"I know where we're going," said Michelle.
We got to the bottom of the hill, and the bridge was blocked off anyway. I said,"Well, I guess we have to turn right regardless."
"I seem to recall this last year, too," Michelle said.
Paul shook his head. "How long does it take them to fix this bridge?"
"When I was eighteen, they did some repairs on the Morgan Bridge uptown, and it took a whole summer," I said.
"It's already been way longer than that."
We drove up Main and turned at the fireman statue....All of these streets and buildings I'd grown up with. Just outside of Slatington, along 873, I said,"Up here. On the left. There's a church, and then the cemetery."
Michelle pulled in, and I got my camera out. I said,"Here we are. The people who built Grandpa's farm in 1836 are buried here. You guys can stay in the carf or come along with me; either way."
"I'm coming," said Paul. "Let me get my sneakers on."
"I'm coming, too," said his little friend Rylan.
We climbed out of the vehicle. I said,"We're looking for Newhart or Newhard. It's been since before you were born, Paul, but I was here years ago researching the family. I remember them being back this way, toward the back."
We walked across the cemetery together. The graves were about where I remembered them, way back to the far end of the cemetery. Newhart. The family who'd built the farm I'd grown up on.
I spotted two of the graves---Eva, thre mother, and her baby. They'd both died in 1922, very close together. I said,"Paul, see this?"
"Yeah."
"When you see a lot of close dates like that, especially young people, it tells me something You have your phone? Look up '1922 epidemic.' Wait, I'm going to guess it's Spanish flu."
Paul got out his phone. "Nineteen twenty two.....Epidemic?" he asked me.
I nodded. "Yep."
A moment later, he said,"That's right. Spanish flu."
"That explains a lot. If the farm is haunted, these two are possibilities. A mother and child who died of Spanish flu together. Come on, let's get back to the car. Next stop, Grandpa's."
The farm was the way I"d remembered it. It always was. We got out, and my brother was at work, standing by the barn.
I hugged him. "Hi, Jon."
"Glad you made it safe. Hey, Paul, you're looking good!" This was Jon's way of mentioning that he'd noticed Paul's new glasses without actually drawing attention to the glasses.
Paul grinned. "Thanks."
"We've got a present for you. It's down in the house. I want you to learn how to play it."
"So," I said,"It's either a game or a musical instrument. Amy around?"
"She's in the new barn."
I walked over to the new barn, where my sister-in-law Amy was manning the counter, selling jams and giving away hot chocolate. I was wearing my sweatshirt with a ghost drinking coffee. It had warmed up a bit, so I was able to get away with my black puffy vest. I'd basically dropped the vest look, but I still loved this one.
I hugged Amy. "Got a present for you."
I handed her a paperback book with an orange cover. "Ghost Stories of the Lehigh Valley," by Adams.
"Oooh, thank you," she said. "I like reading this stuff."
"My brother told me you were asking about local hauntings, and I thought this one would help. It's used----I was actually going to buy one on Amazon, and then I realized I had an extra in my office. I'm pretty picky about my ghost books, but this guy is good. I met him once; I had a booth next to him at the Albatwtich Festival a couple of years ago."
"Thank you," she said. "I never got much sense that this place was haunted, but...."
"Dad used to tell me stories," I said. "Once he told me one about a shadow figure in the meadow. And when he moved in, he said there was a sound on the stairs like a ball bouncing down."
"Now that you mention it, I do remember him telling that one."
"I was never sure just how much of this was real, and how much to entertain me as a kid."
Amy grinned.
I said,"I'm sort of keeping an eye on reports lately. In times of national crisis, there tends to be an upswing in activity. Not sure if that's actual, or just people being under stress and misinterpreting stuff. But there's no denying we're under national stress right now."
"No, there's not."
"So with President Asshole tearing down the East Wing, and the 250th anniversary of America coming up, I'm watching to see if there's an increase in paranormal activity. Particularly along historic lines. By the way, that reminds me---We stopped at the cemetery where the people who founded this farm are buried."
"Where's that?"
"Behind the church up along 873. I did the research almost twenty years ago."
