Spooked - The Black Rose

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

Stories:  "Great Aunt Rose" -   When Christina McKenna’s cruel aunt comes back from the grave to make amends--she’s not sure if she can forgive. Read more about Christina in her book, My Mother Wore A Yellow Dress. "The Unicorn Prince" - Every year, Maria's aunt bought her a cute doll for her doll collection, but then came this one. This story comes to us from our Spooked listener Maria Serratore-Gunter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There are certain things, certain people, that once they're gone, you really, really, really want them to stay gone. From Snap Judgment's underground layer, you're listening to Spooked. If you've ever lost someone dear to you, you understand the feeling of wanting to see that person again, the need to reunite. People have constructed art, buildings, religions, on the simple premise of reuniting with their loved ones once more. But there are other people in our lives as well.

People that brought us the opposite of joy. Sorrow, darkness, pain, and what if our despair reaches out through the ribbon which separates this world from the beyond? And inadvertently, you bring the wrong person back from the snap judgment underground layer NWNYC Studios, my name is Glenn Washington. Be very careful exactly whom you call family

because they might start to believe it. Understand this. Spooked starts. You kiss someone goodbye? And you really didn't want to kiss goodbye? My story begins in the spring of 1970 with our daily track to school. Physical punishment was the norm in school

if you didn't get the right answer. So they were difficult. There were hard days. So on the way home, we would kind of vent our frustration or have a laugh by teasing this goat that was tethered to a post in the field.

We would stop and throw little powls at the goat and laugh at the goat jumping up and down and going crazy. Until one day, oh horror of horrors, the rope snapped. We never expected that.

and before we knew it, the goat was bounding across the field for his revenge. We took off like the wind, screaming and yelling and crying, and we knew we were far from home. We were a good mile from home. So we had no alternative to run into the yard of our great Aunt Rose. She lived in a little cottage, and you didn't bother Rose unless it was really necessary because she didn't like children. But that day, the choice was getting mauled by the goat or the shelter of Aunt Rose's cottage.

And we were terribly afraid of her. She was my father's reclusive aunt and she was like the wicket ridge of fairy tale. Very thin, very tall, wore long black clothes. Grey hair tied severely back in a bun, a very grim-looking woman. But she comes out when she hears the racket. with her black thorn stick, which she always carried, and she shooed the goat away and she gave it a few whacks.

So the goat took off. And then she turned to us and she said, I think you'd better come in for some tea. And I remember my brothers and I exchanging very nervous glances because we'd never been in her little cottage before, but we had no choice. So we followed her in to this gloomy little Dan. A big hearth fire burning, crackling, ticking clock.

I remember those sounds because she didn't speak at all to us. She went about making the tea and we sat down at the table and we were still very panicked and nervous and our face is wet with tears. It smelled off turf smoke. She had a what we called a crook over the fire which, held the cattle that the hearth fire flames and boiled the kettle.

We were dying to escape and when the tea was finished we ran all the way home. That was an incident that for me, when I look back, can be linked to what happened later on

in that year. In the summer of 1970 Aunt Rose Fellil and my mother took her in to our home to look after her because she couldn't cope on her own. She was a spinster. She didn't marry, she didn't have children. So people like that were ignored by the community.

So they lived very lonely lives. And when you're on your own for so long, you don't know how to be around other people. And the saddest part, however, is that no one in the community when I look back thought to go and visit her and kind of make her part of something bigger if I could turn back the clock and I would be definitely more compassionate and understanding if I have any regrets it would be that that I didn't connect with great Aunt Rose

but unfortunately Aunt Rose kept getting worse she died soon after so end of October a few weeks after she passed on It was a very stormy night My little brother John got out of his bed Went to our parents' bedroom

And woke up my mother and said I can't sleep, mommy Because someone is tapping under my bed My mother said John It's the wind It's a very bad night to go back to bed But half an hour later He was up again

With the same story to my mother I remember waking up seeing the light on in the kitchen and being an inquisitive little girl I got out of bed and went down to see what was going on and we heard this tapping sound and very gentle tapping right under John's bed. It was like this, I'll do it on this table.

The next day, naturally logical explanations were sought. My father took up the flooring and checked the water pipes, took the bed apart. My parents said, it's the bed, there's something wrong with the bed. That'll be all right. Well, he took off the mattress,

checked, the springs. But the next night, when it happened again, we had to accept that this was something sinister. Everybody was up. The next day, my mother did the only thing she could do. She called in the parish priest. He came, knelt down in the afflicted room

and told us that it was the spirit of Great Aunt Rose that she was having difficulty on the other side and she needed our prayers for release. When a priest said something in those days, you believed it, you know. So we started to pray that day and we prayed a lot. I remember my knees cold on the stone floor. Dear God, free us from this

and let Aunt Rose be at peace eternal rest grant onto her O Lord is one that I remember saying over and over and over again it was

