I couldn’t control my facial expression as my jaw dropped open. “Wait, Michelle Kline was your granddaughter?” I knew I was repeating what she just said, but I was still processing this piece of information.
“Yes, you look surprised. Were you one of the officers who found her?”
“Oh Rose, yes I was. I am so sorry for your loss. I guess I always thought she was more of a transient and had no idea that she had family left in the area.”
“Well, I think I’m the only family left here. Michelle’s children went to live with their aunt, my daughter, down in Maryland after we believed she died 20 years ago.”
I knew Michelle’s children were in Maryland because the U.S. Marshals told me they were going to drive down personally to notify her children and tell them how their mother was in the Witness Protection Program all these years. I had so many questions for Rose now, I tried to pace myself. “What was your relationship with Michelle like?”
“She was less like a granddaughter and more like a daughter to me. I love Michelle’s mother very much, she is my daughter, but she has her flaws. She became heavily involved with the Catholic church when she married Michelle’s father. So, when Michelle came home and told them she was pregnant and going to be raising a child alone, they kicked her out of their house. I don’t think it was even six months before they ended up moving out West to be closer to Alan’s family.”
“Alan?”
“Yes, Michelle’s Father.”
“Oh, sorry. So what did Michelle do when they kicked her out?”
“She had nowhere to go. Samuel and I took her in and helped her through her pregnancy. It wasn’t too long after the first one was born that she was pregnant again. We let her stay here through her second pregnancy as well. Oh God, and then the accident happened.”
“What accident?”
“Michelle was driving down the road to work, she was a waitress, and got hit head on by a drunk driver. She was seven months pregnant and we didn’t know if either of them was going to make it. I think that night took years off my life.”
I cringed as the scene of the accident ran through my mind. “That is so terrifying.”
“Yes, it was,” Rose replied. “As I’m sure you can figure out, they both made it. They performed an emergency caesarian section and Michelle suffered a severe brain injury, but with therapy and the right doctors she made a full recovery.”
I was dying to know how Michelle ended up at Patch Lane. “And when did she move out of your home?”
“Oh let’s see… probably about 10 months after the accident. I know it wasn’t a full year yet. She ended up starting her own business and made more than twice what she was making as a waitress.”
Being that this is such a small town, everyone knows who owns each local business. I was surprised to hear Michelle started her own business. I had never heard of her or her business. “What business did she start?”
Rose’s eyes widened slightly and she inhaled deeply, “Well, now, that’s an interesting story that might take us a while.”
I was so engrossed in Rose’s information, I leaned in closer. “I have time, Rose.”
“Alright. Well, after Michelle’s accident she didn’t feel the same. She started experiencing…strange things that no one could explain.”
I wasn’t sure where Rose was going with this. “Like medically?”
“No, not like that. She started having thoughts, memory-like thoughts, that weren’t real memories and had never happened to her. She would be confused on why she just randomly had that thought, and then within a day’s notice her vision would come true.” This conversation was not going where I thought it was. However, I was still intrigued and I could tell Rose felt embarrassed because she knew how this all sounded. Rose continued, “I know how this must all sound. If it weren’t for seeing it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it either.”
I couldn’t help myself and asked, “What exactly did you see with your own eyes?”
“I’ll never forget her first vision. We were all in the family room playing cards and unwinding since she just got home from work. Out of nowhere, she started crying. At first, I thought it was hormones since it wasn’t long after her second child. She said she didn’t know why she was crying. But quickly, she started rocking back and forth in her seat. She kept repeating, ‘no, no, no, this isn’t happening. This isn’t real.’ I started crying just at the sight of her. Samuel had no idea whether he should console her or sit back, he just stared in disbelief. I held her for nearly 20 minutes until she could finally speak. She said someone she loved was dead. I assured her everyone was okay, but she just kept saying ‘Someone’s dead.’”
I had goosebumps up my arms. “So what happened?”
“We finally got her calmed down and put her to bed. It wasn’t even 7 am when we woke up to the phone ringing. Samuel answered it and I’ll never forget his face. I never have seen so much pain in his eyes as that very moment. He slowly lowered the phone and grabbed my hand. I asked him what was wrong and he told me Mary, Michelle’s sister, overdosed last night.”
