The Stanley Sisters by Elizabeth

The Stanley Sisters

We hadn't been living in this house for long when "things" started happening. I was 8 months pregnant, big and uncomfortable. I was nesting as fast as my swollen legs allowed and desperately trying to finish the baby's room before my water broke.

We had just moved in to this house a month earlier when my husband, Clay, accepted an Assistant Professor position at the local university. We had been told by our realtor that this charming, old house was owned by the Stanley sisters since it was first built almost 70 years ago and then stood empty for many, many years. Two years ago, a wealthy young real estate investor bought the property to renovate for an easy flip but when one of her family members became seriously ill she had to sell the house "as-is" to quickly rush home.

The first time "something" happened I was alone with Evan, unpacking in the kitchen. The dog started barking at the front door and then the doorbell rang. Drying my hands on a tea towel, I answered and found nobody there. This must have happened over 8 times that afternoon but I chalked it up to old wiring in this 1939 house. Several nights later, my belly was sore and throbbing and I awoke to find my ratty t-shirt pushed up past my ribs and my stomach covered with stripes of blood. It was a hot and humid September night so I assumed I had been scratching at my stretched and over-plumped belly but when I stood looking at myself in the bathroom mirror there were ten straight and distinct crimson slashes down my stomach. Neither my husband, nor I had any trace of skin or blood in our fingernails. I don't know how this could have happened.

My 2-1/2 year old son, Evan, slept in the toddler bed across from the crib in the nursery. The next night, while Clay was working late, I heard creaking and what sounded like a woman humming in that room. I thought Evan might have climbed into the rocking chair and turned on his lullaby CD so I went in to peak on him and put him back in bed. As soon as the light fell across his empty bed I saw out the corner of my eye a baby blanket held in mid-air drop to the floor and the rocking chair come to a dead stop. Confused and now panicked because Evan wasn't in the crib either, I flipped on the light when the baby blanket started wiggling, crying and then screaming. It was Evan! He had just been DROPPED by something or someone and was just as scared and confused as I was. Shaking and crying also, I scooped him up into my arms and ran into my bedroom to call Clay to come home immediately. We all left minutes later and slept in a local hotel that night.

The next day two of my elderly neighbors watched, puzzled, as we arrived back home in our pajamas. We told them of the strange things that had been happening. The muffled music playing in the basement in the middle of the night, the feeling as though someone was watching every time I bathed my son, the overwhelming smell of liquor as you walked down the stairs, the blood-curdling screams then baby cries, the house shaking and rattling as though the train track over a half-mile away ran right through our family room, and a female wailing I had heard 4 days ago. It was too much too ignore now. We asked if they knew anything about the house or the previous owners. What could they tell us? We wouldn't spend another night in there and we were considering a quick sale of the house.

Mr. Wade muttered something and then went inside. Mrs. Wade must have sensed our desperation. "Please." I begged. "I can't. Evan and I can't be alone in there." I could tell she knew it too.

She began back with the Stanley Sisters- two sisters who had saved to buy a house after graduating from college back in the early 1940's. Rosalie was a nurse and Nina was a teacher. Neither one had much luck dating but somehow they both had fallen for a local boy, Walter. As Rosalie started going out more with her new beau Nina became more and more jealous and obsessed. She had always wanted children, lots of them. Feeling her dream of children being stolen from her, Nina began to drink heavily. Rosalie and Walt were soon married and he ended up moving into the house as well. Nina continued to drink. She resorted to tying her bottles on levied ropes up in the tree branches or hiding them in the loose stair. She was soon fired as a teacher for showing up to work intoxicated.

Walt was a Naval officer and sent overseas as soon as war broke out. Rosalie found out she was pregnant three weeks after he left. She had a tough pregnancy and went into an early labor one night while Nina was out drinking with friends. Nina had stumbled home drunk to find her sister lying in a pool of blood and a naked, squealing and shivering newborn between her legs. Fumbling in her drunkenness and fear, Nina tried to wake Rosalie. She wrapped the baby up and headed outside looking for nearby help. She had run up the road screaming in desperation when she and the new baby boy were hit by a coal train, killing them both. The coroner found that Rosalie must have hemorrhaged during the last few moments of the labor and had probably passed out from the pain and loss of blood. When she came to she awoke to the sight of blood and gore and her vacant belly. She followed the bloody footprints heading for the doorway, leaving a new trail of blood behind her, slowly bleeding to death with every step. Searching inconsolably, Rosalie found her lifeless sister and baby near the railroad tracks. She fell to the earth with one hand on Nina's arm and the other on the cheek of her cold, small infant son. All three were found dead when the morning light revealed the night's tragedy.

Mrs. Wade whispered now, "I believe Rosalie is in some way trapped in that house, overcome with endless grief and anger from never having held or rocked her and Walt's baby boy. I think she's still enraged and looking for their tiny son."

"Walt has seen her on occasion…swaying back and forth in that bedroom window, or staring blankly out the front door. He hears their song playing sometimes from the basement where they used to dance and talk privately when Nina was home. It's the only thing that keeps him going. Hoping for the next glimpse, hoping she will be able to see him the next time."

Mrs. Wade continued "You see, when Mr. Wade, my brother, returned home from the war, he was never the same. Having witnessed death and destruction abroad he returned to death and despair here at home. He's been totally disinterested in any mortal happiness since then and has never remarried or moved on. Walt has tortured himself everyday for the last 63 years. I think he feels as though he failed to protect Rosalie, Nina, and the baby in life and so he watches over and cares for them in death. They've all been laid to rest but Rosalie has never rested. She won't rest until she has her baby. But if you want to rest, dear, take your baby and leave the Stanley sister's home."