Sometime in the night, right after Kellen ended a story of his, we heard what sounded like a door slam and then loud, obvious footsteps upstairs. We all instantly fell silent and glanced at each other concerned yet intrigued. Everyone was accounted for at the table. We stayed quiet a little longer and strained our ears, when we heard even more movement upstairs, like someone was shuffling between the boxes up there. Wade and Dad got up to check on grandma, while Kellen and Andy decided to scope out the upstairs. Like usual, grandma was fast asleep, and nothing was upstairs.
None of us were really spooked, except for Andy's girlfriend, who was practically sitting on Andy's lap when he sat back down at his seat.
"They're making their presence known." Stacy said quietly once everyone was back at the table.
"What's making its presence known?!" Andy's girlfriend demanded.
"The ghosts." Stacy replied matter-of-factly.
My dad, the aggressive atheist of the family, shot my aunt a disparaging look, "There's no ghosts! That was just the house settling."
"No, those were footsteps alright." Jess interjected.
"Yeah, those were definitely footsteps..." Wade agreed.
My dad chuckled, rolling his eyes and making a cuckoo gesture.
"Is- is this a frequent thing that happens?" Andy's girlfriend nearly whispered.
"Not usually..." Stacy said.
"But they've been more active than usual. That's for damn sure..." I added, taking a healthy swig of eggnog.
"And, you guys aren't bothered?" Andy's girlfriend asked, astonished.
"No, not really..." we all shrugged.
"It's just a thing that exists..." I smiled.
"And, I haven't seen anything. Just heard a lot of noise..." my uncle said, "Like everyone else says, this house is just more active than usual, because... Well..."
Wade gently gestured towards my grandma's bedroom, and we all sat in silence for a moment, staring towards her bedroom.
"Grandpa Bob passed away in this house..." I mumbled, breaking the silence.
"That, he did." Dad nodded, "It was a good death, too. He died the way he wanted to-"
"In the house he was born and raised in." Stacy interrupted.
"So what you're saying is..." Andy's girlfriend trailed off.
"Whatever's here is benevolent." Stacy said, "Personally, I firmly believe it's the spirits of our passed loved ones making their presence known, and reassuring us and grandma that she's in good hands."
"And, I think it's all mumbo-jumbo." Dad just had to interject, "But, Stacy's right. It's nothing to be afraid of. It's just 'old house' noises... Or, grandpa Bob, if you believe Stacy."
Strangely, as if right on cue, a bottom door on an antique cabinet swung open, and several papers slid out onto the floor. It was such a perfectly-timed moment, as though the spirits themselves were trying to prove my dad wrong. It was actually quite funny.
Misty got down on the floor and began to gather up the papers when she paused, holding one up.
"My Bird Book, by Robert N." She read aloud.
Chills shot down my spine. Everyone was taken quite aback.
"That was just opened by vibrations from us walk..."
My aunt Stacy shot my dad The Look, and he shut up.
Misty carried the booklet over to the table, and we began to pass it around, gently looking through its yellowed pages at my grandpa's illustrations of various Minnesota birds. At the very back of the booklet, my grandpa had written, "5th grade". My grandpa had made that beautiful little booklet in elementary school. Even more interesting, was that my grandpa's art style mirrored my own. I didn't even know grandpa was an artist up until then!
I felt the table rattle a little bit as my aunt and uncle dropped a bunch of yellowed pages and photo albums onto the table's center.
"These are the people you'll be sharing the house with!" Stacy grinned at Andy and his girlfriend.
Laid before us were numerous pictures, documents, and writings passed down the generations. A lot of things were written in an older dialect of German, though I still recognized some of the words and the people in the pictures. Not only did we have papers to look through, but Wade had brought down a rusty toy horse buggy and a creepy-as-all-hell porcelain doll with a cracked face and yellowed eyes, as well as a framed birth certificate, entirely hand-written in German. The name, Johann Nibbe, was written at the very bottom.
"This barely scratches the surface..." my aunt Jess said, "Wes has copies of all of this and so much more."
"I betcha this doll's the source of all the weird shit going on." I sneered as I poked at it with a pencil.
"Aw, don't say that!" Stacy whined, "She's a gorgeous doll. I mean, look at her little curls and dress. No wonder she was great-grandma's favorite!"
I grimaced and sat back. I didn't care if it was a favorite family doll. The thing was still a Halloween haunted house decoration in my eyes. Damn thing's eyes probably glowed red in the dark.
I then paid attention to the pictures. Even without knowing who most of the people in the faded, black-and-white photos by name, I knew exactly who my relatives were, as they all looked just like me. In a way, I felt like I was staring into a mirror. Words will never be able to articulate the feelings I felt while staring at myself in those pictures from well over a century ago. It felt just as magical as when I caught my reflection in the South Platte river, only to see my grandma Shirley staring back at me.
"So..." Stacy began, "As far as I know, both the Nibbe's and the Atkinson's (my grandma's maiden name) came over to the states in the early 1900s. The Nibbe's were largely Germans from Russia, as well as Germans from... Well, Germany. And the Atkinson's came from Herefordshire, England, bringing some of their Hereford cattle with them."
"Oh, damn..." I mumbled, just as a I flipped to a picture of my great-grandpa Alfred Nibbe posing with a haltered Hereford bull.
"The Nibbe's, as you could prolly guess, weren't as well off as the Atkinsons. In fact, your great-great-great grandpa Johann was a raging alcoholic. But, he calmed down towards the end of his life and made things right with his son, Johann Nibbe the third. Johann the third went on to have many, many children, one of whom was your great-grandpa Alfred Nibbe, who inherited this very farm from his father. And, his father bought this farm while it was still fairly new, from a Schaffer. In fact, your aunt Jess is related to the Schaffer's."
"Uh-oh..." I jokingly said.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Andy shouted, "This ain't rural West Virginia!"
"Do you recognize anyone in these pictures?" I asked Andy's girlfriend.
"Uhh, no." She replied, giggling, "God, I hope not!"
"To change subjects," my aunt continued while shooting me The Look, "It turns out a couple of your Atkinson relatives, and a Nibbe, had Cystic Fibrosis."
"Really?!" both myself and my dad raised our eyebrows.
"Yup!" Stacy nodded, "The Nibbe didn't last very long, but the Atkinson's lived to be quite old despite their condition."
"How old?" I asked, eagerly.
"Well, one of them lived to be in his forties but died because he drank and smoke his whole life. And, the other was a sweet old woman I got to meet when I was a little girl, who lived to be seventy-two."
"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, "How the hell did they live so long?!"
"Beats me." my aunt shrugged, "I guess we've just got strong genes. Y'know your grandpa lived for decades when the doctors said he would die shortly after his aneurysm. He survived many heart attacks, blood cancer, various deadly viruses, and more."
"And, when he died?" I egged on.
"Well, your father's gonna disagree with me, but I think grandpa just got sick of livin'. He had made his peace with the Lord. He had made clear how he wanted to die. Not even a year before his passing, he and grandma got all of his affairs in order. And, when he died, he went quickly, at home on the farm." Stacy sighed.
"And now..." my dad perked up, "Ma's leaving on her own terms, too. She refused cancer treatment, saying, over and over, that she was ready to go. She intends to die here, at home. And, we have hospice here to help with that."
"It's truly a blessing..." my uncle Wade smiled.
"A blessing, indeed." Stacy agreed.
