Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

Additional Halloween Contest Entry

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

November 3, 2007

This newsletter is to provide one additional story for the Halloween Contest.  It is not to be considered that the publisher favourites these stories over the other.  The membership makes the decision on which author is our winner for the best Halloween Story and which poet is the winner of the best Halloween Poem. 

Happy Halloween everyone

Mystery at Shatick Estate

By Rosanne Catalano, (aka R.C.Kayla)

Gravel crunching under their feet, the three girls walked slowly up the long and winding driveway; a driveway that was dirt and gravel now. The day was clear and crisp, with only a breeze to stir the imposing trees and leaves along the surrounding fence.

“I’m starting to get scared,” Patsy’s voice shook.

“We are not chickening out now! We’ve come this far, may as well go further…” said Kaylin.

They all stayed close together, arms wrapped ‘round one another, and looked behind them more than once as they continued up the driveway to the ivy-covered mansion ahead. A mansion where a rich developer, named Mr. Shatick, lived with his wife. And where a little further down to the right of the estate was a cottage where his housekeeper and the housekeeper’s little boy lived.

Remembering that years earlier, Mr. Shatick would offer the children of their neighborhood money for any child ‘brave enough’ to venture up to his mansion after 12:00 midnight on Halloween, Kaylin wondered why, as far as they knew, no kid had been brave enough to come up here…

In the daylight sunshine, the house did not look all that menacing except for the ivy growing up the sides of Mr. and Mrs. Shatick’s estate. It made the mansion look pretty creepy and intimidating.

But Patsy, Kaylin and Lizzy continued walking up the leaf-strewn driveway despite their fear of what they would find once they got to the mansion’s front door.

Turning the corner as the driveway suddenly veered to the right, they came upon an empty in-ground swimming pool that had seen much better days. It was now filled with fallen leaves instead of water for swimming.

The pool was also filled with what looked like books; with their pages open for all the world to read the words written in there except for one thing – the pages were beginning to turn yellowish from age, and some of the pages looked as if the person tried to rip some of the pages out, got frustrated they couldn’t, and threw the entire book with its binder in the now-dead swimming pool.

“Hmm, wonder who’s books those are?” asked Kaylin, walking ever closer to the swimming pool.

Patsy and Lizzy followed close behind.

“HEY! YOU GIRLS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” came an angry voice from behind.

Startled by the angry shout, the girls looked up and straight toward the estate where they saw a little boy, who looked to be the same age as them or a year younger, standing on the front terrace gesturing to them to get away from the swimming pool and the books.

Kaylin, Patsy and Lizzy jumped up from their kneeling position, and walked slowly toward the little boy. As they got closer to the mansion, they hesitated for a second then continued on toward the boy.

“We were just looking at those books all forgotten down there,” they said in unison, turning around and pointing to the swimming pool.

“Those books are not for you silly girls to read… But I can show you something else that you may want to see.”

“Which is what?”

“Come inside, I will show you something much more interesting than those old books! Don’t worry my mom doesn’t mind having visitors. She loves having company. We don’t get much nowadays since Mr. Shatick died,” the boy gestured toward his front door with a big smile on his face. He then opened it and held the door open for them to go inside before him.

Kaylin, Patsy and Lizzy had not known Mr. Shatick was no longer alive. This was the first time they were hearing the bad news.

And Kaylin started to wonder, “Is Mrs. Shatick this boy’s mother or is Mrs. Shatick still alive too? And who exactly was this kid, if he isn’t the son of Mr. Shatick?” So many questions that remained unanswered for now. Kaylin planned to ask this kid who exactly he is and what his relationship to Mr. Shatick was!

They were beginning to forget their resolve to remain brave… frightened beyond belief, they walked ahead of the little boy anyway into what looked like an ordinary house except much bigger.

“Come! It’s upstairs!” shouted the boy, as he climbed a wooden staircase off to the left, which they had not seen at first. Now both fearful and curious, curiosity getting the better of them, they followed the boy up the long stairs. Noticing along the way that there was also an electric wheelchair attached to the long wooden banister, Kaylin asked the boy as they continued up,

“Who is this wheelchair for?”

“Oh that was for Mrs. Shatick after her horse riding accident, but she’s now dead too. And my mom and I don’t use it so it stays there, too hard for us to remove the thing. Come! In this room…”

The girls looked around. It was a barren room, devoid of any furniture or carpeting except for a wooden floor and uncurtained windows.

