Strange Days

The first time I heard about Mothman, I was about three years old. It was  before I could read, at any rate.When the famous illustration appeared in the paper (probably attached to some retrospective, probably titled "whatever happened to Mothman?") my sister gleefully embellished it with dripping red fangs.When I asked her to read the story, she demurred, saying it was too scary, but since that excuse has never worked with any kid ever, I pressed until she relented.

 She said that Mothman appeared to people driving late at late ("when they've had too much to drink" said mom, from the kitchen) on long dark roads. He'd fly alongside the car, staring in at them with glowing eyes. I immediately imagined the road to our grandmother's house, which was just like that, and shivered. Oh, they were all quick to say that that Mothman wasn't real, it was just hallucinations and whatnot, but I wasn't so sure. I'd already heard my teenage siblings talk about Goatman, who (they said) lived out in the canyons, and Fishman, who lived under the third river crossing ("knock on the bridge three times and the water will  bubble. That means the Fishman is coming"). Mothman seemed to fit right in.

It was scary, but not so scary that I wasn't interested, and every time we drove the long, dark country road to grandmother's, I kept my eyes peeled.

Trips to the Grandparents were always mysterious events anyway. Despite our Grandfather's ban on talk of  such things, there was no avoiding the fact that Grandmother's family were weirdness magnets back to time immemorial. No one had to say anything, it was intrinsic to the people and the place. Still, the stories leaked out. Hexes and spells, fortune telling and ghosts, and all manner of unusual things. Grandfather (who'd married into the family) wouldn't hear of it, but Grandmother and her sisters might talk if they were alone. Some of the aunts, too, and the numerous cousins who were always around. Mother took Grandfather's dim view, but blood will out, and we cousins were just as likely to be found reading tea leaves as doing Mad Libs or playing tag.

Plus, their house was haunted. This was scary but also not. It was part of the landscape. It didn't matter if you didn't believe in ghosts, you still had to contend with their disembodied footsteps and cold spots or having the bed yanked out from under you by Unseen Forces. That was just a typical evening at Grandma's.

This being the case, when a girl who worked in my mother's shop said she had a book of ghost stories that was too frightening for her, I eagerly asked to borrow it. She brought it the next day, saying I should keep it. This was when I was about 7, and just beginning to read really well. The book was called  Haunted Houses  by Larry Kettelkamp, and quickly became my favorite reading.

 

On the cover was the tulip staircase ghost, and inside was the tale of the brown lady of Raynham Hall. This was the first time I'd ever seen the famous photograph of the alleged ghost descending the stairs.

The tale of the Brown Lady was chilling enough. but  it also had stories about Borley Rectory, the Tower of London, time slips, and assorted poltergeists. It had theories about time being another dimension, the possibility of astral projection and repressed emotions causing telekinesis.

It even had diagrams:

Needless to say, for the burgeoning weird girl and map nerd, it was a gold mine.

It wasn't exactly frightening, though. Even if the contents were enough to scare the spit out of the other girls at the second grade slumber party, it indicated something else to me. There seemed to be an invisible world of unexplained phenomena that existed alongside of us, only making itself visible occasionally. A sort of abstract world that lived within our concrete one. This was not a frightening thought to me, but comforting instead. It seemed that the world was full of mystery and the possibilities were endless. This was a good thing.

And anyway, you could feel it, couldn't you, the hidden world? Sense its existence somehow? Like a vibration in the air or unseen lines connecting everything. A bit like fishing. You could feel the tug on your line or tug the line yourself. Or sometimes it was a faint distortion of the air, like heat waves on a hot day. Some of the signs of this invisible world felt more dramatic, like the crackling energy of a ghost, or very subtle, like knowing someone's thought as if you'd simply thought it yourself. It was strange, and it wasn't 100% - these things came and went, like a radio going in and out of tune - but there was no reason to doubt it was there. Wasn't it obvious?

It would take a while before I would realize that not everyone held this view. Indeed, some people were not okay with this view at all. At Catholic school, it was more or less fine, because we spent a considerable amount of time learning about God and angels and other unseen powers. As long as you weren't dallying about with evil forces - and even if you were - no one would argue about the existence of the invisible world. In fact, you had to keep on your toes, because it was always watching you. And television in those days had shows like In Search of... and Real People. Even PM Magazine did segments about the Phillip experiment and things like that. But outside of church and television, things were rather different.

Upon entering public school at age 10, I rapidly discovered I was a freak. There was no interest in spiritual matters; instead, designer clothes and tennis held utmost importance. Also, shiny hair. Roller skating came in close behind. Well, at least I could roller skate. But still. Anomalous phenomena and preppies are mutually exclusive. Even my collection of Nancy Drew mysteries was suspect ("why don't you read anything about horses?") There was no room for weirdness in a place like that. Not unless you didn't mind being MARKED FOR LIFE. But as I said in the previous post, there's no escaping your true nature.

It was late one night during this unhappy time that I was wandering about the house, sleepless.as usual. Among the books on the living room shelf, one caught my attention. It had...I can't quite remember now...either a little green spaceman or a sea monster on the spine. I picked it up. It was one of my brother's old books, Frank Edwards' Stranger Than Science.

With a table of contents like this, it was irresistible:

 I opened it right toThe Devil's Footprints and kept reading until sunrise. Thus began my double life - Hello Kitty collecting roller skater by day, secret Fortean by night. I couldn't pull it off for long though. You know what they say - cuteness is only skin deep, but love of anomalous phenomena goes straight to the bone. There would be no denying my essential weirdness for much longer. I was a Hopeless Case.

I never did give up roller skating, though. :)