The House on the Square

Miss Abby had married at sixteen and been widowed at eighteen, her brief marriage ending after a tragic hunting accident that was to leave her childless and bitter. She retreated to the house on the square, barring the door and shuttering all the windows, refusing entry to all who called except for Mr. McIntyre who delivered a cardboard box of food and staples each week. He set the box by the front door, knocked and went away and the next morning there would be a white envelope taped to the front door of the old house - it contained payment for the delivery and the next week's list - never anything more or anything less. Twice a year, he arranged for three cords of wood to be delivered and stacked in the back yard and each summer he made sure Mr. Melanson came and mowed, otherwise he knew nothing of what went on in the house on the square.

As the years passed, the rumors flew. Abby had gone simply and quietly mad with grief, some speculated while others suggested that she was biding her time and planning revenge on the hunting partner who had taken her young husband's life. Still others wondered if she wasn't practicing witchcraft, dancing naked and surrounded by demons that she would release onto the small population to drink blood and steal the breath of cradle bound infants. The more practical minded islanders, Mr. McIntyre among them, dismissed the wild rumors and those that spread them with contempt - if Abby wanted to live in seclusion and was harming no one, it was nobody's business but her own, Folks'd be a sight better off if they was to tend their own business, he told his customers sharply, Woman's got a right to live as she pleases.

There being no shortage of eccentricity on the island, people eventually moved on to other things - Willie Foot's escapades and Old Hat's war against the world provided constant distractions - and the house on the square as well as it's mistress were set aside. After some ten years, the paint was peeling, the foundation had settled somewhat crookedly, the roof sagged and the veranda had begun to disintegrate. Could the woman hidden inside be suffering from any less neglect, Mr. McIntyre wondered. Then unexpectedly, a construction crew from the mainland arrived, set up shop and within a month had put the house right again - the mystery of Miss Abby was reawakened as there had not been a single sign of her during the process. Mr. McIntyre, moving more and more slowly and thinking more and more about retirement, still made his weekly deliveries and kept his silence, until one rainy afternoon, at his usual knock, the door of the house on the square swung open and a voice - young sounding, strong and clear -summoned him him. He was a sensible man, practical minded, as he liked to say, but the sight of Abby standing at the foot of the stairs in a long, dark dress with hair to her waist, was unnerving. Half in shadow, half in light, she beckoned to him, I don't mind sayin' it give me a shock, he told people, She hadn't aged, not a day. 'Course I knew it were a trick of the light, she's bound to be nigh on 70, but I declare it set me back apiece. And that was all he would day. Despite being besieged by questions and hounded for days for details of his visit, it was all he would ever say.

In the afterword to his unsolved mystery, "The Colorado Kid", author Stephen King wrote "I ask you to consider the fact that we live in a web of mystery and have simply gotten so used to the fact that we have crossed out the word and replaced it with one we like better, that one being reality. Where so we come from? Where were we before we were here? Don't know. Where are we going? Don't know. It's crazy to live with that and stay sane, but it's also beautiful. I write to find out what I think ......maybe it's the beauty of the mystery that allows us to live sane as we pilot our way through this demolition derby world....."

Not every question has an answer, not every mystery has a solution. Miss Abby's grave is unmarked save for a very small stone plate in the ground - the only thing carved into it is a single question mark.