Published: March 19, 2010 01:24 pm
Editor’s note: The introduction to “Your Story,” Volume II, takes place in an empty farmhouse in eastern Centre County, where the heroine and her husband are doing a walk-through with a real estate agent.
The heroine isn’t interested in the house until she comes upon a mysterious door at the back of the stairway landing.
No one had mentioned the door or what could possibly lie behind it, so the heroine turns the doorknob to find a cramped hallway with an oval window. A window that hadn’t been visible from the outside of the house.
The heroine ventures into the hallway, which has small, bare rooms on either side – possibly servants’ quarters from another time.
Outside the mysterious oval window, the heroine sees snow falling, not on the trees and fields outside the house, but on a city street.
Not able to believe what she is seeing, the heroine looks again and realizes she is looking upon Johnstown, where she had grown up.
In Chapter 1, Melissa, the heroine, is looking upon the Johnstown scene through the secret window she has discovered when she sees a bank sign flashing Feb. 20, 1975.
Intrigued, she rips the window open and climbs into her past to find that no one can see her – no one but an eerie young girl who tells her this place isn’t real.
This strange world isn’t from Melissa’s memory, but the past comes to unnatural life.
The girl tells her there is something she must see before even thinking of buying the Centre County farmhouse that seems a universe away now.
Melissa shakes her head and turns to go back to her own world, but the window has disappeared.
Chapter 2
BY SHANE MCGREGOR
Melissa wheeled back around, fearing the worst from her creepy new acquaintance.
She was surprised, however, to find those wide, icy eyes blankly looking back at her.
“Come on,” she beckoned. “I’ve got something to show you.”
They walked side by side in silence, the little girl one step ahead of Melissa so as to guide the way across the gray landscape of the Flood City.
The occasional passersby offered not even a wink in their direction.
The dirty soup of melting snow and laying gravel crackled on the sidewalks beneath their feet.
The silence became too much for Melissa.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
The little girl paused before answering.
“Oh … not too far away,” she replied.
“Just right … up … there.”
Her thin, icy finger stretched out in front of her, pointing toward the upcoming intersection a half block away.
“Cedar and Sparrow. The last place I ever saw in Johnstown.”
The words barely entered Melissa’s head before she froze at the sight in front of her.
A mirror image of the little girl strolled up to the intersection, pausing diligently to look both ways before crossing the street.
But the closer the little girl came, the more Melissa noticed something different about her.
Her floral-printed blouse and jumper were brighter, more lively, than the gloomy aura of Melissa’s temporary tour guide.
The cheery little girl was half-skipping down the sidewalk, smiling and humming a sing-song tune under her breath, when the van pulled up.
Dark gray, rusted, and creaking, the large van rubbed against the curb as it pulled up to the little girl and a window rolled down.
A scruffy voice, barely loud enough for Melissa to hear, called out to the little girl on the sidewalk.
“Sweetheart, I think I’m lost. Could you help me with some directions?”
The little girl paused, carefully surveying the situation, before telling the man she could.
“Oh, why thank you, sweetheart. I’m looking for Franklin Street …”
“That’s easy, mister – just keep going over the bridge,” the little girl piped up in response.
“What’s that you say?”
“Just keep going over the bridge, mister, it’s right over the –”
“I’m sorry, honey, my hearing is bad in my right ear – I’m an old man, you see. Would you mind stepping a bit closer?”
But the two little black shoes didn’t even make it to the curb before the passenger door swung open and a large, powerful hand grabbed the little girl by her tiny arm and yanked her into the van.
Melissa yelped in surprise just as a blood-curding scream unfurled from the little girl’s throat. The passenger door shut just as quickly as it opened, and the gray van sped off through the intersection.
Mortified, Melissa turned to the gloomy little girl still standing on her left.
“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! What did they do –”
But the little girl beside her did not jump, did not scream, and did not panic at the sight – a moviegoer who has already seen the film.
“Take my hand,” the girl replied calmly.
She led Melissa over to the closest house on the street, an old brown box of a thing that had been abandoned for years.
Her pulse couldn’t help but quicken as the little girl cracked open the creaky door with one twist of the doorknob.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the little girl, expressionless.
“Just come in.”
Melissa closed her eyes as the little hand pulled her into the musty darkness.
Still shaken from the sight she had just witnessed, she wasn’t sure she could handle what might be waiting inside this house.
But the creaky, splintered floor that she expected to step onto never appeared.
“Is this grass?” Melissa opened her eyes at once, and the brightness of the scene surprised her.
This wasn’t a creaky old house in Johnstown.
Fifty yards ahead of her, a ramshackled farmhouse stood in the fading light of the sunset.
The house looked rundown and rustic – but familiar. Melissa turned to the little girl, hand still locked with hers, and was just about to speak when she recognized the house in front of her.
And just as she and her husband had done a few hours ago, an old, gray van rolled down the gravel driveway and parked next to the old farmhouse.
Writing Chapter 3
The Tribune-Democrat and the Centre Daily Times of State College are collaborating to bring another “Your Story” to the region’s writers.
To submit an entry, pick up the story thread where it ends today and take the story forward.
Submit your entry for Chapter 3, up to 700 words, by noon Friday.
Entries can be e-mailed to Renée Carthew, Features Editor, at rcarthew@tribdem.com; sent by fax to 539-1409; or mailed to The Tribune-Democrat, 425 Locust St., P.O. Box 340, Johnstown, Pa. 15907-0340.
Judges at each paper will pick two finalists each week and send them to an independent panel of judges that will pick the winner.
The winning chapter and a short story about the author will be published in both papers on April 4, and then the process will begin again.
The goal is a five-chapter story, and how it proceeds is up to you, the readers.
The ongoing story will appear on The Tribune-Democrat’s Web site – www.tribdem.com.
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