At every Holiday gathering at my Nan’s house- and that included Sunday dinners, I was reminded to never, ever go down into Nan’s Basement.

I will spare you the drama, the reason I was told not to go down into Nan’s basement was that she believed there was a body down there. She thought one of our relatives has murdered another relative and the chances were good that he hid the body in the basement.

At the time ‘ the body ‘ was still alive, her husband ( a distant cousin of mine ) was working on something in the cellar- and when she was reported missing my cousin said the work in the basement was completed.

What a coincidence!

I’m not sure why nobody called the police or dug around down there to find out one way or another but for some weird reason nobody seemed busted up about this loss. So life went on and we were told to stay out of the basement.

But it didn’t matter if we stayed out of the basement, because even if there wasn’t a body buried down there, that story managed to find it’s way out of it’s grave, it made it’s way up the firm wood stairs and it lived and haunted anyone that went into Nan’s house.

Long after Nan had passed away and her house went up for sale for the sixth time  ( her was actually a very cool Victorian styled home over looking a lake and it’s now what is considered prime real estate ) I had the chance to visit Nan’s house and got a tour.

Todd was the real estate agent. He wore a plain blue suit and not one of those blazers that I remembered real estate agents wore when I was a kid.

We made chit chat about the roses in the side yard and the stained glass windows on the top floor where the attic is and when Todd opened the door to Nan’s house, I felt like a kid again.

The rooms were decorated with what I guessed was rented Victorian furniture and  I caught a whiff of baked bread which I assumed was created by a plastic plug in air freshener and not by someone in the kitchen…which it the room I headed to before Todd had a chance to close the door behind us.

I walked slowly, down the hall to the kitchen.

There was a hutch guarding  the door down to the basement.

The hutch was packed with cookbooks. They looked brand new too.

I asked the agent, “Is there a basement? I mean,  don’t most of these old houses have basements?”

He looked at me and remembered to smile before he said, ” Oh, yes. The door  to the basement is behind that hutch. The current owners had no use for it being that it was unfinished. But it’s dry and empty. ”

I rested my hand on one of the cookbooks and I turned to Todd and winked and I said with absolute certainty:

” Oh now Todd, I think we both know that’s not true. “