I was talking the other night to my mother about our haunted house in Jacksonville. The short story I'm writing is framed around five separate events or "signs" that the house was haunted. I was checking with her on one thing (that happened specifically to her) and then we got to talking about the rest, all of which I have heard and talked to her about many many times in the past, but the best part - the absolute best part - was when she talked about the mold on the walls.

There is always weird shit on the walls of haunted houses.

It was probably some sort of standard Florida mold and completely to be expected in a little ranch house with no central AC (this was the seventies - central AC didn't exist anywhere it's why people went to the 7-11). The strange spin was that it was only on the wall of my brother's bedroom which was not a particularly humid place (like a bathroom wall, for example). It made no sense that out of the whole house that wall would be the wall that was marked. And even though my mother cleaned it up every time it appeared, it kept coming back which after awhile really started to wig her out. So my very Catholic 1970s mother did what every other religiously minded wife and mother of her time would do. She put a crucifix on the wall over my brother's bed and counted on God to get the bad guys (or the bad ghosts....or the bad evil spirit mold makers.)

It's right out of a late night horror movie, isn't it?

Only a good Catholic girl would think that a crucifix was the logical answer to mysterious funk showing up on the walls. Anyone else - anyone in their right mind - might be thinking "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE FREAKY HOUSE!" but not my mother. She had the power of the LORD! (Plus my father thought the whole thing was silly and wasn't going to move on this kinda craziness, thank you very much.)

Well it made sense then and you don't really believe you are living in a haunted house when you are living in a haunted house (unless your daughter gets beamed into the tv set ala Poltergeist or the wall start seeping blood or something.) We laugh about it now (I mean really Mother - what were you thinking????) but it's also kind of sweet. You don't know what's going on or what might happen next but you do believe enough in something bigger than yourself to think that it will be your shield; it will be your protection. It will push back all those forces of darkness that threaten your life and your love.

I don't have that kind of faith in any god; if I ever did it went away a long long time ago. But as silly as I might think it is, I can't help but be impressed by my mother hanging her faith on the wall, over her son. It was her armor and she put it there between him and what might be; she put it there to keep him safe.

(My brother is happily married now with a darling little girl of his own, so clearly, my mother's efforts worked. This is why contrary to all logic I still believe when my mother tells me I should because sometimes - in the scary times - she is right.)

PS. I'll be in FL later this month - expect a pic or two of the haunted house to follow.