“Look! Down there…” the boy said, pointing to a brown spot on the floor.

“That’s Mrs. Shatick’s blood. Mr. Shatick murdered her, didn’t you know?!”

Kaylin, Patsy and Lizzy kneeled down to look closer at the brown spot on the wooden floor. But to them it looked like any old brown spot that could have been from anything; not necessarily the blood of Mrs. Shatick as this boy was telling them.

Rising, they started to look suspiciously at the boy now. “Maybe he’s fooling with us because it’s Halloween?” Kaylin thought.

“No, really! That’s the blood of Mrs. Shatick.” The boy said, seeing their suspicious looks.

“Okay. We believe you…” the girls said in unison.

They turned slowly and said, “We have to be getting home now. Our parents must be worried about us. We didn’t tell them we were coming to the Shatick Estate…” as they walked out the bedroom door, down the wooden staircase and out the front door without a backward glance at the house or the little boy; just in case it was not a Halloween prank and the boy was telling them the truth about Mr. Shatick killing his wife in that bedroom.

Once by the swimming pool again, Kaylin scooped up what books she could carry in her arms and told Patsy and Lizzy to do the same.

“Carry as many books as you can… they’re going to waste here with no one reading them, so I want to read them and see who wrote these! And I want to know why they were thrown in this empty pool.”

With the books cradled in their arms, all three girls ran as fast as they could down the long, winding graveled driveway toward their neighborhood development; across the main highway from the Shatick mansion. Mr. Shatick had once owned the very land Kaylin’s parents’ house was sitting on until he sold it to another developer. The day had not turned out as they thought it would at the Shatick Estate on Halloween…

* * *

“Girls, there’s a little boy and his mother at our door…” Kaylin’s mom said questioningly, as she entered Kaylin’s bedroom where the three girls were stretched out on Kaylin’s bed reading what appeared to be old books. “Whose books are those?”

“Mom, we thought they were just fiction books so we’ve been reading through them, but they’re the diaries of Mr. Shatick! We found them in Mr. Shatick’s empty swimming pool but there’s really nothing interesting written in his diaries as far as we can tell…” Kaylin said, looking up at her mother. “Did you say that a little boy and his mom are at our front door?”

“Yes girls, a little boy and an older woman are standing outside our door saying they live in the Shatick mansion. I would like to know why they are here. The boy’s mother told me that you girls stole books off of their property that belonged to Mr. Shatick?”

“We didn’t ‘steal’ them, mom! We saved them from being dumped like yesterday’s garbage,” Kaylin told her mother. “They had thrown them in the swimming pool which is now empty except for books and leaves. So, technically these books don’t belong to that boy or his mom, right?”

“Wrong. The books were on their property so they do belong to the boy and his mother.”

“I guess we have to give them back, right?” Kaylin, Patsy and Lizzy asked in unison.

“Yes girls, give those diaries back to the boy and his mother.”

Only Kaylin got up and walked to the front door without any books in her arms. Opening the door to the little boy Patsy, Lizzy and she had seen only a few hours ago, she said, “Hi, what’s the problem?” as she looked straight into the eyes of the boy’s mother.

“You stole Mr. Shatick’s diaries. They were on our property. They belong to me and my son. And have belonged to us ever since Mr. and Mrs. Shatick died,” the boy’s mother said.

“And who are you, besides this boy’s mother? How are you related to Mr. and Mrs. Shatick, I’d like to know,” Kaylin asked, now with her hands on her hips. “I’d also like to know why you are sooo interested in getting Mr. Shatick’s diaries back, and why they were thrown in the swimming pool in the first place.”

“Kaylin! Please just give the woman her books back!” Her mother shouted from the kitchen.

“No, mom, I want to know why she drove all the way up here with her son, and why these diaries of Mr. Shatick’s are so important to them when it looked as if they were throwing the diaries away…”

“Okay. You want to know why, huh?” said the boy’s mother.

