The mystery of the old house across the street
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- March 10, 2024
- 1281
We live across from an empty house. For six weeks I’ve watched for signs of life, the flutter of a curtain, a dim light slowly brightening a room as the evening rolls through the street. The steps leading up to the porch are unswept and overgrown, despite an old broom leaning against the door frame.
We took down a blind in the small, narrow window that looks out on the street from our bedroom. I crept out of bed for my regular 3 a.m. bathroom run (we don’t play games at 55 years old) and peeked out the window. No lights in sight in the forlorn house across the way, the scraggly trees making twisted shadows under the streetlight. I shivered, did my business and crawled back into bed where it was warm.
I read too many Hardy Boys mysteries as a kid. My heart for sleuthing has never died, and today Zillow can give you most of the information on a house situation that you’d ever need. Our house was built in 1921, but the empty house across the street was built in 1902, has 1,484 square feet and is assessed with more property taxes than us despite having a smaller lot. I wonder if it was one of the first houses on the block as a new century dawned.
All I want to know is the story behind it.
We watched a movie several weeks back called “We Have a Ghost.” I had hesitated to watch it because there’s nothing worse than a poorly done ghost story. But this movie — it blew us away. An endearing story of a family going through hard times that purchased an old, rundown house for a song. Of course there’s the ghost of a man that is trapped in the attic who needs to be released. We laughed, cried, and the movie stayed with me. Its essence was pure.
I am in no way saying the house across from us is haunted, though I have scanned its windows as darkness falls, hoping for a glimpse of something. Anything. Maybe I need to take a walk around the block and view it from all angles. A walk would be nice, and maybe we could meet more of the neighbors that actually live on the street — the one with the loud truck that works on it 24/7, the family with the kids I can hear playing outside, perhaps the house that has a rooster that crows all afternoon.
There is much life on this small city street including the bells of St. Joe’s church that have been serenading us on the hour this Lenten season. We got carryout from their fish fry the other week where we caught a glimpse of the people that live here, eat here, enjoy fellowship here. The fish was fire — firm white chunks of lightly breaded goodness, the best fish I may have ever had.
It feels like home here on this quiet little street off Tuscarawas Avenue, the history of the area poking and prodding me to delve into it. I’m holding myself back until I settle in more, maybe after spring comes and I mow the yard, getting a feel for its different seasons. Once you mow and see your property — and those around it — you fall into a deeper sense of where you are and how you might fit in.
The mysteries of our little street are calling me, and I will heed them. Maybe I’ll screw up the courage to ask around about the house. Maybe I’ll go knock on the front door and see who answers. Or just maybe one night I’ll get an answer as I’m padding barefoot to the bathroom, the one catty-corner from our bedroom. Sometimes the answers we seek come in the dead of night.
Melissa Herrera is a published author and opinion columnist. She is a curator of vintage mugs and all things spooky, and her book, “TOÑO LIVES,” can be found at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives. For inquiries, to purchase her book or anything else on your mind, email her at junkbabe68@gmail.com or find her in the thrift aisles.