On an unusually cold night late in September, a fire was built in the Coreman’s living room fireplace by Mr. Coreman. All three members of the family basked in the warming glow of the flickering flames and talked without the distraction of the television’s numbing influence as families used to do many years ago.
To their horror the unmistakable image of a child crying and writhing in agony appeared in the fireplace! They sat frozen; unable to move while the ghastly image continued on for many moments until it slowly faded and disappeared. In the 17 years they had lived in the house nothing even remotely unusual like that had ever happened before. Transfixed on the flickering tongues of hypnotic fire; no one spoke for many minutes. Mr. Coreman swallowed hard and managed to break the silence first. "Did any of you just see what I thought I did?"; his voice quavering. The question was an unnecessary one judging from his wife and son’s expression but he hoped it was only him so he could pass it off as a hallucination or anything logical. In the universal way which people are quick to support each other in tense times and say: ‘you aren’t alone.....we’re all in this together’; his family reassured him that they had witnessed the same chilling vision. Now that it had been confirmed by the others Mr. Coreman felt bother better and worse. They all went to bed immediately after extinguishing the fire even though it was quite early. None wanted to sleep with it burning.
The family got up early the
next morning because the house was cold and all had slept restlessly. Around
the breakfast table everyone was quiet; not daring to speak of the previous
night’s supernatural event which weighed heavily on their thoughts. Mr.
Coreman excused himself and announced that he was going into town to visit
the library.
Michael blurted
out; "Dad, is our house haunted?"
"Of course
not."; he replied uncertainly.
He hardly knew how to
begin finding out what he wanted to know so he started by researching the
house’s history in the library records. Most of what he found were things
he already knew but one very promising piece of information made his efforts
worthwhile. A small child had disappeared from the house many years ago
and was never found. While he couldn’t directly tie that incident to what
his family had witnessed the night before it was too significant to just
be a coinicendence. A footnote directed him to a related microfilm file.
The librarian helped him load the film from the town newspaper microfilm
archives and he scrolled through it until he found the article.
The headline from that year dated 9-28 read:
"Local child disappears without a trace".
The story went on to report that the family searched in vain for
their 4 year old daughter after discovering her missing. The father had
been out hunting game to provide their supper and the mother was outside
doing various household chores. The child had last been seen inside where
she was playing with her doll. The frantic mother explained that she had
only allowed her to stay inside because the girl had a sore throat and
she didn’t want it to get worse. Periodically the mother checked on the
child while chopping wood and she had been fine. The father arrived home
and took over the wood chopping while the mother went inside to prepare
their meal. When the meal was done she called her husband and daughter
to come and eat. When the child didn’t come after being called several
times they both went through the house searching for her. As the search
became more frantic the local sheriff was brought in. The search party
looked for the girl until darkness set in but not a single shred of evidence
turned up.
It seemed to the authorities that she had disappeared without a
trace. Many theories arose but there was no evidence to back any of them
up. At first the sheriff believed she had been kidnapped for ransom but
no request for money was ever received. Later the sheriff amended his theory
to include the possibility that the girl had been kidnapped by a couple
who couldn’t have any children and wanted to keep her as their own. An
investigation was conducted and all potential suspects were questioned
but with no evidence there wasn’t really any more the law could do.
A connecting article from 2 weeks after the first story revealed even more tragedy. It read: "Local couple with missing child killed in accident". A brief review of the prior story mentioned the missing child and the parents futile search for her and went on to explain that they were accidentally hit by a truck and killed instantly while crossing the street. With no one left to benefit from it’s effort, the investigation into the girl’s disappearance was formally deemed "inactive".
Mr. Coreman read the article several more times and had a copy made to take home for further study. He showed it to his wife who read it with similar interest and enthusiasm. After reading it out loud only once she noticed what her husband had missed several times.
"Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the little girl’s disappearance! Didn’t you notice that?"
She grinned at her husband’s propensity to survey the entire "forest" and not notice "the individual trees" in front of his face.
"Why you’re right!"; He exclaimed.
"There’s no way that could be a coincidence."
He smiled at his huge oversight.
"I wonder why in the 17 years we have lived here it hasn’t happened before?" "How should I know? This is my first haunting too!"; He laughted.
Michael Coreman; who had overheard his parent’s entire conversation from the next room, showed wisdom from beyond his 12 years of age.
"Mom, I heard you say that it was unusually cold for this time of year and that Dad was going to build a fire to help warm the house. Maybe we’ve never had a fire on that day because it was never cold enough to need it in years past!"
