CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

March 14_Einstein's Birthday, PI Day 1464 Word Count

While pondering on the topics of today's blog, I discovered that this is the birth date of scientist/visionary Albert Einstein, and it is also Pi Day. (and in the U.S., or parts of U.S., we observe the commencement of Daylight Saving Time)





For us non-mathematicians, please know that Pi is the ratio of circumference to diameter in a circle. March 14 was chosen as it's holiday because Pi approximates 3:14, or 3-14, and because March 14 is the birth date of Einstein. There's a link below to a very interesting article on CNN.com which goes into great detail about Pi, and about the observances of this date.





Additionally, yet more folks have been killed in avalanches while snowmobiling; I'm constantly surprised that snowmobilers overlook the fact that the vibrations of sound can trigger avalanches. One zoo in China has allowed tigers to starve, allegedly because of insufficient funds to provide the tigers' daily meat. And China's 300 remaining elephants are squashed into a tiny patch of land.





http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/12/pi.day.math/index.html?hpt=C1





http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/daylight-saving-time-may-throw-off-our-int...





http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-china-elephants14-2010mar14,0...





Today's Free Read-continued from The Phantom Logging Operation





Chapter 5





                   At this point, I truly believed I had experienced enough-enough shocks, enough horror-for the rest of my life. I glared at the witch behind the counter, whose bun was so tightly yanked back from her face that she resembled a skull, and whose black bombazine dress looked like something out of the turn of the century.  Before she could even speak, I held up a cautionary finger and turned away, headed back up toward a center aisle where I remembered seeing a selection of plant and flower seeds. I picked up a trowel and several packets of perennials, tossing a few azalea packets in for good measure. I considered asking if they stocked rosebushes, but figured to wait until my next trip to Collins Junction for that. Way my life was going, I might be driving down to the big city sooner rather than later, just to get away for a while and spend some time in sanity.





         But for now, I just carried my extra purchases to the counter, set them down, and reached for my wallet. Silently she totaled them up, then handed me a bag and pointed to the total showing on the old-fashioned register. I paid and received my change while simultaneously bagging up, ready to get on out of there. Maybe she was mute, or just didn't care for this particular customer; I sure didn't care. I nodded an equally silent thanks, stepped to the door, and out onto the porch, where of course I encountered the burnt husk driver of the pulp-castoffs truck, fixing to enter the store.





Chapter 6





         Immediately I thought better of  stepping outside, and instead I spun around, almost dropping my purchases in their sack, and moved back inside and alongside the nearest aisle. Scuttling more than walking, I pretended to hunt for some precious and essential item I might have overlooked, but I needn't have attempted concealment. The door did not open at once, and when I peeked above the shelf in front of me, I noticed that the figure behind the counter had turned her scary self toward the archway behind her and to her left, as if she had heard a noise from what must have been the store's back room-probably a storeroom or tool shed, I guessed. (Wait, Rory! A tool shed? What use would a general store, small as this one is, have for a tool shed? A storeroom, yes. Surely some kind of delivery truck brought in the canned goods and perishable notions-the flour, sugar, coffee canisters-and most likely a nursery, perhaps at Collins Junction, delivered the plant and grain seeds. Granted, this general store did offer trowels and other gardening and planting implements, but only in small quantity. I could not cudgel my brain into identifying whatever subliminal clue had inspired me to think of “tool shed” in the back.)





                   As I continued to ponder that topic, the counter witch turned more fully toward the darkened archway, just as a young girl, appearing about twenty or so, rushed through it. Her waist-length dusty blond hair was pulled back with a wide  cream-colored ribbon, her eyes were stretched wide, and her expression bordered on both astonishment and confusion. Deeming it imprudent to press closer to the front door, instead I sidled back along the shelf toward the side wall, and around behind it. The shelf stack immediately behind the front shelves were lower, and I could readily see over them and watch the strange goings-on unfolding at the archway.

“Alice! What in the world-? I sent you to pack away those Easter items we didn't sell-”

                   Hmm-so there was a storeroom somewhere in the building-but a tool shed? Surely not!





                   Alice's expression changed to distraught.





         

“I did, Aunt Jennie! That's where I found this!”

         The girl-Alice-held up a mottled, spotted old book that appeared to be an antique ledger, or perhaps a journal. Whatever it was, the covers and the page edges were foxed, and appeared in some places stuck together. Clearly the item was both old, and long untouched. I turned from contemplation of the book to look at the old witch's face just in time to watch her pale and step back, nearly stumbling behind the counter.





         

“Alice,” she croaked, “where did you find that?





“Upstairs, Aunt Jennie, as I told you: while I put away the Easter merchandise! It was in that small two-shelf faded yellow bookcase, in the back corner”-Alice turned and pointed diagonally to what would have been the southwest corner of the building- “past the two shelves with the Christmas and Thanksgiving merchandise.”

         Clearing her throat several times before she could achieve anything more than a throaty rumble, Old Witch-now named Aunt Jennie-told the girl,

“There isn't anything back in that corner, Alice! And-that-book-should not have been anywhere in that storeroom.”

Chapter 7

         This had become way too intriguing to leave now. I leaned on the shelf in front of me, till I noticed a discouraging wobble, so I straightened up and tried to look as if I had overlooked picking up some essential household or gardening item. Actually I had: I needed mulch for the perennials I had laid out earlier today, before all this weirdness had begun. I slid up and down the aisles, one eye on the ladies behind the counter, the other toward the front door in case Mr. Burnt Husk himself decided to walk-er, shamble-through it in search of supplies or condiments or first-aid kits.





         The older woman behind the counter started to shift her attention in my direction, so I quickly grabbed up a bag of mulch and headed her way. Slamming it down on the counter, I inquired as to whether they had a sharp axe, a yard rake, and a large shovel in storage. She allowed as how they had and motioned young Alice to the counter to begin ringing up my new purchases, while she scowlingly backed through the archway, presumably to wherever the tools such as I had requested were located. (In the elusive tool shed, perhaps?) Alice calculated the cost of the mulch, shovel, ax, and rake and gave me the total. I paid her while with downcast eyes she counted out my change. I kept trying to think of conversation starters-I really was intrigued by that mottled, spotted old book, which she had laid on the far side of the counter-but questions like “Do you live here, then?” and “Are you from Knox?” seemed both puerile and nosy. Then too, the old bat would most likely return at any moment, dragging my tools, and I would be caught redhanded-or open-mouthed.





          I was wrong, after all; she returned empty-handed, pointed to the front door after glancing at Alice to be certain I had paid in full, and only mumbled to me, “Carl has your tools outside by your car.” I thanked them both, gave a tiny lingering smile to Alice, and headed back out, checking carefully as I opened the door to make sure I was not about to have a face-to-face encounter with char, and crossed the porch. Down the steps to the Merc, and sure enough, there waited the old geezer I had seen earlier on the porch, shovel, rake, and axe bundled in his scrawny old arms. I thanked him, unlocked and opened the trunk, and laid the tools, the mulch, and my other purchases inside.  He moved away silently; as I slammed shut the trunk, I glanced up at the shimmering faces of Alice and the old witch staring through the grimy pebbled glass of the front door.