Large Fierce Mammal

If my parents did hire a professional, I know she didn’t look like this because, even at the age of three, I would have remembered.

I was three when my parents bought the house on Lunenburg’s Cumberland Street where I grew up. It was a Cape Cod style house located in the “Old Town” section, and had been built in the late 1700’s or early 1800’s. The perimeter of the house rested on a foundation of whitewashed native slate, its center on a massive, cavernous stone bake oven that at one time was used for the purpose its name implies. My parents kept the entrance blocked up with a purpose-built wooden door to prevent drafts and only once was I ever inside it. My father one day caved to my youthful spirit of exploration, and we both stood inside for a while, wondering at the days when such an appliance was a necessary item of daily use.

Because I was so young at the time we took up residence, I have no firsthand knowledge of the strange events that disturbed my parents nightly, beginning after darkness fell on their first night in the house on Cumberland Street. I learned of them long after I reached school age, one night at our kitchen table, with both my parents as contributors – something came several times nightly, up the cellar stairs, and stopped at the door. It never came in or touched the latch, and when the door was opened suddenly, an act that would have sent anyone standing there careening back down, nobody was there.

My parents consulted the previous owners but came away with no more explanation than that it was a noise the old furnace sometimes made, which was all well and good except the furnace wasn’t running and the number of steps heard exactly matched the number of cellar stairs, every single time.

Ever the precocious child, meaning in this case “curious and persistent to the point of driving all about to the brink of insanity”, I inquired as to why, after so many years, I had never heard the footsteps myself. What caused them to stop? My father and mother exchanged the kind of glance that all children come to recognize as parental reluctance to to be truthful, and then my father replied that when the new furnace went in the sounds stopped, leading everyone to the conclusion that the explanation provided by the prior owners had been right after all.

I never learned the complete truth, but I do have a theory. My parents did something, or caused something to be done, that fixed their problem.

As a child, I was very aware of the all pervasive belief in my town in witches and enchantments. My family lore contains all manner of procedures designed to identify and thwart the efforts of a witch, and several citizens were occasionally spoken of in hushed tones as being practitioners of the dark arts who could be retained to assist those afflicted by evil designs and unwanted spirits. For example, a man I only ever heard referred to by the name of “Boo” Oxner was known to be a skilled wart charmer, employing magick to remove and keep away persistent eruptions of what was then a common ailment. Something I only learned of after his death because that was the first time anyone would speak openly of him. I learned he plied his craft on the condition that his methods never be disclosed under penalty of the worst plague of warts imaginable, not only for the whistle blower but his entire family as well. Even though his skills were mentioned after his death, and several people of my acquaintance — my Father included — admitted to having been his successful subjects, none would take the chance of speaking a word of what he did to them. Boo being a specialist, I doubt it was him, but I have always suspected my parents eradicated the cellar dweller with professional help of the kind one knows better than to speak about.

I’ve already discussed some of this lore as well as the hold the old ways had on Lunenburg, my father, and the people in general who lived there during my childhood, in a previous article published here on 6 September 2008 titled Musings as Hallowe’en Approaches. Clicking on the title will take you there and I invite you, dear reader, to give it a glance, whether first, second, or tenth. You will also learn a few things about why I am the way I am.

Sweet dreams.