Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-4893169-20141118060220

''“Beginning around the first snowfall in early November, people began to find snowmen in their yards, with no idea of who exactly had made them. At the same time, everyone began to find keys in their mailboxes, in sealed, unmarked envelopes.”''

Hailey Ueland considered what she just wrote, and then stared out of her bedroom window. In the early morning stillness, a smooth sweep of newly fallen snow covered the ground, disturbed only by the hummocks of hidden bushes and the skeletal shapes of trees.

Suddenly, from behind her, there came a muffled thump— rather like the sound of a small bag of potatoes falling. She glanced behind her. A mammoth Maine Coon plodded on thick paws from its perch on the rocking chair at the end of the room. It sniffed disdainfully at a small black and white kitten browsing at a food bowl before shoving it aside.

“Rumpole!” Hailey exclaimed, getting up. “Don’t be rude!”

Scooping up the squeaking kitten and taking down a box of Purina Kitten Chow from the shelf, she shook the contents of the box into another bowl on the desk.

“Go ahead, Boots,” said Hailey before returning to her diary.

''“I didn’t used to believe in ghosts. In the continuation of a restless spirit that persists long after death. Now I know better. Not everybody goes gently into that Good Night, especially when they’re burning for revenge for an unnatural death.

''“Even innocuous objects can signal the impending approach of a horde of restless angry dead.

“Even seemingly ordinary objects such as keys and snowmen.

“I remember it happening like this…” 

The aroma of baked potatoes and fried catfish lingered in the heated kitchen of the rather ornate farmhouse near Brereton, North Dakota. Fifteen-year-old Hailey Ueland stood at the sink, her gold-flecked hazel eyes focused on the TV rather than on the dishes she was supposed to be finishing.

She had the TV tuned to Animal Planet and was watching the latest episode of Bad Dog! This featured various animals behaving badly and still getting unconditional love from their doting owners.

Outside, the wind whipped through the surrounding trees. The bare branches rattled and shook, sending showers of fresh snow over the previous, powdery layer covering over the ground.

Down below, she could hear her parents clattering around in the basement as they cleared away the remaining clutter left behind by her great-aunt Ramona as well previous generation of Uelands.

Great-Aunt Ramona was known to be an eccentric, a cigar-smoking, outspoken woman who amassed a vast treasure trove of souvenirs in her years as a photojournalist working for National Geographic.

In the weeks following her death, rumors still circulated that she maintained a really extravagant private lifestyle, surrounded by riches and luxuries from the Orient and the Middle East, that she lived on piles of hoarded, hidden money, and it was even claimed that she was even a witch who derived much of her success in life from a pact with the Devil. None of these rumors held much water though. Sure, Ramona Ueland had accumulated hundreds of exotic objects and antique relics, although it wasn’t to Aladdin’s Cave or Collyer Brothers proportions. Yeah, she was rich, but it was the result of shrewd business and investment successes with no help from Mr. Scratch, and even though Ramona was a borderline cat lady, she certainly wasn’t odd or crazy enough for witchhood. In this Northwestern corner of North Dakota, where catfish fishing and baseball reigned supreme, there were plenty of other candidates that fit witchery/crazytrain category.

Unfortunately, as Hailey would soon come to find upon moving to Brereton, a few of these mental cases lived down the street from her and rode the same school bus. 