The Ghost of Oak Read online

  The Ghost of Oak

  By Fallon Sousa

  Published by Fallon Sousa at Smashwords

  Copyright 2013 Fallon Sousa

  Prologue

  The old woman clutched the gold locket that she wore around her neck. It was in the shape of a heart, and had an eagle emblem on it, which was her family's crest. It had been passed down from generation to generation to generation for nearly three hundred years, and had been given to her by her dear mother when she was a small child, and she had not taken it off ever since. Rumor had it that her great-great-grandmother, the first person to own it (a "crotchety old witch," as the neighborhood children had called her) had put a hex on it, cursing those who didn't have a right to touch it to their doom. That would never happen.

  Ellen McDonald had already made it clear in her will that she was to be buried with it. In addition to the curse, the locket held supernatural powers. If a member of the McDonald family clutched it for one solid minute, in their mind they would see flashes of the next life-altering event that would take place that day, and if the mind went blank, it meant that there wasn't one. This was not one of those days. Today Ellen predicted something all right, and that something-was her death. So, that was it. Today would be the day that old Ellen would finally kick the bucket, and be out of everyone's way. She was a lonely old woman with no family or friends, and when people would see her taking a stroll, her shawl wrapped around her, they would snicker, shoot glances at her, and call her names.

  She let go of the locket. Since her family was extremely wealthy, thanks to her ancestors' little spells, the pure 24 karat-gold locket was worth millions of dollars. Ellen's dear mother wished to sell it for extra money many times, but she simply could not, due to the unbearable wrath of the curse. Even though the family never took Carla's (Ellen's great-great grandmother's) ways for granted nor did they ever show disrespect for her, they all knew for sure that they never wanted the curse to be presented upon any living creature, not even their worst enemy.

  Sadly, magic was no more in today's world and without the supreme power in which Carla, their long deceased ancestor had once been gifted, the curse could never be lifted. So, the only way to hold back the curse was to keep the locket out of the reach of curious unknowing hands. So, since her children were long dead, (the locket had predicted their deaths as well as those of her husband, parents, siblings, friends, and numerous others). She had decided on being buried with the not-so-good-luck-charm.

  And with that, she began to feel a sharp pain in her chest. She knew what was going to happen next. She knew that her life was coming to a bitter end. She lay down upon her bed, as her life flashed before her very eyes. She saw brief memories of her infancy, her childhood, her youth, and her maidenhood, her early marriage, her motherhood, memories as a widow, and finally the most recent ones. Her head tilted off to the side of her pillow, and her eyes fluttered shut. That was the moment that she died. Her final hour-had passed. The last of the McDonald s was gone. The family chain was broken, A legacy was unfulfilled, the world's most powerful magic-was gone forever.

  But as Ellen's departed soul, standing above her bed walked toward the light, one problem remained. If Ellen had no one, who would come upon her corpse? Would her carcass decompose long before anyone found it? It-she thought of herself as nothing but an inanimate object, now that she was a soul. She would not stay behind in the living world, just to ease her woes. In being a member of a magical family, she knew all too well that becoming a poltergeist would not solve anything. She walked into the light that was calling her, and left her body behind.

  Her paper boy, Johnny Woods, cautiously approached her house. But today after tossing the sacked newspaper onto the old woman's lawn, he decided to sneak inside. He was a curious boy, but until that horrifying day that he would remember for as long as he lived, his fear had always overcome him, restraining him from proceeding to engage in the little adventures that he so longed for. Sadly, this time he would wish that his fears had kept him far away from the silly things that he wished to do.

  He knocked on the front door foolishly, as if an intruder would want to be detected. When no answer came, the child crossed his fingers for good luck, and turned the doorknob cautiously, just to see if it was locked. As it turns out, it wasn't. He crept into the old gambrel, hoping to make it out alive later that day. The house was spooky. The furniture was dusty, as if never cleaned, and the curtains didn't match.

