The Story of Ro-Why-Where: Part 1

The Story of Ro-Why-Where: Part 1

It was the day before Halloween, and the bell rang for recess at Grimwood Elementary.

"I'm going to be a ghost!” said Edward.

"Well, I am going to be a princess!" Emma lilted.

"Father's letting me borrow his baton so I can be Mozart!" said Christopher, striking a dramatic pose.

"What about you, Nora?" asked Nicholas.

Young Nora Falgrove had just moved to Grimwood with her family and became fast friends with little Nicholas Fellstone.

"I was thinking about being a witch," Nora responded.

"Yes! I've been a witch every year for Halloween!" said Nicholas with a twinkle in his eye.

"We're going to have so much fun!"

"I'm going to be a skeleton!" exclaimed Thomas.

The children gasped!

"Are you crazy?!" Emma yelled.

"I'm not scared! That old story's a bunch of hooey!" said Thomas.

"What story?" Nora eagerly asked.

Edward leaned into the group:

"There's a Grimwood legend of an evil skeleton spirit named Ro-Why-Where. Once a year, he calls a child into his Creepy Creaky Coffin, and when the year passes, his victim rises as the new Ro-Why-Where to continue the ancient curse."

Nicholas made an audible gulp.

"GULP!"

"And he is real!" shouted Emma.

"He's why we have the Concerned Parents Society! I've even seen him on the hill of Grimstone Cemetery! Sometimes, I hear his coffin go CREAK, CREAK, CREAK all night long.”

Taking Nora's hands, Emma pleaded, "Nora, if you do see him, never ever look into his eyes."

As an anxious Nora returned from school, she was comforted to see her mother and father unpacking their familiar belongings. But she couldn't ignore the orange flyer for the "Grimwood Concerned Parents Society" atop their unopened mail.

When bedtime came, something felt different as Nora reached the top of the staircase.

The hallway seemed longer and darker than before. Even with her window closed, her room was cold as ice.

She quickly jumped into bed and soon decided it was an under-the-covers night.

From a deep sleep, Nora jolted awake to the sound of wind howling through her open window. It seemed to whisper her name:

”NORA…”

Her window slammed shut, and from the silence, there came another sound, like rotten scraps of wood quietly scraping together. Or perhaps…

Ancient bones rattling!

The shadows seemed to conjure two dark spots, resembling a pair of sinister, sunken eyes.

With a sudden shift of the harvest moon, an ominous grin showed below the dark sockets and widened to reveal hideously decayed teeth!

“RO-WHY-WHERE-RO-WHY-WHERE-RO-WHY-WHERE…!!!”

Nora screamed as she ran to her parents' room, "It's Ro-Why-Where!! I saw him!! He's in my room!!”

"Sweetheart," said her father in a foggy haze, "whatever you saw wasn't real. I'm sure it was a dream."

As young Nora Falgrove attempted to fall asleep between her protectors, she wondered, as had many generations of Grimwood's children...

"Is he real, or just... pretend?”