The Haunted Kenworthy By: Claire Crawford Legend is she jumped from the top floor killed herself

'cause the one she loved died in the war Her screams can still be heard they say and the old tower still stands today In the sixties it was for sale for a song twenty thousand they told my dad and mom But my dad was a builder of things of brick and longed for a new home free of trick He put his house in the woods on a hill across the creek from the place that was ill

A path that was taken and one that was not a choice made and one forgot Now I had never heard of Kenworthy Hall until the late seventies one fall Someone named Kathryn had written a book and I stumbled upon the story and looked It was hard to believe that I had played in the brook within the hawk's view of the lonely nook Where she sat by the window and wondered why she'd never be a widow and stumbled And the story worried me so I went there once on Halloween looking for an Alabama ghost thirteen Searched I diligently for that ghost girl around every corner up the staircase curl I wanted to tell her not to cry that her lover really didn't die

"Go back by the window and wait.. he will be there late!" Hoping, somehow to give her peace and make her endless suicides cease But, underneath that dreary sky she was nowhere to catch my eye Did you know that Kenworthy is for sale again? Now, the year is two thousand and ten The black spiked gate is left unlocked for the ones that want to shop Cast iron lions with open mouths guard that so-called haunted house I have not been back up there since that day she was nowhere The other day I passed by and my daughter asked to stop Never having seen that place since she's been alive

I took her up that gravel drive the same on which the horse did trot the one that sprayed red dust that lied that caused the girl to think he'd died Upon approach we both knew, it seemed that this was something we'd both dreamed How could it be I wondered that this child could even dream of a place she'd never even seen Dreamed of things that are not while soldiers lie in tombs and rot However, in ghosts, dead walking and the hex I am no longer a believer but in things much more complex and dust that did deceive her Not zombies, evil dead or curses

but, I do believe in unseen universes Somewhere in a folded time mix daddy bought that house to fix A gothic mansion that needed repair received skilled hands of a mason with care And, the Civil War maiden did see in the rain a man on a white horse and didn't go insane Blossoms there joy, love and laughter for a woman and her daughter Memories so strong and treasured ability to seep through time unmeasured I wonder who that woman would be and her blonde haired, blue-eyed girl I wonder what is HER destiny What is it like.... that world? Puzzled, do they both have strange dreams about some building of bricks

across the Bogue Chitto down in the sticks?