Back in the mid-70's a buddy of mine bought some remote, high elevation acreage in Butte County, CA. It had been a Christmas tree farm at one time. One year he gave me permission to cut a tree on his property. It was getting dark and I came across a huge Douglas fir or pine tree stump that had a ceramic plaque attached to the base of it. My first thought was that the plaque commemorated the size of the tree or something along those lines. It was too dark to read it. Anyway, I pried it off and threw it in the back of my Jeep, thinking my buddy would probably like to have it. I took it home and placed it in a flower bed behind a retaining wall outside my kitchen. It was the night of Dec. 20th.
The next morning I heard water running in the bathroom. I went it there to find the water running in the sink and the bathtub. I certainly didn't turn it on and neither did my wife, and we're the only two in the house. I hear my wife yell from the kitchen. All four burners on the gas stove were blazing. My mom called later and I told her about the strange goings-on. She told me to go look at the plaque I brought home the night before.
It was a brown lacquered clay plaque, about 12"x8", like something made in a home kiln. The inscription read:
"Agatha. A morning person and free spirit. Left this earth on Dec. 21." Don't remember if there was a year.
Below that, across the very bottom it read "Mambo". From the bottom to the top, on each side, were two black King Cobras in an erect position with their tongues extended.
For a few years after that strange things like I described above would occur on Dec. 21. I still have the plaque. It's still out there in the flower bed. A fence has been built over it now. I thought about taking it back to where I found it, but quite frankly, I'd never find the spot again, and I don't want to touch it.
Things were calm for a few years. Then one rainy afternoon in late Dec. We heard the unmistakable sounds of someone creeping along in our attic, above the living room. The deal is, no one can walk upright in that section of the attic. We live in a wood-framed house that's over 100 years old in an old Gold Rush town, so strange creaks and groans aren't unusual, but this was definitely something walking very slowly above our heads.
The latest was my computer getting unplugged every two or three days. It's plugged into a power strip from above, in a tangle of wires... No way that sucker could could come unplugged by itself. But it did, time and again.
Never have felt threatened in any way, so we can live with whatever it is. That's my story.
Loading comments....
