Hell House: Fires in the ForestWhen I was a kid my grandma lived in Hell House. All of the toys were

Hell House: Fires in the Forest

When I was a kid my grandma lived in Hell House. All of the toys were in the Red Room, but sometimes I was just too scared to stay in there, so one night I was poking around the back room going through my grandma’s things (the back room was a storage room for my mom and aunt’s things and it was fun to look through.) I was looking through a box when something outside the window caught my eye.

The forest sat dark and imposing out the window, and usually it was simply an imposing black expanse behind the glass. This time there was a bright pinprick of light that looked like a large bonfire glowing over the trees. Smoke rose high into the sky. I grabbed my mom to show her and she got very upset and made me play in the living room for the rest of the night.

It would be a good decade until I found out why that fire made my mom’s face flush pale, but that is a story for another time.