Daisy's Tale

I spent my girlhood in the elegantly named metropolis of Possum Kingdom, South Carolina. We were in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are the southernmost tip of the Appalachian range. I didn’t always live there, I used to live in New York, New York. My earliest memories there are of my mother and I eating instant chocolate pudding and watching tv on rainy Saturdays. My father wasn’t there; he was deployed. When I was 7 my mother decided to move to Possum Kingdom, to be closer to our grandparents. We left in late January.

We didn’t have an awful lot of stuff; most of it fit into three big suitcases and two laundry baskets in the back of the car. We shipped the rest, and most of the furniture stayed with the apartment.

We left just after dawn on a Tuesday morning. It was cold that day; I remember that from walking into McDonalds for lunch. We turned off the interstate and started winding through hills around midafternoon. Once the sun set, I watched flurries in the headlights. I asked why it was snowing if we were in South Carolina. Mother said it was because we were in the mountains.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I remember awaking with a start. We were on the gravel road to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. They had a lot of acreage, so the drive from the road to their house hadn’t been cleared. Behind the house they had pastures and barns for the cattle.

When we got to the farmhouse, I got out to stretch my legs. Not much of the snow had stuck around the farm. I noticed a funny thing under the trees: there were blue flowers growing there. I was about to point this out when Grandma and Grandpa came out the house. Grandpa swung me around, and Grandma told me there was hot chocolate inside.

It was delicious hot chocolate. As I sat drinking it in the kitchen, the adults brought the bags inside. We were to stay there until Mother found a house nearby. I was soon lured into the family room by the wood fire. There were a lot of strange things in the living room. I found out later that the scary metal claw by the fireplace was a grapnel anchor. I touched one of its spikes in admiration.

There were strange books on the bookshelf. The cover of one had a drawing of a monster head. It looked like it was about to jump out of the cover and eat me. I put it down. Mysterious things continued to happen throughout our stay.

Once school ended, we moved into a house closer to Possum Kingdom.

I loved growing up there. There wasn’t much to do and the old ladies at the beauty parlor knew everybody’s business. (Except for why there were so many strange happenings at my Grandparent’s farm. They thought it was haunted.) Regardless, it was truly a lovely place. Especially when my father was home on leave-those days were the best.