Appraisals and Apparitions

Appraisals and Apparitions

By Stephanie Crowston

Inspired by my favorite fairy god mother and my crochet group, Amigurumi’s Without Karen and the amazing people therein

Jackie Marie Ross was an experienced estate appraisal expert. She had 20 year of experience in evaluating some of the most “interesting” estates that ever hit the market. She was old enough to know not to get excited away by words like Haunted, condemned or infested. Front line of defense, mostly because no one else was going near half the properties she had to evaluate.

When she first started a H. Ross and Kindle’s estate appraisal and consulting, no relation, Jackie was sure she was being hazed. Any time an ancient rundown old shack came across the table her name was always out of the hat first. Flash forward 20 years later and she was just starting to get good at her job and every grey hair on her head told the tale.

She always carried a full mask, and she kept her crochet in her bag, a small project and she fancied the needles were fairly handy in the event she’d need to defend herself from a rogue ball of yarn or an intimidating pattern. No one ever messed with a crochet goddess for they were always armed. She was a bag lady at heart, everything went in that baby and old faithful always came everywhere with her a stead fast companion if ever there was one.

She needed her mental support bag today as she never had before. The real estate agent had posted the sign with a banner underneath that red “not haunted”. Previous tenants aside, she wasn’t here to evaluate the amount of corpses buried beneath the nearly abandoned home, just the bare bones. Her instincts screamed at her to nuke it from orbit turn around and go home but the professional in her killed that woman and made her take the first step forward.

The exterior was intact with dark wood siding that looked like it had seen about a 50 years of wear with no one to attend to its needs by the state of the weeds. She took a few measurements all the while the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention and a feeling of foreboding entered her gut. For the second time she stomped out the voices of her conscious and knocked on the front door, expecting a tall pale butler to answer “you rang”.

The old wood creaked open and reveal a disheveled agent anxiously awaiting her. He forced his way past her and without meeting her eyes rambled to himself, eventually giving her permission to get on with her job. If only she could hear the voices of Her conscience desperate to warn her. What good was a conscience anyway, intuition couldn’t be trusted and first impressions were often foreboding and misleading. feelings weren’t part of her job ,what she was here for was numbers plain and simple.

As she entered through the front doors to the vestibule Jackie realized the first impression was way better than the second. This was no historical mansion but three floors of mold and living things she’d only seen in documentaries of the dense jungles of the Amazon.

Luminous eyes peered at her from the top of two curving staircases which supported a broken and very wobbly banister. The phrase condemned rang through her mind but she was careful to keep her impressions in check and simply document and evaluate what she saw, not what she felt about what she saw.

The whole place stank of old stale air and racoon or cat feces and she noticed windows had been broken and buck shot was imbedded inside the window frames. Jackie reached in her bag for her mask and inadvertently touched a small ball of yarn which tumbled over the floor and around a corner into a room whose door promptly swung against the wall with a tremendous thud. The ball continued to roll into the room and under what looked like a child’s bed.

She tugged on the thread gathering it up as she went, wondering at the last words she read on the real estate sign out front. “Not haunted”. She focused all of her efforts on the lost ball, her heart betraying her lack of calm. As she neared the edge of the bed she tugged in a solid effort to dislodge the ball but it was stuck fast leaving her to lie on her belly head facing the far wall and reached her hand in to the space beneath. She felt around for the missing ball and found it stuck on a protruding nail. Grateful to have it in firmly in hand she stuffed it into the bottom of her bag and put on her mask.

Great she thought to herself, there’s only 6000 square feet to go. She was about to carry on when an unfinished well crochet doll fell off the mantle just above the bed. It was missing one eye and an ear and only part of the tail was complete, leaving the tip quite open.

That gave her pause. She cradled the cat in her hands and felt a rush of something familiar creep into her heart. Her first doll was a cat; she still had it tucked away in her bedroom. This poor creature had seen some adventure, judging by the state of it. Her mind began to whirl, all it would take is a standard increase separated by a few standard crochet rounds. The tail would be easily finished even if the colors would obviously look different. Actually the small sample in her bag would work just fine.

Jackie almost had the hook in her hand before she shook her head and finished touring the second story. She noticed more children’s rooms but none of them were had anything more than a child size bed and the remnants of old chipped paint and a bit of wall paper hanging off the edges. She wasn’t tempted to go any further but there was a basement level. She had made a note that there was a good chance there could be mold or asbestoses hiding in one of the levels here. In fact it was almost a guarantee judging by the smell.

