was finally born but things were not as good to be expected. The baby was stillborn. As soon as the dr realised this, he gave the little girl to a nurse and rushed her out of the room. He the explained to this new mother that the baby had not made it through delivery. Her husband, the father, demanded his wife not see her baby dead. She asked a few times but nurses would make excuses.
She fell into a very deep depression. She told my mom and other family members that she didn't know what bothered her more, that fact that the baby had died, or that she never got to see what she looked like.
By this time Aunt Alice and Uncle Albert were much older. Family talked of how old age had only made Uncle Albert even more mean, doing things they could not believe anyone would ever do.
Once while visiting Aunt Alice with my grandmother my mother said she saw Uncle Albert do one of the meanest and scariest things she could recall ever seeing.
My mother's cousin had also came with her mother to visit Aunt Alice. They were all sitting around talking about the baby when Uncle Albert came in. He sat and listen to the ladies talking for a bit when he jumped in the conversation. "You want to see what your baby looks like?" he asked. Everyone grew nervous but desperate she answered with a "yes."
Uncle Albert went into the other room and brought out a small chest, a piece of paper, and something to write with. He place the paper and pencil in the chest and closed it. He waved his hand over the chest and it started to dance around, just like the kitchen table had when they were kids. When he dropped his hand he told her to open the chest and pull out the piece of paper. On the paper would be a drawing of her baby girl and then she would be able to finally see what she looked like.
She opened the chest, pulled out the paper and looked at it. She soon dropped the paper, screamed, and started crying. Uncle Albert started to laugh as he got up and walked out the door. When my grandmother picked it up and looked to see what was drawn on the paper her first reaction was "Oh My Lord!"
The ladies passed around the paper and were equally shocked. My mother said when she looked at it, she was immediately terrified. It bothered for years after that and she never went back over to Aunt Alice's house again.
"What was it?" I asked.
"At the time" she said "I would have described it as the devil but now I would say if it wasn't the devil, it was for sure a demon."
I don't know what was up with Uncle Albert. How he did the things he did, or why? But I do know that story scared the hell out of me and I didn't stay at my place alone for about a week.
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