  Old photo frames cluttered the walls, and the top of the mantel. The house was also adorned with various peculiar items, such as pentagrams and black candles and whatnot. And to top off the boy's increasing terror, an old grandfather clock chimed, marking the start of a new hour. More than anything, he wanted to run away, and forget about Ellen McDonald, and her strange old house, but now he was way too curious to do so. He wanted to check out the rest of the first floor, but a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that was telling him to go up the finely upholstered cherry staircase.

  So, one slow, cautious step, after another, he did. At the top of the staircase, there was a bedroom. He peeked inside. The furniture and drapery was just as drab and unsightly as that of every other room. Just when he was about to leave, he noticed something. There was an old, wrinkled up figure lying in the bed, as still and motionless as a statue. He walked up to the bedside, his heart racing and looked at the figure carefully. It was Ellen, and she was dead. He wanted to scream, but remained calm. He ran downstairs, and into the ugly old kitchen. For a wealthy old woman, Ellen had no taste or really any nice things at all.

  He grabbed the old French phone by the wire, and dialed 9-1-1 in a sudden panic. It wasn't that he was ever fond of Ellen, or ever cared about her, it was just that he had never came upon a dead body before, or had to report finding one. A scratchy male voice cracked on the other line.

  "Hello"? The man asked.

  "Listen, I'm a paper boy, and I snuck into a creepy old crone's house. It was unlocked. I started looking around, and I found her dead in her room. My name is Johnny Woods, and I'm ten years old. I live in Little Compton, Rhode Island, and the woman's address is 1534 Oak Street. Today is June 30, 1965. I'm really scared. Hurry!" The boy said in one breath.

  "Every thing's going to be all right, boy. We'll get somebody over there as soon as we can, just calm down." The man hung up.

  Johnny did what he knew he should, and he went outside and sat on the bottom porch step, waiting for the cops to get there. A few minutes later they did, and they went upstairs, hauled out Ellen's corpse on a gurney, and left. Johnny ran home to the comforting arms of his mother and father. Mr. and Mrs. Woods suggested that they attend the funeral, but poor little Johnny couldn't bear it, so they chose not to attend, and sadly, neither did any other living soul. So, Ellen's funeral was held privately, and she was buried in the cemetery with a plain stone and wooden coffin, bought with money from her estate.

  Slightly over four decades later, a group of rowdy men crowded a cheesy bar pondering the next crime they wanted to commit.

  "Why don't we go grave digging tonight?" suggested a middle-aged biker, who was just dying to concoct something that would prove his buddies chickens someday.

  "No way dude!" most of the men said at once.

  "C'mon, what are you guys chicken?" he snorted, quite pleased with himself.

  "No!" they shouted, and finally agreed to do what their pal said.

  They squeezed into their beat-up old pickup truck, and did 90 miles per hour down to the local cemetery, blasting heavy metal on the radio. When the crowd arrived at the cemetery, they jumped out of the pickup, and onto the sidewalk. One by one, they climbed the fence with ease, and began to search for a grave worth robbing. Then clumsily, one of the men tripped
on a grave. He looked at the engraving on the stone. It read:

  Ellen Mary McDonald

  1880-1965

  "Hey guys!" he yelled, addressing his friends. "My daddy told me about that old lady when I was a kid. His little bro was the dude who found her body. She was filthy rich.

  "Good choice." replied the brave man who had suggested this particular crime. "Looks like you're not so stupid after all." The "stupid" one growled at him.

  They grabbed their shovels and started digging. After about a quarter hour, the ends of their rusty old garden shovels scraped at a cheap wooden casket.

  "Doesn't look like she was rich," One man commented, eying his chum suspiciously.

  They opened the coffin anyway, revealing a skeleton in ratty black clothes. They had just thought that they were wrong about her wealth, when they spotted the locket, grinning and already eager to snatch it. The bravest one grabbed it fast, before anyone could back out of the deal. He managed to get to the sidewalk, before he keeled over, dead. The others stood behind, fixing up the crime scene the best that they could.

