Then one day after Christmas that year, Bobby said to me, "Granpop’s buried over at Ebenezer Cemetery, isn’t he?" I said yes, although I was startled because Bobby had never been to his grandfather’s grave and nobody in the family ever mentioned it to the children. By now Bobby was thirteen, and a lot more aware of our family’s history.

At Easter Bobby went out there for the first time, and he walked right to the grave as if he’d always known where it was. He stood there, staring down at it for awhile like he was off in another world. Then he sat on the ground. Reaching out, he put his left hand on his grandfather’s gravestone and his right hand, palm down, on the grave. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes looked like he was in a trance.

I said, "Bobby why are you putting your hand there like that?"

"Because Grandpop hasn’t gone anywhere, Grandma. He’s close to us right now. I can tell by the way his grave feels," Bobby replied.

"By the way it feel!"

"Oh yes. He’s still in there."

"His spirit isn’t there now, Bobby."

"Something is. I feel it moving right under that sod, grandma. Rest your hand here," said Bobby, but I didn’t want to do it.

"I feel it," Bobby said again. He stared down at his hand, which seemed to tremble.

"That’s impossible, Bobby," I said.

"No, Grandma. It’s not," he said, looking up at me with a serious expression on his face. "I wish I could help him. He needs to go home."

When he said that, memories of my husband’s tortured, unhappy life flooded over me, and I wanted to just cry and cry. Home, I thought, what is home for somebody who was always as miserable as he was? Where do people like that go? Lord only knows!

Then Bobby put his head down against the grave. "Listen. I hear a deep voice like his. It says people who die a violent death can’t rest. Help him, Grandma, help him," he pleaded. His eyes were big and dark with anguish, and as he spoke the wind began to blow leaves across the grave.

Maybe it was the wind, or maybe it was something else, but there was suddenly an icy chill in the air. "Come on. It’s time for us to go, Bobby," I said. At first it seemed like he didn’t hear me. I was halfway to the car by the time he rose from the grave.

I don’t know if Bobby really heard my husband’s voice or felt him at the grave. The incident upset me so much I never asked Bobby about it again, and if Bobby has ever experienced it again, then he didn’t mention it to me. But last winter something made me drive out to the house that had seen so much tragedy. First time in over a year I’d been past it. It was a cold, drizzly day, and I don’t know what made me go out there. I went the way I always used to go driving down Highway 21, turning right when I reached Sweet Gum Road. Like I always did, I began to look over to the left after the turn. I knew I would see the old place soon. And all at once, there it was. It stood empty in the midst of the treeless, weedstubbled lot, paint peeling, windows glaring at me like red, evil eyes as they reflected the late afternoon sun. I looked toward the room where my husband died, and I was sure I saw a face in the window. I pulled off the road onto the shoulder. And then my foot must have slipped off the clutch because the car stalled.

An unreasoning panic shot through me. After repeated attempts to restart the car, the motor finally shuddered to life, and I accelerated with a jerk. I’ve never thought of myself as easily frightened, but that was my last trip to see the old place. Still, I can’t stop wondering how a house – or a presence in it – could effect people in such a deadly way.

THIS HOUSE IS NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC; PLEASE RESPECT THE OWNERS PRIVACY.