the least we could do was to pray for her soul so it was an act of compassion on our part as children and my parents we were to pray every day we were to say as many rosaries as we

could, which we did. I was very fervent in her prayers. We wanted to get her out of purgatory as soon as possible. The more praying that was done, the sooner she would be released. And for about a week, it was fine. We had solved the problem. Our prayers were obviously being heard, or so we thought, until John was up again in the middle of the night. This time it wasn't gentle tapping. It was loud knocking. It was as if more and more prayers were needed. She wasn't satisfied that we were seeing enough. The knocking was very loud. It moved out from onto the bed and started knocking different points on the floor. After that it progressed to banging on the walls off that bedroom. And I remember when we would have visitors in the adjacent

room, we would have to turn the volume of the television up really high because the banging was like someone was hammering, hammering wood. And my mother would have to say, we've got repair men in. More priests came to listen to it. A mass, several masses actually were said in the room. I remember particularly this because it really was very frightening. The knocking stopped. It started to scratch. We heard the rasp of fingernails being dragged slowly along the underside of the mattress. It scratched under the table in the room, under the chairs. And I remember this night, I remember lying with the blankets, pulled right up under my eyes,

looking over at my two brothers, praying and hoping it wouldn't come into this room. I was just paralysed with fear. completely paralyzed. And then, of a sudden, the mattress was tipped straight up on its vertical, and the two boys were flung out on the floor. And we dashed screaming and yelling from that room. So a turning point had been reached.

You have to experience this in order to believe in it. And after that, sleep was impossible, because you thought something was going to be. to happen. My mother was at the point of a nervous breakdown, and that is when it was decided to call in the exorcist. The morning of the exorcist visit is very vividly etched in my memory. I remember that November morning in very stark contrast, monochrome, a foggy morning, and we're all waiting for the Exorcist and his assistant. And then suddenly I see them in the lane.

Two dark figures advancing down the lane and my mother goes out to greet them. He was a tall, lean man with grey hair swept back and his look made all the moon mysterious because he was wearing a cassock, a long black cloak. And he spoke very softly and gently, and there was a great air of calm about him. and when he met us children, he blessed each of us in turn by making the sign of the cross on our foreheads

and saying, God bless you, my child. Exorcists, they are conduits. There are people who have subverted their egos to such a degree that the spiritual is very much alive in their lives. And I believe if we accept that there are forces of evil in the world, then that force of evil must be met with an equal, vigorous application of good. So the exorcist is a rare human being. Very special men do this work. What happened in that room, that day, well,

the exorcist would read from the rituali romanum, which is the Roman rite, litanies of the sea, the Lord's Prayer, 54th Sam, Salvea Regina, Holy Queen. This took several hours in our case. There was a palpable feeling in the air that morning. The door to the afflicted room stood open, and we were beckoned into it by these two. And we all left down, and we said a last prayer with them.

And they got up and shook hands with my parents and said, that was it. It's over, and it was. We never talked about it. It was as if, if you talked about it, something might come back. Is it too much to assume that perhaps being given and kind in this life, assures us of peace and rest in the next? Just because someone passes away, do we let bygones be bygones? Think very hard, a listener's story as spook continues right after the break.

Stay tuned. Our next story is for Maria Serator Gunther. Now Maria is a hardcore listener. She knows you have to journey through the darkness to get through the other side. Rehistory is performed by our own resident sorceress, Julia. My birthday is the day after Christmas, so I get twice as many presents as everyone else. But my favorites are always the one I get from my aunt. For years, she's bought me collectible dolls.

And now, at the end of high school, my collection is massive. But I'm still excited to add another one. I hold and touch the box from my aunt leading up to my mom. birthday. I want to open it early so badly. I'm normally really patient about gifts, but this package is different. It's calling to me. Finally, Christmas is over and my birthday arrives, remove the wrapping, open the box, slowly peel back the protective foam, and there's this doll. My mother, sister and father, puzzled by my reaction, I'll want to see this doll. And remove it from the box and place him on the table in front of us.

It's a male figure with a broad chest, maybe 18 inches tall, wears gray satin pantaloons and a pink satin open-collared shirt. The exposed legs and arms are stark white, each leading to dark black hooves instead of feet and hands. The porcelain face is that of a horse, with blazing green eyes ringed in yellow with flecks of red. On top of his head is not a hat or a crown, but a glimmering, twisted horn of silver.

It's a beastly unicorn prince. We look at it stunned and it stares back at us. From every angle, it seems to be looking at us with that menacing glare. Finally, my mother breaks the silence. Put it away, so we can have cake. I place it on a shelf across the room, and we proceed with the cake and the festive mood is restored. And then it's the mirror in the guest room.

