It was December, 1982 in suburban Minneapolis. Typical temperature in the teens. Cold enough for snow, there just hadn’t been much, so the frozen ground was a miserable brown and green mixture of grass and leaves that escaped an autumn raking.
It was my first night home after the college exams. The plans…to go out that night with high school friends. Everyone’s first night back. Check out our usual haunts.
For some reason, we ate in our dining room that night. It was brothers Kevin, Pat, and my parents. Plenty of room at the normal dinner table, but Mom chose full-on dining room. Kevin lived an hour north and was staying for a few days. Pat lived in Minneapolis and would go home after dinner.
I don’t recall what was on the menu that night, but Mom, aka Norma, was a very good cook. As long as she steered clear of liver and onions, it was going to be delicious. I sat at one end of the table, opposite my dad. Next to me, on a small table in the corner was something I’d never seen before. An Amaryllis.
A peculiar, foot-tall plant with a bright, lily-like white flower. Something out of Dr. Seuss. “What is this plant?” I asked. Mom went on to tell me what it was called, adding, “They’re really hard to grow…” What I remember was that you needed to put it in the dark for a while, then somehow it would grow and produce a single flower the size of my hand. My only comment after that was, “That is the coolest plant I’ve ever seen.” The story would be a little crazier if, at that moment, a rooster crowded in the distance. A biblical way of punctuating the importance of my statement.
After dinner, friends picked me up and we went out for a few hours. It started snowing and snowing and snowing. By the end of our night, everything was covered with a few inches. When I got dropped off, I wasn’t surprised to see my yard, driveway, and walkways pristine in their coverage of the white stuff. What did surprise me was that the garage door was still up.
The routine for my going out at night was that I entered the garage through a side door, and then into the house. The open garage just meant walking straight up the few feet of driveway and into the garage. I’d enter the family room, directly behind the garage, where Kevin would undoubtedly be watching TV and I would join him.
So about 10 minutes later, I wasn’t completely surprised when there was a knock at the front door. It was winter’s first snow, so car-things happened. Kevin assumed what I did. “They’re your friends.” I was surprised when I went to the door and there was no one there. Not much that I could do, so I just rejoined Kevin in front of the TV. “No one there.” I guessed some kids were having a sleepover, so me come home and decided I was fair game.
Things got annoying with another knock minutes later. A distinctive sound. To be more accurate, a hollow sound from one of the small, double-paned windows on the side of the door. This matters because it’s the only place from where this sound could emanate.
I turned on the outside lights, that illuminated the entire sidewalk and porch, running the length of the house (not a small slab). Interesting. Still pristine. No prints, no snowballs. Nothing. Checked the storm door on the 1% chance it was banging the wind, of which there was none. Advised Kevin, “Door’s locked and there’s no marks in the snow.”
“Tell me about this ghost again,” said Kevin.
A third knocking.
You see, stuff had been happening around the house for a few years. I can’t say they were happening to me, per se, because it was just my parents and I that lived there. Everyone else had grown up and out of the house. Lots of noises, a few lights turning on for no reason, and once I thought I heard someone whisper my name. Easily labeled coincidences, but after a while where’s there’s smoke…fire.
This time was different. There was a witness and there was no way to explain the lack of footprints. Remember, no one else was in the house, except for sleeping parents.
So, like what was now becoming clockwork, another knock. Six knocks. The same number of knocks every time. Knuckles on the shadow box window next to the front door.
This time we both got up and went to the door. Kevin turned on all the outside lights, like I had, and he also turned on the foyer light where he and I were standing. He looked out the front door. Out of the corner of my eye, something drew my attention to the living room on my left.
“Oh my god, Kevin, Mom’s plant!”
Twisted, like a rung out piece of wet clothing, broken in half, the coolest plant I’d ever seen.
