What Lurks in the Dark on Wayward Lane?
Hi!
Today I have a scene from my middle-grade action/adventure Friends to the End written from Morgan's POV. This scene shares with you what she found related to Grimace Grove Cemetery and Wayward Lane.
Happy reading!
FRIENDS TO THE END
by C.L. Colyer
Unpublished scene from Morgan’s POV
Morgan grabbed a can of soda and headed to her dad’s study to use his laptop. If her brothers wouldn’t tell her more about the vanishing house, she’d search the internet. She sat in the chair, pulled her auburn curls into a low ponytail, and typed ‘vanishing house + Wayward Lane’ into the browser. The second search result caught her eye. She clicked on it. A blog article from a popular ghost-hunting show opened. The hiss of the soda can opening pierced the silence in the study. Morgan took a sip before leaning forward to read the post.
What Lurks in the Dark on Wayward Lane?
About an hour outside of Chicago, tucked between the homes along Wayward Lane, is Grimace Grove Cemetery, one of Illinois’ most haunted cemeteries. Visit on the right day and you may see white lights floating between the tombstones or hazy human-like figures standing by the fence. Listen closely and you may hear the whispers of people long gone. But the strange phenomenon doesn’t stop at the graveyard. Visitors to the area have reported seeing a man smoking a cigar, a woman walking along the side of the road, a phantom car, and a vanishing house. Who and what might be the cause of these unexplained sightings? We'll have to take a closer look at the area’s past.
During prohibition, gangsters visited the town and other neighboring towns for rest and relaxation and were known to cause trouble. Is the cigar-smoking man one of them? You tell me. Witnesses describe him as stout, wearing a suit and a bowler hat like the ones worn back in the 1820s. One witness even claims to have spoken to the man as his spectral form blinked in and out of view.
Just as disturbing as the ghost of a gangster are the reports of a phantom roadster that barrels past oncoming traffic, leaving in its wake the roar of men’s laughter. And cars have stopped to help an elderly woman seen walking down the road, carrying a lantern, only for her to vanish into thin air when they rolled down their window.
But maybe the most intriguing of the legends surrounding Wayward Lane is that of the disappearing house. I’ve found no proof that the house, which is often described as an old Victorian-styled home with a long front porch, ever existed on the physical plain, but locals insist it had and that it along with the woman who lived there vanished into thin air in the late 1800s.
The mystery behind the house and its occupant may never be solved. Are the locals right? Is the house occupied by the ghost of its last resident? Did her unwavering belief that her husband would return from the war and her determination to be there when he did trap her and the house in a phantom time loop? Romantic, yes. True, I’ll let you be the judge.
Morgan let out a low whistle. No wonder her brothers refused to talk about the house and her parents forbid her to search for it. They believed the stories. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, it also meant her brothers liked her, something they avoided admitting.
She clicked back to the search results. The next blog post had similar information about Wayward Lane and Grimace Grove Cemetery until she reached the end. It confirmed what her brothers had told her happened to anyone inside of the house when it vanished. A chill went through her.
Reports of people disappearing along with the house date back to the civil war, when a soldier was last seen entering a house that had vanished by morning. Others are believed to have met the same grim fate.
Every article Morgan read was the same. Wayward Lane was haunted. Different people from all walks of life had witnessed things they couldn’t explain. Morgan let out a low whistle. Ghosts existed, and she lived within biking distance of the second most haunted location in Illinois. She couldn’t wait to tell Zach.
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The inspiration behind Grimace Grove Cemetery is loosely based on stories I had heard as a teenager surrounding White Cemetery. Friends to the End is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of my imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