“First I will tell you who I am. I am the housekeeper who once worked for Mr. and Mrs. Shatick. My name is Miss Sanson and my little boy here’s name is Nicky. After the misses died, Mr. Shatick let me and my son move out of the cottage we had been living in on his property to live with him in his big ‘ole mansion instead, he didn’t like living alone. So my son and I packed up our stuff from the cottage house, moved it all into Mr. Shatick’s estate. Now that he too has passed away, we live in their mansion just the two of us now. You girls stole his very personal diaries from the swimming pool on your way out…”

“Wait a minute! We did not steal those diaries! I thought you were going to be throwing them out anyway, being they were dumped in Mr. Shatick’s empty pool, and so we wanted to read what we thought were just fiction books. We had no idea they were actually Mr. Shatick’s diaries…” Kaylin said with anger and sheepishness.

“Well, young lady, they are the late Mr. Shatick’s personal diaries. And he wrote in his Last Will & Testament for me to never let anyone read his words so I must burn them…” the boy’s mother said. “I threw them in the swimming pool temporarily until I could get a large enough garbage can to put them in, then I will burn them.”

“Oh.”

“That’s right. Mr. Shatick said the only way to make sure prying eyes did not read his personal writing was to burn his diaries after his death…” said Miss Sanson. “Now, give them back.”

“First answer me one question, was that brown spot in the master bedroom of Mr. Shatick’s house the blood of poor Mrs. Shatick? Did he kill his wife?” Kaylin asked.

“None of your business, young lady. Just give the diaries back to me. Thank you.”

“Oh but it is our business now… your son told us that a murder had been committed in what is now your home, and I’d like to know if this was reported to the police, is it in the newspapers, etc.?” Kaylin said, becoming confident that she had every right to know if what her son Nicky told her, Patsy and Lizzy was true.

“Now I’m wondering what was so important that Mr. Shatick did not want anyone to read his diaries, that he wanted Miss Sanson here to burn them after he died? And that Miss Sanson and her son Nicky came raging up here in their car… As far as Patsy, Lizzy and I could tell there was nothing incriminating written by Mr. Shatick…at least not in the volumes we took, he was mostly writing about his developer business.”

“Kaylin, just give the diaries back to Miss Sanson now.” Her mother said sternly, wiping her hands on her apron as she walked out of the kitchen.

Miss Sanson smiled at Kaylin’s mom, said, “Thank you ever so much. Mr. Shatick wanted me to burn his diaries. But, if I let your girls keep those diaries, then I would not have been fulfilling his dying wish to have his words burned forever more. He did not want anyone to read them…”

“Why? Is all I ask,” Kaylin said defiantly.

“As I already said, it is none of your business. It’s Mr. Shatick’s business from his Last Will & Testament. Just give the books back. Thank you.”

“Go ahead, Kaylin.” Her mom said.

“Patsy! Lizzy! Bring the books out,” Kaylin called to her friends. “There wasn’t anything interesting in Mr. Shatick’s diaries anyway…”

Patsy and Lizzy had overhead the entire conversation as they hid in the hallway near Kaylin’s bedroom. They ran back to her bedroom, scooped up all the volumes of Mr. Shatick’s diaries, and brought them to the front door and Miss Sanson and her son Nicky.

“Thank you again,” Miss Sanson said, giving the diaries to Nicky. Turning to leave she grabbed her son’s free arm and walked him toward their car. She got in the driver’s seat with her son Nicky in the passenger seat holding all of the books at an awkward angle, and she burned rubber driving out of the neighborhood development and back to the Shatick Estate.

* * *

“That was really strange, Kaylin,” Patsy said, as soon as they all plopped down on Kaylin’s bed again; only this time without any books or diaries surrounding them. “Why would the housekeeper and her son Nicky even care about making sure Mr. Shatick’s diaries were burned? What was in those diaries that we didn’t read… or were we not looking close enough at his words? Hmm, I wonder…”

“Who knows? The very proper Miss Sanson did not want us to know because she was supposedly fulfilling Mr. Shatick’s dying wish, so forget about it.”

“But, do you think Mr. Shatick really did murder his wife and that brown spot we saw was really once red with Mrs. Shatick’s blood? And that Mr. Shatick may have written something about murdering his wife and why he did it…” Lizzy chimed in.

“Stupid girls, if he had killed his wife it would have been in all of our local newspapers, and my neighbors would have most likely told me about that before we went walking up to the Shatick Estate. They would have said, ‘Forget about trying to get money from Mr. Shatick on Halloween for he is now dead and buried.’ Or something similar to warn me not to go to the mansion! Besides, we did not read anything incriminating in those diaries; just boring stuff about Mr. Shatick’s business…”

“Maybe nobody knows about Mr. Shatick murdering his wife? And that he’s dead now too?” Lizzy asked.

