Hannah Dotzler

A Brief Account of Booker House

Cameron G. Schneberger

Before Booker House belonged to my aunt, it was a school for rich girls with blue eyes. Before it was a school for rich girls with blue eyes, it was a place where Union soldiers cleaned their guns. Before it was a place where Union soldiers cleaned their guns, it was a farmhouse owned by the Booker family.

I stayed at Booker House for a week with my cousin. I was 11. It was a lavish place for a child accustomed to Midwest frugalness. It was a bonafide mansion infested with chandeliers, taxidermied foxes, and a small cleaning staff who lived on the premises. My aunt’s collection of exotic chickens orbited the house, and her hoard of marble-colored greyhounds migrated noiselessly from room to room, pausing for nobody’s hand. On the third night, my cousin and I shared a bed. The sound of a low groan enveloped Booker House that night. I don’t remember how long it lasted. The groan slowly crescendoed into a guttural shriek. I’d say it was only 10 minutes, but my cousin claims it lasted all night. It terrified us. We shared a bed for the rest of our stay. I remember I ate yogurt for breakfast the next morning. I also remember interrogating my aunt about the cause of the sound. She offered no explanation aside from the undeniable fact that old houses produce all manner of sounds. Fourteen years and two husbands later, my aunt graced me with a reminder of her existence and asked me to lunch. I was in college at the time. She drove me to a diner in rural Michigan that served frog legs. Booker House had long been sold in favor of a slightly smaller house that was allegedly much less work. “That place was haunted anyway,” she said, dipping a frog leg in ranch dressing.

“You know that moaning sound? Never knew when it was going to happen. One of my dogs ran away because of it. Never got used to it.”

She explained the last people in the Booker line to own the farm were a pair of twins, the Booker brothers. They were infamous in their brief lives, idiots who inherited more than they deserved and drank most of it away. The only thing they loved more than grain alcohol was their pet cow, an unfortunate animal who the Booker brothers dragged indoors frequently. They dragged the cow inside taverns, general stores, and a church. There was a rumor the Booker brothers were romantically attached to the cow.

One day, the Booker brothers lured the cow to the fourth story of Booker House. Cows can go upstairs but not down them, though the cow tried. It fell and broke its legs on the third-story landing. Shortly after, the Booker brothers euthanized it with buckshot. Then, they dragged it down the rest of the flights of stairs and out of the house. A flock of eager crows gave the cow a sky burial. “They kept the damn things in the basement. The cow’s bones, I mean,” my aunt explained.

“Had to get rid of them when I put the new pipes in. They told me not to move them, but it made no difference. The cow haunted that house with or without the bones.”

POETRY