Many people had been seen going into Mrs. Watkin’s old house on Elm Street.

But no one had ever been seen leaving–at least, not alive.

It was mostly children that tried to go into the old house, late at night of course.  Adults were too busy, had far too many important things to do to go trampling up the old wooden stairs.  Even when they did trample up there, adults like delivery men and the occasional census taker, they didn’t even touch the bronze hand dangling from the center of the door.  They pushed the doorbell instead, shrieking when the deep tones of a organ bellowed through the street.

But one night, very close to Halloween, a child–well, she wasn’t a child.  Nor was she an adult.  She was stuck in those terrible in-between years, where one must deal with adult issues without winning adult freedoms.

And with a name like Isadora Grey, she had a worse time than most.

But that all changed, the day she climbed up to Mrs. Watkin’s porch.

***

It started out like just any normal fall day.

“Isadora!” her grandmother shouted, banging her cane on the floor.  “Isadora!  If you don’t get downstairs this instant, there will be no party at Helen’s tonight!  Do you understand me?  No party, no costume, no nothing!”

Isadora appeared at the top of the stairs, rolling her eyes.  “Grandmother, I’m 14,” she replied wearily, clomping down the steps.  “I need time in the mornings.”

“You’re 13,” her grandmother snapped.  “The only thing you need is a new attitude.”

“I’ll be fourteen on Halloween,” Isadora challenged.  “That’s in a few days.  So really, I’m 14.”

“14 or not, you need to eat your breakfast and get to school,” her grandmother replied.  “Get busy.”

Isadora dutifully sat down and poked at her soggy cereal.  She looked up at the only parent she had ever known.  “Grandma, what do you know about the Watson’s on Elm Street?”

“It’s not the Watson’s,” her grandmother corrected automatically.  “It’s the Watkin’s.  And you have no business going there.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” her grandmother snapped.  “Eat your breakfast.”

“But why is everyone so scared of it?” Isadora pressed, taking a bite and grimacing.  “Why does no one go in there?  Why does no one come out?  Why is everyone so afraid of a abandoned house?”

“Because many children have disappeared,” her grandmother whispered.  Her eyes were staring off into the distance, her hand trembling on top of her cane.  “They go in one day…and never come out.”

“But why?” Isadora asked, tapping her spoon against the bowl.  “Wouldn’t the police do something about it?”

Isadora’s grandmother rubbed her arms, standing and picking up Isadora’s bowl of untouched cereal.  “Let’s get you to school.”

It wasn’t only curiosity burning a hole in Isadora’s stomach on the way to school.  She had never seen her grandmother look so dazed, so terrified.  A traffic light spooked her, a honking horn made her jump out of her skin when normally she would have shook her fist at the other driver.  Even a loud commercial on the radio made her leap in the driver’s seat.

And all that made her grandmother quite cranky.  She lurched to the front of the school, slamming on the brakes.  “Get out,” she growled to her granddaughter.  “Get to class.  Study.  Learn.  Get a scholarship.”

“Only if you tell me why you’re so scared of the Watkin’s house.”  Isadora crossed her arms, ignoring the trilling school bells outside the car.

“You’re going to be late,” her grandmother snapped.  “Go on.”

“If I’m late now, a few more minutes won’t hurt,” Isadora replied truthfully.  “So tell me.”

Glancing around, her grandmother pressed her withered lips together.  Tapping her gnarled fingers on the steering wheel, her blue eyes stared at Isadora.  “Do you swear you’ll go to school if I tell you?  Immediately, without argument?”

“Yes.”  Isadora leaned forward.  “What is it?   Why is everyone so scared?”

Her grandmother sighed and forced the stick shift into park.  Turning off the radio, she leaned back in the driver’s seat and stared at the windshield.  “When I was a girl, children weren’t as protected as they are now days.  We ran wild after school, going to the soda shop, the picture show–wherever we pleased.  There wasn’t any real danger, and the town was so small everyone knew us.

“Around Halloween, this time about fifty years ago, when I was 15–just a few years older than you–the children began to disappear.  At first, the police thought there was a serial killer.  The children always vanished at night, just as the sun went down.  There was no trace of them–no shoes, no torn backpacks, no ripped shirts or misplaced hats.  They would just be gone.  The only connection was every child lived close or on Elm Street.”

“Well, the police set up stakeouts in the area–one across the street from the Watkin’s house.  The day before Halloween that year, the police watched a boy and his friend play outside the house on the sidewalk.  One of the boys dared the other to knock on the door–to swing that ghastly, garish gold hand.  So the boy did.  To his amazement, the front door cracked open.  The police couldn’t see who was behind the door, but they could tell someone was talking to the boy.  And then the boy walked into the house, and the door shut behind him.”

“The police didn’t like that at all.  So two officers went in–one to get the little boy home, and one to scoop out the house.  Just like the little boy, one of the officers raised the golden hand, letting it fall against the old wooden door.  Across the street, another team of policemen watched.  The door cracked open, just far enough to speak, not far enough to see in.  The policemen went in–and never came out.  Hours went by, and finally a whole day.  Terrified, the police chief sent in two more officers on Halloween.  They raised that terrible hand, the door opened and they went in–and never came out.  It took five more officers before the police chief finally called the National Guard in.  They surrounded the house and yelled for everyone to come out.  Finally, they broke down the door and rushed in the home–just to find there was no one inside.”

“Well, the guard tore the house apart, searching for clues.  There was nothing.  No bodies, no people, no evidence anybody had ever come in.  The house was immaculate, not a scrap of dust or a single spiderweb.  They even searched the backyard, thinking perhaps the criminals were hiding people out there.  Nothing.”

“So the National Guard left.  That night, at midnight, the Watkin’s house was blazing with lights.  Every room was lit up, and music poured out of the windows and into the street.  Shadows moved in the house and people say they could hear laughter, as though there was some sort of party going on.

“But the scariest thing was the woman—the woman standing on the front porch.  One man said she was wearing a long black dress and had long thick black hair. “

“And holding her hand, standing right beside her, were the missing children.”

Her grandmother turned to her, her blue eyes wide.  “Don’t ever go into the Watkin’s house, you hear me?  Nothing good happens in that house!  Now go to school.”

Meekly, Isadora unbuckled her seatbelt and kissed her grandmother’s cheek.  “Goodbye, Grandma.  I’ll see you after school.”  She slid out of the car and threw her backpack over her shoulder, shutting the door behind her.  Her grandmother watched as she pranced into the building, waiting long after the school doors had closed before she drove away.

Isadora wasn’t concerned about being late to class anyway.  She had a new plan in mind–to find out what was happening in the old house on Elm Street.

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!  Tomorrow we have a delicious recipe and Friday, a new Twirl!  Then we have a new creative woman of the Pond!  Stay tuned!