The old house

When I first moved to this house my nightmares began. The house was old and fragile but had a presence on the street. It was tucked behind several trees and had a meandering road that lead to it. It had a lot of character to it that drew me in right from the begining. The front of the house had a great bay window that had intricate designs painted on the colonial glass panels. There were two great double doors leading into the immense house. The one thing that set the incredible house apart from others was the balcony off the master bedroom. The balcony opened up to the endless garden of geranimums below it. The garden featured a trellis that enhanced the fairy-tale like setting. I was stunned when I heard this house hadn't been sold yet. The previous owner had a hard time selling it. There were rumors that it had been haunted by a derranged ghost. Others had been reluctant to buy it, but I was not scared of ghost stories anymore. Besides, I thought, What's the worst that could happen...Right?

I heard the first of the rumors from the owner himself.
" Well there was this lady, young lady, not too older than you miss, who was soon to be the wife of a very affluent man in the town . See the boy stumbled upon this load of money gambling in the city and refused to share it with his family. Well on the day her their wedding was a tragic one of that. Her husband and her got married underneath the trellis amongst the geranimums and blooming flowers in the garden. After the reception the young man was no where to be found. When they finally found him, he was prostrate on the wooden floor, lifeless. Some say that his wife poisoned him to have the money all to herself. But the funny thing is she died a couple months later. Some believe she hid the money on this property. Hey good luck finding it. I swear, I've searched up and down this estate and I couldn't find even a cent of it. But just stay clear of the woman. Sometimes, late at night, you can even hear the lamenting of the young woman...."

The first time I had nightmare, of this strange woman, was about a week after I bought the house. The vision was so clear and vivid, it was almost real. I was in my room and I heard a woman’s voice. She had an ethereal voice. I followed it through the back door out onto the terrace. I was spirit-like in movement. I floated pass the trees and over the small trellis in the backyard. I was always brought to that same place. I would almost flash back and flash forward to a lively wedding jubilee with the woman and then back to reality. In the visions she was always with this young man. They were both beautiful and supliant. She wore a long gown that had intricate embroidered patterns and was embellished with beads. It nipped in at the waist then flowed away from her body. He wore a traditional suit that fit him like a glove. They looked so happy. I don't know why a woman with such a happy life would end up killing her husband and then end up haunting the very house I lived in. All of a sudden I was standing in the attic. She was there too. She was no longer She looked solemnly at an old jewelry box. She opened it and inside was a letter written by her. I woke up gasping for air.

I felt like in every dream I got a message. With every new dream I became more leery of how her husband died. I was told that his wife murdered him, but from what I saw was not the case at all. I was going to get to the bottom of this.

That day I poked around the house a little. I discovered an old dusty attic. Amongst the dust and other critters i stumbled upon a box of letters. It was the box in my dream. I read one dated in June, two months after the wedding. It was written by the woman it said that she hid the money on the propety and that her mother-in-law would never find it. She said that her evil mind and underminig actions would never sufice and no matter how hard she tried she would never get the money. It was located in her favorite place in the whole in tire world and her mother-in-law would never find it. I felt compunction while reading the note.

I woke up that morning in a chilling air from another nightmare. I walked over to the double dutch doors that led to the balcony and searched out into the yard. I pondered my dreams and searched for answers. All of a sudden I had an epiphany. She didn't do it, I thought, She's innocent. After everything that I had discovered and saw I knew who did it. I knew where the treasure was and who killed the young man. I knew the secrets of this unsettling mystery. The only thing left to do was to punish the person that was responsible for it.

I figured the mystery out. The mother-in -law killed her son. She was avaricious and wanted her son's money but he refused to give it to her. She murdered him in the attic to make it look like his wife killed him for the money. The wife knew the tacit schemes of her malignant mother-in-law and hid the money in a safe place, her favorite place, the geranimum garden. With fear of being caught and snet to prison by her son's wife, the mother-in-law capriciously murdered her benign daughter-in-law.

She was still alive today, the mother-in-law. It was difficult to locate her, for she had an alias name. We found her in a small hamlet, two towns over. When the police showed up at her door, she was dumfounded. Her countanance was grave and shocked. She denied the alligations but once I gave the letter to the police chief, she was incarcerated for murder. Later, when i told the chief about the fortune, a surveying crew came over and dug up the garden. There in a tiny, wooden box was a check for one million dollars. The chief told me since it was found on my property that I was the rightful owner to it. That evening I noticed something had changed. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. For once I was placid. That night I didn't have any nightmares. She was gone. She finally was at rest and so was I. I guess the money was a reward for punishing the mother-in-law and releasing her spirit. The next morning was the start of a brand new life.