Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate
more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its
collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this
idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast,
etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds
-- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them
as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.
H Trope: ghosts
My daughter and I
were talking about camping today. A few days ago, I had scribbled a question a
few days ago: “Are there English-type mansions in Minnesota?” Also, she, her husband, and young son are ALSO headed to Duluth soon!
I mentioned that
we might someday head north through the city of Duluth because I had frequently
passed the Glensheen Mansion on Lake Superior and I related to her its grisly
past – which had happened the year I graduated from Golden Valley Lutheran
College. I remember the hoopla and the delicious chill it sent down our backs
whenever we talked about it.
But what if me and
a couple of friends headed north and to Duluth a few days after the news of the
double murder – pillow suffocation and a bludgeoning with (shades of CLUE!) a
candlestick. Of course, because of the place is swarming with police and
detectives (zillions of dollars in inheritance is now up for grabs by relatives
– and of COURSE there’s a will, handwritten, from three days before the
murders!
Yeah!
This is a prime
setting for ghosts peering, lost from the window.
But what if the
ghosts of Elisabeth Congdon and her nurse Velma Pietila turned up on the campus
of the University of Minnesota, Duluth where me and my friends are staying,
sleeping on the floor of some summer school friends?
And what if we
were laying in the dark, gazing up at the stars on the Griggs Football Field
late at night and suddenly a ghost hovers over the field, reaching out to us as
the air around chills. I can see my breath and a voice before us breathes
lightly, “It’s not who they think, son. Not who they think.”
A second ghost
appears, this one an older woman, though not as young as Elisabeth – and she’s
obviously been murdered, her head bashed in; blood still stains her face and
dress. She raises one hand, palm to you and softly hisses, “Stop them. Stop
them.” The ghosts dance around you in a tighter and tighter circle then
disappear…
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