She nodded. "Okay, I know that one."
She nodded. "Okay, I know that one."
"It looks like you have two people on the farm who died of Spanish flu. So that could be a possibility."
"People have died in the house?"
"Hell, my mother died in the house."
"Oh, that's right."
"So there may be an increase in the next few months. Let me know."
Miles, the family beagle, watched as I walked around the kitchen with my EMF detector, taking a few readings. I wasn't getting anything much yet. Paul loved Miles; the two had been born very close together, and had grown up together. My brother had gotten Miles as a puppy when Paul was only a couple of months old.
"Is that your ghost detector?" Dad asked me.
"More or less. It's an all-in-one EMF detector---It detects electromagnetic fields, but also does temperature. It's nice when I don't want to be carrying around a lot of different pieces of equipment." I was willing to talk about ghost-hunting in general, but I wasn't about to start explaining EMFs to a retired electrical engineer.
The place had nothing, EMF-wise. Which I'd about have expected, offhand. Dad would have the house wired up very professionally, which meant my baseline would be zero. Which was, in its way, good news---Any flicker was likely to be something unexplainable.
Paul and Rylan were eating the pizzas Michelle had heated up for them, and Miles was lurking about in the hopes he might manage to get some, too. I walked outside.
I looked around the farm, not as it is currently, but trying to view it as it would have been in 1836. This was harder than usual; while I could easily see this stuff in Clinton County, this wasn't some historic site---This was just the place I'd grown up. It took some effort to get myself into the right mindset.
The barn was odd. I'd never noticed it before, but the barn was a much older architecture than I'd realized. I was used to barns being double-level and having some sort of ramp access to the second floor, which would have been typical of the late 1800s. This one didn't have that, which put it much older---Previous to a lot of the large farm equipment that would have existed later.
The house was definitely pre-1840 design. I'd never noticed that as a kid, but now it jumped out at me. The house, the springhouse, the old servant's quarters---My room had once been the old servant house. It was now connected and part of the main house, but it hadn't always been. I wondered who the servants might have been. I could maybe find that out if I could get my hands on the census records.
No EMFs near the house or the barn. I walked down across the yard, looking around. This was the place I'd grown up, the place I'd basically begun. My origin story. Generations of people had lived here, and I was one of them. One of these days, I was going to visit for the last time, and I'd never even know it. One of these days, one of us was going to be the last sibling alive. Odds are it wasn't going to be me.
I knew there was an old well down in the forest near the old pond. I'd discovered in in the woods when I was a kid; it was likely older than the house. I walked down that way.
The pond, in which I'd tried to catch water monsters when I was young, was largely overgrown these days. I could see the old well through the trees. I walked around a bit, waving the EMF detector.
There. A flicker---It rose a couple of points and then went back down.
"That's more like it."
No power lines nearby. No reason there should have been a reading here. I walked around, circling the well, getting spikes here and there. Settlers in those days would likely have dug the well before they'd even constructed the house---You need water before you need shelter, and crops and cattle weren't going to wait around until you'd constructed your living room. So as I investigated, this would be a hot spot.
Of course---The story Dad had told me about the ghost in the meadow. The stream began up here and ran down that way. This was all connected with that one small waterway; if I followed this stream down, I'd end up in the same meadow. I'd investigated that a few years ago, and got a photo we couldn't entirely explain.
I walked back to the barn, where Amy was making a wreath. She asked me,"Find any ghosts?"
"Well, maybe," I said. "You never do know."
"So, what did you learn in the cemetery today?" I asked. I was sitting in the Jeep, two Christmas trees tied to the roof, doing my annual panicking for the entire trip home.
"Nothing," declared Paul.
"Nothing? No?"
"Oh, wait....Yeah. When you see the same year a lot, check for epidemics and stuff."
"Especially in younger people. You got it."
"Are we stopping for dinner? I'm getting hungry."
"We'll stop as soon as we see a good place," said Michelle.
About half a mile down the road, Paul made the kind of discovery that he likes to make.
"Look! There! A Taco Bell!"
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