The mirror is mounted to the wall shared with the, shelf on which the doll sits and it's fallen off the wall. The mirror has simply broken to pieces. Not knowing what else to do, we clean up the mess and just go to bed. I take the doll with me to my room and put it on my dresser. That night, I wake up in the middle of the night. My bedroom has become so cold. It's late December, but this is Houston, Texas, so the temperatures at night rarely dip below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I step out of my room, and I step out of my room, and And I'm surprised to find that on the other side of the door, the temperature is much warmer. So I grab my pillow and a blanket, and I go to sleep on the couch in the family room.

I'm just about to drift off to sleep when I hear a noise coming from the kitchen. It's like the click-clack tapping of feet, little feet, and lots of them. I convince myself maybe it's a bug outside or some water dripping from the tap, but it persists with an irregular pattern. Whatever's making this noise is just steps from me, which means that it can see me. I'm so frightened that I can't move, and I start to cry. My mom hears me, and she comes out to the living room.

Why are you crying? And what are you doing out here? I tell her about the cold in my room and the sounds of little feet walking across the tiles in the kitchen. She clearly doesn't believe me, So she turns off the light and lies down next to me to prove I'm just imagining things. And immediately, the clattering starts again. She grips my arm, slowly turns on the light, and then she goes to the kitchen.

Nothing's there. She stays up reading next to me the rest of the night with the lights on. The next day, my mother calls her sister to ask about the doll. All my aunt says is, it called to me. It caught her eye, but she wasn't convinced. convinced it was the right gift for me. She went home that evening without a gift at all and had a dream about that doll. So she returned to the shop the next day to buy it for me. I decide that the doll has to go. I take it outside to our concrete slab of the patio to smash it. The first strike

on the concrete, I brace for the flying shards of porcelain. But nothing happens. So I strike it again. Nothing. I'm sure a third time we'll do. it, but then, still, nothing. Shocked, I turn its face towards me, and the red-rimmed eyes meet my own. And then I feel something come over me, but it isn't fear, more like an acceptance of the doll's evil. And then almost without thinking, I take it back into the house and leave it on the kitchen counter, just lying on its back with those wild eyes staring up at the ceiling.

That night, the temperature of my bedroom is normal, but I'm still too scared. to sleep. I only finally fall asleep when I take the nightlight from the bathroom and place it in the wall next to my bed. And then suddenly I'm awake again. That noise, the clack tapping of the little feet are back, and I can hear it getting louder, closer. I pull the covers tight around me and repeats myself, it's just your imagination, it's just your imagination, it's just your imagination, it's just your imagination. And then I see a light. A light is so bright, it's blinding, it's blinding, and it's pouring into my room through the cracks around above and below my door. I try to turn the lamp on, but I can't move.

I try to call out, but as wide as I open my mouth and as hard as I try to scream, only air escapes my lungs. No sound comes out at all. I'm paralyzed with terror when the door begins to shake loudly like someone's violently trying to get in. The light's getting brighter. I need to shield my eyes, but I'm too afraid to look away. and then like a bolt of lightning, the shaking suddenly stops. At first I still can't move, but then as the tension slowly recedes, I smell fire.

My muscles relax, and I reach for the lamp. Cautiously, I creep out of my door and open it, can see a warm glow from the family room. I call out, Who's there? My father's voice returns sternly. You should be in bed. I approach him in the fan. family room. He started a fire in the fireplace and is stoking it. He puts his arm around me. You can go to sleep now, he says, gently as he kisses my head. I peer into the fireplace and I see it.

The last smoldering remains of the doll. Thank you Maria Saratore Gunter for your story. And did you hear that? Beware the unicorn prince. Thanks as well to Christina McKenna for sharing your story with Spooked. If you want to hear more about Christina's childhood in Ireland. Check out her book. My mother wore a yellow dress. Love more on our website, spootpodcast.org.

And on the next spooked, how hot does it have to be to sell your soul for a simple glass of water? Find out. If you're digging spook, let someone know spookedpodcast.org because now we're speeding it up

in this rush in this madness towards Halloween. We're going to start dropping two spooked episodes a week. 13 spooked episodes all before Halloween, be afraid. And if you need your spook sticks with a quickness, you can hear new spooked episodes three days early. Just download the tune in app and then hide under the bed. That's the story we have for you.

We want to hear the stories you have for us. Hit us on the spook line. Let us know your story. story. Record onto your phone, device, thing, and smoot to spooked at spoofedpodcast.org. The spook, Cripkeeper squad includes Mark Ristich and Liza Smith, Davy Kim, Anna Sussman, Jasmine Aguilera, Jodi, Jodi, and Teo DeKod. Original music with Pat McAee Miller, Davey Kim, Ria Morimoto, and Wenzel Goryo. Hit me on the Twitter, Instagram, the Facebook Spooked Pod.

Don't forget. If you go to the fancy party and see the tall man, the beautiful smile and wonder if those are horns poking through his rough cut hair. And if that's a tail slithering underneath his dinner jacket, I have some advice and I need you to recall where you heard it first. Here it is. Never. Ever. Never, ever.