the haunted house

one time i had a dream that i had to spend the night at a haunted house.

it was christmas eve. bubbles and i had gone to spend the holiday with my mother's side of the family, the wulfnoths. they had an enormous yule log in the main fireplace of the house, and everyone, all 20 of us, had gathered around it to sing christmas carols before dinner. while we were there i heard a bell ringing in a distant room. at first i didn't really think about it because bells are sometimes part of the festive scenery at christmas. after a while, in between stuffing myself with pig trotters on potato flatbread with beetroot and mustard (not mine - the wulfnoths have their own family recipe, which i completely respect in every way).  it caught my attention and i began to wonder about it. i asked bubbles if he heard it.

bubbles said that he did notice it, but figured that uncle edward had some kind of contraption set up to ring the bell from a distance. after we finished singing it was time for dinner. we had reindeer stew. while we we first picking up our silverware auntie sigrid said she heard that bell ringing again this year while we were singing. auntie sigrid isn't really one of my aunts. she's related to the wulfnoth's by marriage on the other side of their family. she's been around so long, however, she's more wulfnoth than most of my cousins who are so by blood.

auntie sigrid was clearly amused but never broke her old fashioned imperial manner. she asked me if i heard it. when i told her that i did she told me of her first visit to the wulfnoth's for christmas. when she heard the bell ringing during the songs she thought it this must be a very rich family with servants to ring bells in distant rooms to each other. i asked what the bell ringing was.

"a ghost." said auntie sigrid. bubbles dropped his fork when she said this. it had a piece of carrot on it. uncle edward laughed. i asked whose ghost it was. everyone answered at once. some said they didn't know. others said it was woman. then everyone agreed it was a young woman, and they agreed that they never really figured out who it was. the conversations broke down into little groups around the table as they talked and reminisced about the ghost.

uncle edward, who was at the host's place at the table, asked me if i had heard of our cousin harold lately. i told him about the on going wedding preparations and the case of the missing silverware after harold's last visit. uncle edward nodded knowingly. he told me the last time harold had visited they had locked up the silver and the jewelry. however, they never thought of the nails in the garden shed. harold had made off with the jars filled with loose nails. "the godwinsons were always crazy about metal." uncle edward chuckled.

then the conversation turned general again to everyone at the table.  cousin delling's girlfriend astrid told us about her work this summer on a ligonberry farm. she told us that she would like to make her own ligonberry jam but that she had to go back to university and didn't have time.

my aunt natalie, who is married to uncle edward, asked me if i had tried the mustard. i told her that i did, and that it was exactly as i remembered it from years ago. she told me that she had worked very hard to reproduce the flavor exactly as it had been prepared when she first joined the family. she told me about the mistakes she made ("but they were delicious" her daughter -cousin majvor- interjected) over the years trying to learn. she told me that her mother in law (at whose mention auntie sigrid rolled her eyes) had been very outspoken and like to berate her at family occasions about the mustard failures. i said that her mustard mixing was of the highest form and that many professionals would never have her ability. the wulfnoth mustard is brown, more broad on the palate, and less tangy than many mustards. we talked about ingredients and mixing tools. my younger cousins were probably bored by this, but they had to endure it because the wulfnoth traditions are very clear that mustard is a solemn affair and etiquette requires silence and attention when the mustard is being discussed.  this is a considerable difference with the caulkins who are much more experimental with mustard and therefore less reverential in tone.

cousin delling asked bubbles if he was excited for the annual arrival of the christmas moose. bubbles said more so than the christmas bell ringing ghost. bubbles asked delling if he was enjoying university. delling said that he was but he was also eager to be graduated. he wanted to work for a trust that was preserving lions in south africa after university. bubbles told him that he should try preserving them in india instead, and was going to start bragging about role as a beach d.j., but delling told him that he had a position lined up through a friend.

after the christmas pudding (i made it myself. i told them it was an old caulkin recipe that i had learned -but really got it from a poetry cookbook that bubbles had given me for my birthday last year), we exchanged gifts. this is my least favorite part of the celebrations each year. i hate the materialism of the season.

after the gifts were given we decided to go to bed. uncle edward left a bowl of porridge with an almond on top on the table. i was going to go to our room and lock myself in. i had never stayed here on christmas, and didn't want to let the ghost in the room to haunt me. however, my uncle edward asked me to help him lock up the house. so he and i, as well as the valet, a hall boy, and bubbles my pet-fish, went around the house with a lantern and a pole closing and locking the doors. we also dimmed the lamps down to almost completely dark. while we were locking the front door uncle edward started to reminisce about some of our dead relatives. i was going to tell him this was getting creepy, but i figured it was christmas and naturally we miss our departed loved ones, so i said nothing of the sort, and responded when he mentioned people that i actually knew - like my mother, for example.

"families are strange institutions." he said to the valet. "they always seem to be getting larger, but in fact they are always growing smaller."  this was something cryptic and yet seemed simple and unarguable. i wondered if uncle edward was thinking of his own mortality. bubbles was about to say that the abolition of the family was one of the major goals of the revolution (he told me later) but suddenly we saw an ethereal creature dart across the room and down the hallway. it was a floating feminine being in contemporary clothing. you know, a t-shirt and jeans. it was the ghost.

uncle edward was disturbed because it delayed him from reaching the kitchen so he could lock the last door to the outside. he also wanted to check on the rubbish bins and make sure that they had been locked up. he didn't want skunks or racoons or even a bear to get into them like last week. this would have to wait until he sorted out the ghost matter. he also said he hoped that she didn't fly into the christmas trees and knock them over. bubbles suggested that we put sheets over our heads and try to talk to her. uncle edward told the valet and the hall boy to bring us some extra sheets and then to go to bed. when they brought back the sheets the hall boy said that he wanted to see the ghost. so, uncle edward allowed the valet and him to stay with us.

the next time the ghost flew by, she told us that our costumes were a pretty sorry fake and that we should invest our money in oil paint. bubbles said that he would call his broker when the holiday was over. she floated above us in the room. this was called the cairo room. it was filled with oriental carpets and various objects and furniture from the levant.

uncle edward decided to finally ask her who she was. he started by telling her that even his grandfather knew about her. then he said that she always kept up with the current fashions and that baffled him. lastly, he asked if she was under a spell or a curse that needed to be broken for her to be released. he said if she told him who she was maybe we could help her.

she said there was no help for her. there was no release until doomsday. uncle edward asked if she wanted to tell her story. at that she became very angry and asked if he wanted to explain what he was doing there. this was her house. she had been here long before him. uncle edward said that since he held the deed and the keys to the house it was his house. my pet-fish bubbles started to denounce primitive accumulation, but the ghost silenced him. she said she wasn't scared of his end of the world cult rubbish. then, the valet said that the meek shall inherit the earth, which surprised everyone, including the ghost. we turned and looked at him. he shrugged his shoulders and said "at least that's what scripture says."

then uncle edward asked the ghost if she was happy in her hauntings. before she could answer there was a tremendous rustling noise in the main dining hall. all of us rushed down the corridor and through the various rooms to see what was going on. there was a lot of stamping of hooves. when we reached the dining hall we saw the xmas moose there in all of his splendor. he was wearing his red coat and a green cap. his antlers glistened like gold. he wished us a good yule.