CHAPTER 1
I had always considered the beliefs concomitant with Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Samhain, All Hallows Tide or whatever you want to call it, as Balderdash for most of my life, even though when I was younger, it used to be my favorite time of the year. Back then, on Halloween night, I'd put on my costume and go trick or treating with my friends. Once, my cub scout troop even went camping one Halloween night deep in the woods. We told ghost stories, ate candies, played wicked pranks on the scaredy cats and sang around a very big bonfire. The events of that night constitutes one of the unforgettable experiences from my childhood.
Now, don't get me wrong, I really did love Halloween then, but just for what it meant to me; a time to have fun and eat candies to my heart's content, but I was never much of a believer in Halloween creatures even as a kid and as I grew older, it began to seem all the more pointless for me to celebrate something I actually did not believe.
Oh! Forgive me for going on about my past, I believe introductions are in order. My name is Clint Williams and I'm black; that's probably due to my African roots. I'm fourteen, averagely built and about five feet four inches. My parents are Mr and Mrs Williams; obviously. I have two siblings both younger than myself; a brother and a sister; Kenneth and Emanuelle. Emma was the youngest.
Now, back to my story. You'd remember at the beginning I said that I had always considered Halloween and it's traditions as balderdash. Yeah, that was until a year ago.
It all began on the last day in the month of September, 2019. Then we still lived in the small town of St Andrews, just about two hours drive from the city of Fredericton, Canada. My dad was the curator at one of the local museums. We were doing okay; I guess. We had our own house; a three bedroom bungalow in a quaint little neighborhood but my dad had always dreamed of working in one of those prestigious museums and fortunately for him, he got his wish. He had applied online for a job about two years back at the Imperial war museum in London and he had gotten a call that morning that the job was his; not just any plain old job, but as the curator of the museum, a dream come true for dad.
Well, to cut short the long story, we were all very happy for dad but sad that we'd have to leave our entire lives behind and move halfway round the world to Europe, though we didn't mention it to dad. We began to make preparations and finally moved to Europe ten days later on the 29th day of October, 2019.
The flight from Canada to the United kingdom was awfully long and scary. We were hit by severe turbulence several times and I happen to have a twisted ankle to show for it. We finally arrived at London's Heathrow airport very early the next day. A the arrival lounge, we were met by a man; who happened to be a staff at the museum where dad will be working. He introduced himself as Mr Smith and he had that funny British accent when he spoke. He drove us from the airport down to our new home. The cool thing about dad's new job was that it came with some perks. For instance, out new house was located in a highbrow neighborhood Called Princeton, just ten minutes away from the city.
I must say that I was really impressed when we got to Princeton; big old traditional English houses everywhere and quite a number of modern ones too. Lest I forget, preparations for Halloween 2019 were already in full swing. All the houses, save for ours, were already adorned with various spooky decorations. Soon, I saw our place; a big old Edwardian style house and I was even more impressed. The house was so huge, like a castle.
"There must be over a hundred rooms in there," I said to my dad.
"You bet. You're excited aren't you?" Dad said to me.
"Nope, it's definitely haunted," I said indifferently, even though that was a big fat lie.
"Don't worry, you'll love it here once we get settled in," dad said.
We didn't come along with much stuff from Canada except for some personal effects like my Xbox, mom's jewelries, phones and things like that. We even had to stop on the way from the airport to get new clothes.
The house looked even bigger and creepier on the inside, but the architecture was breath taking; although I never said that to the hearing of my parents. My little brother and sister were excited because the house was so huge inside; enough for them to run around. They had already dashed up the grand stairway that led to the upper floors and we could already hear them arguing about who found which room first.
"Cut it out guys, there's more than enough rooms for everyone," Dad called out to them.
"Why don't you also run along and pick out a room for yourself?" Mom said, kissing my head.
"I like my old my old room better," I said and clomped up the stairs.
"He'll come around, just give him some time," I heard dad say to mom as I ascended the stairs.
"You wish," I thought to myself.
Upstairs, I saw that there were about twelve rooms; six on bothsides. My siblings had already stopped fighting by then. I walked slowly, looking left and right to find the perfect place to set up base when I suddenly got attracted to the room behind the third door on my left. It felt like I was being controlled by something. I just kept walking towards the door like a zombie, I reached out, pushed it open and stood gazing into the room for God knows how long, before the voice of my little brother calling out to me brought me back to earth.
"Clint! Looks like we're gonna be room neighbors," he said with his shrill voice and grinned at me, exposing his mouth which was missing a few teeth.
"Get lost," I said to him and slammed my door shut.
