AN: I don't know why she bothered telling me this. Maybe she was trying to induce nightmares? It worked. It didn't help that the upstairs...never mind. She did it. I know she did it. Maybe that's what made her what she...was. Or maybe she was insane to begin with. You had to get it somewhere. True.
SwordStitcher-I can. He's weird. I only remained there for another two months after her death, and Mrs. Richardson was kind enough to have me over often. I would have removed her picture from the hallway, but it was stuck and I didn't want it falling on my head.
APieceOfThePuzzle-Time travel...bah, humbug. There is no such thing. There never will be any such thing. Let people have their dreams! LET ME HOPE! Not you, too... You always wanted to see dinosaurs. Every eight year-old wants to see dinosaurs. I grew out of that. Humph.
He's been conditioned to panic whenever Granny calls him. She only ever wants to see him if she's upset or if she wants him to do something. It's a fifty-fifty split, really.
He goes downstairs anyway, hoping she wants him to weed or something, and finds her sitting in the parlor with a wide, heavy-looking book on her lap and a glass of iced tea on the table next to her.
"Sit down, child."
Next to her? Within grabbing range of those arthritis-twisted talons?
He sits as far away from her as he dares, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. What does she want? She didn't find the book, did she? Surely she didn't…he hid it well this time, far under the bed.
She opens the book-surprisingly dust free-and he spots a page with photographs stuck to it. There's the chapel, before the roof fell in-it looked creepy even then-and the house itself, when it was newly built.
She flips through, looking for something in particular, and suddenly stops.
"This," she says, tapping on a picture with a gnarled finger, "was my older brother. You are named for him."
Great.
He looks, just to be on the safe side. He looks nothing like this brother. For starters, the child is sitting in one of those old wicker wheelchairs.
"He died when he was eight." she says, stroking the picture. "A terrible tragedy. Mother and Father were absolutely devastated."
Where is this going?
"I'm…sorry?"
She doesn't seem to hear him.
"One afternoon during the storm season, there was an accident. Somehow or another, he fell out of his chair and down the stairs. Nobody could figure out how it happened." She sighs and takes a sip of her tea. "We all heard this terrible sound,"-she imitates it on the wooden table and he shudders-"and a shriek, but by the time we got there, Jonny was lying in a twisted mess at the foot of the staircase."
Why is she telling him this?
"We always supposed he snagged that chair on the rug, but…we were never quite sure." She closes the book. "I always wondered if there was something more sinister at play…he was a rather entitled little boy. Made my parents' life very difficult indeed, and always expected us girls to entertain him. I hated him."
He swallows hard and silently agrees that there was something more sinister at play there. He can see it now, actually-Granny, perhaps in pigtails and a pink dress, shoving her hated sibling out of the chair that rainy afternoon, watching him tumble down, down…
She wouldn't do that to him, would she?
"That's enough story time." she says suddenly. "I need you to bring me some potatoes from the cellar, and then go and make sure the windows are closed. There's a storm coming."
Call him paranoid, but he'll be making sure there's no one behind him before he comes back downstairs.
THE END