Tap Tap Creek

Tap tap creeaakkkkk.

I jumped. We all looked up, pausing from the task at hand. We were painting a room in a creepy old house on Tap Tap Creek. It was my uncle’s family homestead.  He and my aunt were fixing it up as a B&B. I couldn’t imagine anyone coming here on vacation. I had been banished here, to the middle of nowhere, for the next year. But that’s another story.

My job on this snowy morning was a second coat on the wood trim around the windows.

Tap tap creeaakkkkk.

“What’s that?” My voice quivered. Reddish brown dripped from the brush I was holding. It looked like blood.

“Oh, this is an old house,” Ana replied, adding a layer of newsprint under my dripping brush. Calling this place an old house was an understatement. It was dilapidated and creepy. My aunt didn’t seem at all perturbed, which wasn’t like her. “That’s just the attic.” She pointed to the ceiling. “Nog…” that’s what everyone called her husband, my uncle. “You’ve got to do something about the noises up there.” To me, she added, “At first, I thought there were birds up there, or bats, or mice…”

“That’s where Knobby lives.” Uncle Nog stepped into the center of attention. A storyteller, my uncle always had a different take on things.

“Who?” Although I was ready to take a break from painting, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear about a presence in the attic. I liked my uncle’s stories, but my aunt didn’t, especially if they involved somebody, something—a ghost?—living in the attic.  She threw up her hands and shook her head.

“I’m going downstairs to make a pot of coffee. I’m not listening to this nonsense.”

“Knobby,” he continued as we heard her go downstairs to the kitchen. “The family patriarch. Head of the clan, if you will. He was my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.” He counted the generations on his paint-smudged fingers. “That makes him your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.”

“Oh.” I had grandparents, but never heard of any great-greats. “So why doesn’t Ana want you to talk about him?”

“Oh, she doesn’t mind that I talk about him. It’s the legend she doesn’t like—that Knobby is still among us, that he’s waiting…”

“Waiting? Stop. He’s still here?” My widened eyes scanned my surroundings. “Is Knobby undead? Like a zombie?” That would be a deal-breaker for sure.

“No, my dear, Bonnie. “Zombies aren’t real.”

“But you just said Knobby’s like hundreds of years old, and he’s still hanging around. He’s undead. A zombie.”

“Well, no.” He rubbed his square jaw from corner to corner with his left square hand before wiping it across his entire scrunched face. “In a way that’s true, but not really. He gave up his body, so he’s dead. But he’s a specter. He hasn’t crossed over yet. To the Otherworld.”

Nog had already told me about the Otherworld, calling it the opposite of this world, a place where you never got old. A place of eternal youth.

 “So if Knobby is so old,” I asked, “Why doesn’t he cross over and get young?”

“He has unfinished business.”

Trembling at the idea of zombies, specters, or whatever wandering around with unfinished business, I looked up beyond the ceiling, to the invisible attic

Tap tap creeaakkkkk. The noise came, almost as if it were responding to Nog’s story. We both looked up. Nog pointed upward.

“It’s a restful spot, the land between the worlds. It’s an island, so to speak.”

“An island, Nog?”

“Yes, we’re all on a mystical journey. Islands provide shelter from the storm, places to replenish ourselves and our supplies on our journey through life.

“And what a journey!” Ana reappeared with a tray of coffee, hot cocoa, and cookies. She cleared a spot on a work table. “Come on, take a break from your journeys.”

Tap tap creeaakkkkk, the attic seemed to say that it wasn’t ready for a break.

“You’ve got to do something about those sounds in the attic.”

“Yes, dear.” Nog rather liked the rasps and groans. They made the house sound alive. “I’ll go up there tomorrow…”

“Oh no you won’t. Get someone in here. I’m not sure the floor’s not going to collapse. I don’t need you crashing through the ceiling.” I suppressed a laugh as I pictured the chubby Nog crashing through the ceiling.  “Then we’d have to spend even more to get the ceiling fixed.”

“You don’t care about me getting hurt, Ana?”

She scowled. “Just don’t go up there.” Then she looked directly at me. “Don’t you go up there, either. I don’t trust those old floors.” I looked down at my feet and then at her. “Oh no, the floors here are fine. I think.” She pointed to the ceiling. “But I’m not sure about the floors up there. So just in case, don’t go up there.”

I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to go anywhere with mice and bats and undead ancestors, let alone collapsing floors.