Warning From Beyond

Chris C. Moseley from Austin, TX, United States wrote:

Mama and I began our life together in a small town in Massachusetts where she worked as a nurse for a rural doctor.  She worked long hours traveling hundreds of miles a day making house calls around the region.  I went to school during the day and tried hard to find things to do after school to avoid going home to be with my grandmother.  (I was adopted and she really didn’t like me.)  I loved to spend time in an old graveyard not far from our house.  My grandmother wouldn’t go there and I somehow felt safe among the resting generations of townspeople.

One morning mom said she’d be gone overnight because she and the doctor had to deliver a baby.  I didn’t want to go home, so I settled among the gravestones with a book and sketchpad.  After awhile I fell asleep and had a dream about my grandmother and some strangers.  I could see my grandmother looking out the window and talking to the people sitting in the living room.  In my dream a bright light appeared from the kitchen and I kind of floated toward it, right past grandmother.  The light was coming from the basement and I followed it to its source in a small cupboard in the darkest corner.  I suddenly felt warm and safe and knew that I had to go home and hide in that cupboard until my mom got home.

When I awoke it was dark and cold.  I hid my things and made my way quietly to the back of the house where I could sneak into the basement through the coal shoot.  I crawled inside the cupboard and waited quietly as I’d been shown.  I heard grandmother calling my name several times and talking angrily to the people in the house.  She had arranged for them to take me away while my mom was gone and was furious that I hadn’t come home. 

The next morning mom got home and I ran out and told her what happened.  She walked in the house, packed our clothes and we left.  If it hadn’t been for my dream I would never have seen mama again.