“I find it hard to believe nobody would know about a murder in our town or that Mr. Shatick is dead…” Kaylin replied.

“Well, the only way to find out is to go to the library and look in our newspapers’ archives for anything written about Mr. Shatick killing his wife. I’m  remembering now that Mrs. Shatick was such a kind lady, she always let me pet and feed her horses when they were by the fence closest to the highway. If it’s true that her husband murdered her, I feel sooo bad for her…” Kaylin said, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

* * *

“Nothing! Nothing whatsoever is written about Mr. Shatick, Mrs. Shatick or him murdering her…” Kaylin said, looking up from the microfiche archival film of the newspapers’ articles, past & present. “Definitely weird. Why would both Nicky and his mom lie to us about something so serious which could be proven not to be true?”

It was two days after Halloween and Kaylin was at her local library with Patsy and Lizzy. All three of them had first asked the librarian how to use the microfiche archival film to find past newspaper articles on a murder that may or may not have taken place in Kaylin’s town. The librarian patiently showed them how to use the microfiche machine to look through old articles in a newspaper, locally and nationally. After four hours of searching, neither one of the girls found anything that would enlighten them as to what really happened at the Shatick Estate all those years ago…

“I hate to even think this guys but do you think maybe it was Miss Sanson who really murdered Mrs. Shatick, and that old man Shatick died of natural causes. But he knew that his housekeeper had killed his wife, so to protect her and Nicky, he asked them to live in the mansion with him afterward?” mused Kaylin as she looked at Patsy and Lizzy.

Their eyes went wide, then Patsy said, “But why would the housekeeper kill Mrs. Shatick, a kind hearted lady who let her and her boy live in a cottage of their very own on their property? The Shaticks’ could have let Miss Sanson and her boy live in one of the homes in your neighborhood development instead, Kaylin.”

“And why would Mr. Shatick be that kind to a woman who had murdered his own loving wife?” asked Lizzy.

“That’s true. You both have valid questions. Yet the questions, I guess, will remain unanswered. I really wish Miss Sanson and Nicky would have answered them for us…” Kaylin said wistfully.

“I suppose it will remain a mystery whatever truly happened at the Shatick Estate…” Patsy finally said.

Kaylin, Patsy and Lizzy told the librarian they were done, that they hadn’t found what they were looking for, then walked out of the library into the sunshine and got into Kaylin’s mom’s waiting car.

The next day they went to school and soon forgot all about Mr. and Mrs. Shatick, the housekeeper Miss Sanson and her son Nicky, and what he had told them. Except Kaylin. She never forgot that Halloween.

Years later she still wonders if what that little boy Nicky told her, Patsy and Lizzy about the brown spot on the master bedroom floor being Mrs. Shatick’s blood was really true… and why Mr. Shatick’s diaries were sooo important that his housekeeper and her son came speeding up into her neighborhood development the way they did; she, Patsy and Lizzy had found nothing whatsoever interesting in those diaries.

But the questions remained for Kaylin. She knew she would never forget this Halloween, her curiosity was piqued forever. What Kaylin did know was that Miss Sanson and her son Nicky had never been visible before that Halloween (only their cottage was seen), nor had they ever driven up into her development before. And they never did again venture away from the Shatick Estate after that day.

“It’s very possible that Mrs. Shatick’s murder was covered up since Mr. Shatick was a rich businessman and had owned most of the town that I lived in…and that me, Patsy and Lizzy did not get to read the volumes where he writes about why he killed his wife; that we only read the boring stuff about his business… unless? Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Shatick’s business dealings had something to do with his wife’s murder? Hmm… a very real possibility. Time to go back to the library and do research into Mr. Shatick’s business dealings; now that his diaries have most likely been burned by Miss Sanson, forever destroying any evidence…”

Rosanne Catalano

ctrosanne@verizon.net

Copyright © October 2007 Rosanne Catalano

Publisher / Editor / Author

The Cat’s Meow for Writers & Readers Ezine

Check out her latest book, Mirrored Images (2007), at www.rosannecatalano.net