Carefully avoiding the weak points in the stair case she made her way into the basement where no doubt there would be giant mold monsters and hideous new surprises awaiting. The door was stuck in the frame with a simple cast iron latch. Jackie reefed on the door even bracing her foot on the door frame to gain purchase. When it let go, it almost threw her into a partially plastered wall. The lighting worked by some miracle though it was exceedingly dim. The ceiling was low even for her and boasted exposed unfinished beams that showed off the stonework foundation and walls. There was a smell of earth and moisture and while there was a bit of mold it wasn’t enough to cause her alarm. The basement was the most impressive part of the house. She wound her way around the labyrinthine passages and came to a room with another door. This time there was chalk outlines on the floor and an old lock that seemed to give way at a mere touch.

The old latch lifted easily and inside were more beds, old stains prevailed upon each mattress each stain a dark brown. Naturally she checked for any water damage but all she found were dolls little crochet animals. Each of them worn, most of them missing a piece here or there in a sad but not irreparable state of repair, a large part of her heart went out the broken creatures especially since she knew she could fix them. She spent a long time considering each one, there must have been a dozen just laying there. In that moment her soul sent out a quiet prayer that she didn’t even know she was making. Lucky for Jackie someone was listening.

Jackie resigned herself to finishing her job as quickly as she could and in a few hours she was back in her car. Her bag sitting next to her like a puppy, she gazed back at the near ruin of the once flourishing estate and shook her head before starting her car and leaving the lot with a final wave to the real-estate agent who looked as though he was rocking back and forth still muttering to himself. Just too young to know better she thought to herself. Even with her experience and years of practice in just this kind of home, some things still get to you. This place was an original, but honestly was probably just going to be bulldozed and replaced with something gaudy and oversized. Most days she’d say that it was due to a lack of appreciation for historic properties and old Victorian homes but there was something about this place that set even her on alert. Like maybe.....but no it was just an old drafty house and its tenants simply ran on four legs instead of two. So what! There were far more grim realities in the world much worse than a being eternally haunted by a weird old building.

Jackie couldn’t stop thinking about getting back to home to bond with her favorite show, Mrs. Browns boys and a glass of scotch. Imagining the whole while unravelling a ball of yarn on a new project and decided to grab supper on her way home, desperately needing some me time.

She brought in her haul opened her take out and arranged it on her plate. She left her purse opposite the counter and notice it tipping over, Jackie almost knocked over the scotch in her rush to catch it. Her reaction times were on par with a professional Kung Fu master and managed to catch the bag with her foot and save the scotch at the same time. Who’s to say which was more important?

She gave up when that same ball of red yarn went rolling out of her bag straight down the hall to her bedroom as if shot out of a cannon. Jackie chased the renegade ball through the open door, which she was sure she kept closed, and noticed the ball had crept under the king size bed. She yanked on the thread somehow knowing her luck wasn’t that good and bowed her head in defeat as she crawled to her belly and reached under the mattress. Half her body was completely entrenched as she tossed her hand back and forth swearing like she meant it.

Suddenly her body convulsed and she hit her head on the bed frame so hard she began to lose consciousness and a cold tiny hand reached over hers and guided her to her stray ball of yarn. She must only have been out for a minute, aware at once of the throbbing in the back of her head. She had managed to hold on to the ball of yarn, dismissing the unmistakable hand and vigorously wiggling her way out from under her bed.

Covered in dust bunnies from head to toe she immediately felt for blood, but finding none got to her feet and hoped her dinner wasn’t too cold. Just as she grasped the copper steel of the doorknob she heard something fall. A slight but familiar sound and as Jackie turned around she noticed her bed was full. She shook her head and stood in wonder. A musty smell of old yarn and all too familiar faces of little animals that she had last seen in the old estate she just appraised. Jackie let go of the door and picked up the plush toy feeling the crochet work under her fingertips as if doubting her own sanity.

She replaced the doll on her large bed and walked out of the room but not before leaving her ball of red yarn on the bed sheets along with all the yarn she’d collected along the way. She walked away and closed the door, deciding that she was going to need a second glass of scotch.