Remember The Past's Demons

Remember the Past's Demons 4

"Okay. You wanna tell me what is so amazing about our house that it has to have a secret room?" Richard asked. He walked into the dining room with bags of food and drinks in hand.

Garrett snorted. He waved a hand to a small pile of scrap books that he had gotten and laid out on the table. "Well, from rumors, urban legends, and my grandparents and parents research, it was a cult house. That was mostly through the gossipy people talking about the weirdos in the neighborhood. But I'm gettin' ahead of myself."

"The full history that was found is really interesting. Apparently, his great-grandfather started to research it, and then his grandfather and mother continued it. They were historians to," Leon said, He tapped the scrapbook that he had been going through.

"Oh yeah?" Richard asked. He put the bags down onto the table before shrugging off his bags, dropping them to the floor. "Keep talking while I unpack?"

Leon smiled at his friend as Garrett started to shift through the books. "Right, here's the first book from my great-grandfather. My family updates it all and my mother started to scan things up so that she could create a book for others. My great-grandfather wrote down everything about the house, from his thoughts and theories, to everything he could find. My grandmother started to type up all of that information as a way to train herself in typing for a future job. She ended up being a small time historical writer and did some of the articles herself. All of this between raisin' my aunts, uncles and mom in later years."

"Sounds like she was a busy woman. Smart to." Richard pulled out the boxes of Chinese, popping the tops while Leon got up and moved to grab plates, forks and serving utensils. Claiming his small box of rice and eggrolls, Richard eyed the first book, finding that it was spiral bound and well loved.

"Oh yeah, she was. Her father had taught her everything that he thought she would need to get her through life to pull in cash. Just in case her husband ever left or died." Garrett took the offered box of chow mein from Leon and put some of it onto his plate before passing it on to Richard. "Anyways, she documented each article that her father had collected and all that she found herself. Along with every piece of paper, government document and anything else that he found. She created this book with all of it compiled for the family mostly," he continued. He took his small box of fried rice with a nod.

Richard found the sweet and sour chicken and added some to his plate, topping it with some sauce. "Sounds like even then they were organized. I'm going to guess that it'll help our research."

Garrett laughed as he sat down with his plate. He flipped to a page and pushed the book over to Richard as he sat down. "Yeah. When photocopying became a more common thing, she started finding copies of all the original stuff and copied them. Found some things that her father missed to," he said as he pulled a thinner book to him. "My mom has gone through the original notes of both of them and then some, had books created and bound for those who are interested. I've been listening to the stories that her grandfather told her, and that grandma told me along with mum all my life. When I learned that this was the house you bought, I wondered if you knew the history, much less the legends, about this place and the neighborhood."

"Nope. To me it was a good investment," Richard admitted. He shoved a bit of chicken and sauce into his mouth. "Why?" he asked around the bite of food.

Leon looked at the book in front of Garrett as he flipped it to the first page. On it was a hand drawn picture of a large chunk of land with several buildings marked out and named.

"What's that?" Richard asked as he leant forward to look at the picture.

"It's a smaller copy of the map that's on page three of that complemation there," Garrett said. He pointed at the scrapbook and Richard found the right page. Leon looked between the map in the slim book and the two page map. "That's the original land map from the first house," the contractor continued. Richard looked squinted at the map as he ate a new bite, chewing, surprise flashing in his eyes. "It was a large chunk of land. One of the original ranch owners bought the land and set up house when the town was just starting out. The main house took him three years to get built. He was living elsewhere while courting his wife and planning the marriage though."