  When, they saw their friend/leader dead after returning to the sidewalk, they scooped him up, and threw him into the pickup, without noticing that the locket lay on the cement behind them. And then and there at 1:30 am that day, they drove off, never to be seen again. They probably fled to Mexico, or Australia after that, but nobody really knew for sure. But one thing was for sure. There would always be some kind of punishment for those who chose to mess around with that locket.

  Chapter One

  "Hey, Katie!" yelled Jasmine Thomas.

  Jasmine was Katie Smith's best friend in all of White Elementary School. Katie was ten, and in the fourth grade. Most kids thought she was a sissy, due to her ongoing fears of things that most ten-year-olds had long since got over. Any little noise or shadow was enough for her imagination to go wild, and she'd start freaking out. Once, when she was five, she got so scared of a mall Santa Claus, that she started to cry and ran back to her mother immediately.

  Despite this, her friend "Jazz" as she preferred to be called, always sided with her when someone made fun of her, and the bullies always obeyed Jazz as if they were in a trance, since she did come across kind of scary and tough, even though she had a gentle heart and made a great best friend.

  "Hey, Jazz, what's up, girl," Replied Katie.

  Jasmine laughed. "You sound so old when you talk like that, Katie. Like a teenager. I hope you're not turning into a popular girl! Are you? Hello, earth to Katie Marie Smith. Are you with me, girl?" Jasmine clapped her hand over her mouth, and apologized to Katie, who was still blushing tremendously from, Jazz's comment about her starting to sound like a teenager. She forced herself to stop and apologized to Jazz.

  Earlier that year, they promised each other that they would never be popular, try to be popular, act popular, or even look popular. Trying to talk like a teenager was against their rules, because popular girls tried to sound older than what they really were. Regardless of the fact that they had just broken their rules of friendship, Jasmine and Katie were glad to see each other at the end of the day, after a long day of not having all the same classes. Lucky for them, the kids at White Elementary got an extra recess at the end of the day, which allowed them extra playtime that they could use up chatting with friends, or running around the playground before they had to walk home, or get a ride from their parents.

  After the 3:00 bell, Katie and Jazz stormed out of the school, and into the playground. They thought that they would be safe for the time being, but Hank Crawford, a fifth grade bully, came up and started teasing Katie.

  "So, have you seen any monsters under your bed, yet, Katie?" The bully chuckled. It wasn't long before Jasmine stepped in, though. She got up and shook her fists at Hank in a threatening sort of way. He instantly backed off.

  Unfortunately for Katie, Jazz's mom came driving by along with other parents who drove their kids to and from school. Mrs. Thomas walked up to her daughter and urged for her to get into the car.

  "You don't want to go home late on the last day of fourth grade, do you?" She asked. Katie had completely forgotten! She had forgotten that it was the last day of fourth grade! How could she? Only she would do such a foolish thing as that. Katie didn't want her mom to get worried, so she decided that she'd better get started home, after all it was a pretty long walk to her house. She started home slowly, though, stopping to carefully peer at her surroundings before moving on.

  About halfway through her walk home, she stopped to rest on a park bench. Katie lived on 1534 Oak Street. She did not know much about her house, or why her family lived there. Just the story her father had told her. He said that he and Mrs. Smith had grown up in Wisconsin. They had met and fallen in love in high school, and they attended the same college in New York City. But, after college, they got married, and about a year later they found out that Katie was on the way. They didn't want their child to grow up in a busy city, so they thought about going back to Wisconsin, but they went on a trip to Little Compton, and they instantly fell in love with the town, especially Oak Street. At the time there was only one house for sale, and even though the former owner was rich, the price was low, because the house was old and abandoned.