Their son had hammered the facts squarely on the nail and they knew it.
By that
time they were all too excited to pass away the experience as just being
another day in their lives. After living in a house for 17 years without
any other occurrences of that sort; either in the fireplace or elsewhere;
they knew they were not in any danger.
Mr. Coreman concluded that for the child’s spirit to be inhabiting
the house, the sheriff who investigated her disappearance all those years
ago must have been wrong.
"She never left this property"; he surmised. "but the old floor plans for the house didn’t seem to offer any place for her to have went that the family and the authorities could have overlooked."
"Maybe the child wandered outside and fell into an open well."; Mrs. Coreman suggested.
The property diagram showed the old well to be quite a long distance from the house on the side by a steep embankment. When the located it they were disappointed to realize it was too small an opening for even a child to fall into. It had been the type where a narrow hand pump enclosed the top so the water could be siphoned out. With their hopes dashed the Coreman family went to bed wondering if they would ever know the secret.
While the three of them slept an identical vision filled their unconscious minds. They could see the events of the past as if each of them were a spectator to that day 75 years earlier. The child was coughing and playing with her doll by the fireplace, trying to keep warm in its heat. She accidentally dropped her doll in the fire. In her panic to ‘save her baby’ she leaned forward to retrieve the doll but lost her balance and fell in the fire herself. She screamed and writhed in agony as they had witnessed before in front of the fireplace but this time they could actually hear her unanswered screams for help. The vision ended and they were jolted awake with a clear understanding of what they had to do. The three went downstairs to search around the fireplace for the remains of the missing child. Earlier they just assumed that the image in the fire had only been a "window in time" and had nothing to do with how the child actually died. It didn’t seem to make any sense to them that her body could have been overlooked among the ashes or that it might be still nearby after so many years but the vision had been unmistakable.
Deep in the back of the fireplace Mr. Coreman discovered something he had overlooked all these years. There was a narrow opening at the back of the fireplace floor that led to a vertical pit for ashes to be pushed into for later removal from the outside of the house through a small trap door. He had noticed the small metal door at the bottom of the fireplace wall several years earlier while trimming the bushes that bordered the house but had forgotten about it. Since central heat had been installed in the house they only used the fireplace to supplement the house’s heating system on cold nights. On those rare occasions they simply swept the ashes into a dustpan from the inside and emptied them.
"Could it be that the ash pit outside hasn’t been emptied since the girl’s disappearance?"; Mrs. Coreman asked her husband incrediously.
"As unbelievable as that may seem, it probably never has been! Remember the girl’s parents were killed in the accident 2 weeks after her disappearance and the house has been vacant ‘til we moved in here 17 years ago. I’ve never emptied it because it never even registered with me that there was one."; he explained.
If their neighbors had been watching they would have witnessed a very strange sight; all three members of the Coreman family digging around outside in the bushes in the middle of the night. Mrs. Coreman held the flashlight while her husband and son dug through the ashes. After removing 2 buckets full Mr. Coreman found a chain that had both ends going down into the cinders. He pulled it, not knowing what to expect. After a little resistance the rest of the ashes came up on a platform at the bottom of the pit, obviously built to aid in emptying the fireplace pit. Curled up among the cinders in a fetal position was the remains of the child that had been missing for more than 75 years now. The mystery had finally been solved and there was but one thing left to do; to put the child’s restless spirit to rest. Mr. Coreman notified the authorities of their discovery and turned over his library archive research about the house’s past and the information regarding the missing child. He was careful to avoid mentioning the image in the fire they had all witnessed and his family’s simultaneous dream vision. He didn’t want to try to explain the supernatural elements of the story to the sheriff because the basic facts were enough and he didn’t need the entire town thinking they were all crazy.
The fact that they had all witnessed it with their own eyes was enough for them. After the Medical Examiner verified their findings the case was closed and the county arranged for burial next to her parents. The night after the burial the Coreman family was given another dream vision but this time it was of a much more cheerful nature. They saw the girl reunited with her smiling parents and they were hugging each other after their long separation. With tears in her eyes the mother turned to then and whispered "Thank you". No further explanation was necessary to interpret the fact that they were together again in the hereafter.
Now every September the 28th the Coreman’s build a fire to commemorate
bringing together the lost family. And they ALL lived happily ever after!
Other English Authors
Homepage
The Questioning Way
Guestbook