  None of the elderly homeowners that inhabited the other homes on that street wanted to give up their house any time soon, so the Smiths just bought and fixed up that one. Katie took in a breath of fresh New England air, and looked at the world around her. Everything was so peaceful and serene. The sky was a lively shade of blue, and she could smell the well-kept green grass. It was a beautiful summer day. Katie wished that she could stay and watch nature unfold, but she had to get home before her mother grew worried, so she continued on her walk home. She could feel the heat on her arms as she crossed on to the next street, and it was nice. She stared at the crumbling sidewalk as she walked. Then, she looked up and realized that the local cemetery was several yards away from where she stood. She took a deep breath. She knew that it was silly to be afraid of a grave yard, and that she would have to get over it and finish walking home as she did every other afternoon, and besides she wouldn't have to go by this way again for the next few months.

  Luckily for her, there was a shortcut from her house to White Elementary, and she walked to school that way in the mornings, so she would not be late for school, but her mother insisted that she take the long way home, so that she could get some exercise and enjoy the fresh air. Katie had complained of her feet hurting many times in order to get out of going the long way (She didn't want to get into her childish fears with her mother.) ,but Mrs. Smith didn't fallfor the trick. Slowly and carefully, she took her first-next step. Then, she took more small steps. She was about to pass up the cemetery, when she noticed something shimmering under a small pile of grit by the cemetery fence. She knelt down beside the strange object and brushed away some of the grit. The object appeared to be some sort of necklace. Katie took a closer look at the object.

  It was a locket, and it appeared to be a gold heart with an American eagle in the center. It looked as if it had once belonged to someone rich, but it also looked very old, as if whoever owned it had bought it secondhand. Actually, it looked like it was way older than any antique that Katie had ever seen. It was probably something had been crafted in the 1600's at the very least. Though beautiful, it looked as if had seen hundreds of thousands of better days. Katie thought however that if she took it and cleaned it up like new, that maybe it would be worth money. If it was, she could sell it and buythe expensive bike that she wanted. Or, she could just keep it. Having a piece of jewelry like that was probably worth using her old bike. She would have to see about that, but one thing was for sure. She was taking it home with her. So, hesitantly and careful not to break it, Katie picked up the locket. Then, she happily skipped the rest of the way home. If only she knew what she was getting herself into by taking the locket home.

  Chapter Two

  Young Katie Smith got home severa
l minutes later, to find her mother awaiting her arrival by the front door.

  "What took you so long?" replied Mrs. Smith in an extremely discontented sort of way.

  Katie stood there, dumbfounded. She didn't understand just how to explain the situation to her mother. However, she took the courage to take a deep breath and say: "This." She pulled the necklace out of her pocket and showed the "loot" to her mother.

  Mrs. Smith examined the locket in her daughter's hand closely with an occasional frown or puzzled expression. "Where did you find this?" she asked, throwing yet another question at her daughter. Katie explained to her mother how she had come across the locket under the tiny pile of grit by the cemetery gates. Mrs. Smith agreed with Katie on the fact that the fancy locket was definitely worth loads of cash.

  "Do we have to sell it, Mom? It is very pretty, and I'd sort of like to keep it", Supplicated Katie.

  "Well, O.k., she said after a long period of hesitation. I suppose that there isn't really any harm in keeping it. All I have to say is that if you ever find out that someone is looking for a locket like that one, you will give it to them. Do you hear me?" Katie nodded.

  She understood that if she were to come across the locket's rightful owner, she would have no choice but to return it. She was also pleased to know that if she never did find the necklace's owner that it was all hers.

  "Katie, would you please help me get dinner?" That was Mrs. Smith Calling her daughter to help cook.

  Katie always enjoyed helping her mother with dinner, ever since she was a little girl, and she hoped to become a chef someday. Her father would be home from work in about an hour, and he expected his dinner to be ready every single day, the minute he walked through the door. It was his one annoying tendency that no one could ever change. Katie walked into the kitchen, where her mother stood over the stove, stirring a pot of soup with a wooden spoon. Katie instantly got out some lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, carrots, and tomatoes, and spread them out on the table. She got a big glass bowl from the cabinet, and tossed a salad. She didn't add the croutons or the dressing yet, though. If she did, it might get soggy, and if it got soggy, Mr. Smith would be quite unhappy with the meal.