I had no words, no response. Suddenly everything around me felt more vivid. The rain outside sounded like it was knocking on the window to come inside; I didn’t even notice it was raining until now. I stared at Rose’s face and could see every line on her forehead, every wrinkle on her cheek. I noticed my breathing slowed. I don’t even believe in this stuff but I felt almost frozen in time as I absorbed everything Rose was telling me.
Rose took a sip of her glass of water and didn’t let the silence bother her. She continued, “And ever since then they only got clearer and more precise. It eventually came to the point where she could tell us who was calling before we picked up the phone. It became normal to us and we treated it like a game. This gift really changed her when we were walking through the park one evening. Michelle felt a heaviness on her chest that she couldn’t shake. I was concerned she was having a heart attack because of how she was acting. She somehow knew this wasn’t medical and said she was feeling a spirit connecting to her.” Rose closed her eyes and relived the moment. “Oh, Michelle had me so worried. I held on to her and after a few minutes passed, she opened her eyes and began crying hysterically. She told me a little girl was buried there. She would not let it go and we eventually called the police out. There was a nice officer working that evening who listened to every word Michelle told him and never rolled his eyes once. You know, I think he had something happen in his own life that he was a believer long before we called him. He decided to get a shovel and start digging on his own before calling for backup, given the circumstances. It took him about 15 minutes, but he eventually found a trash bag. He stopped digging and didn’t even open the bag before calling for back up and started wrapping police tape around the park.”
I felt like a child during story time. I couldn’t stop asking questions, “So was there a body? What was in the bag?”
Rose let out a sigh, “Oh yes, there was a body of a young girl. That’s a sight I’ll never forget. The police questioned Michelle, but it didn’t take them long to rule her out as a suspect and they slowly started using her for help with other cases.”
I tried to draw all of these pieces of information together and figure out how it could possibly relate to Patch Lane. I asked, “How did Michelle eventually end up living at Patch Lane?”
“Samuel and I didn’t want Michelle to move out. We were concerned for her and the kids’ safety and we really loved having them here. But Michelle felt it was important to be an independent mother for those children and started searching for a safe, but affordable home. She looked mostly in this area so that we could still help with watching the kids. One day she was at the corner store grabbing some milk and saw a paper taped to the bulletin board for a house for rent. It was surprisingly affordable and not far from our cabin, so she left the store and drove straight to the house on Patch Lane. She became immediately drawn to the house, like a moth to a flame. As soon as she got home she called the number on the paper and said she would take it. Imagine my surprise when I got home that evening and she told me she was moving into the old house on Patch Lane. Everyone around here knows the stories of that old farm, but somehow those stories never got to Michelle.”
“What happened after she moved in to Patch Lane?”
“Moving into that house was a blessing and a curse. She finally gained the independence that she so desperately sought, but it came at a price. The visions became overwhelming. She barely slept at night. The visions became so intense that the line between reality and visions was slowly fading. She always talked about hearing a spirit tell her she needed to check out the basement. She found that old door with the lock on it and even called Samuel over one day and asked him to help her remove the lock. Now you know, we’re old fashioned here and we don’t go snooping in other people’s business. Samuel told Michelle not to go snooping and told her to mind her own business. He refused to help her open that lock. She didn’t know how to open it herself without cutting it with bolt cutters, which wasn’t an option since she didn’t want the landlord to find out.”
I remembered that when I first approached Patch Lane I still saw the rusty lock on the door, so there was no way she could have gotten into that basement room unless she found the underground tunnel. I asked, “So then how did she eventually get into that room?”
“Oddly enough, she wasn’t the one that found the root cellar passage, it was her kids. One day they were playing in the yard and started jumping on something. The loud clank of the metal got Michelle’s attention and she ran over to find the root cellar door. She put the kids inside and went back to the root cellar. She opened the door, walked down the stairs, and through the tunnel. She came to a hatch, and she opened it. She found herself in that locked room in the basement. She called me immediately after she found that room, I remember it clear as day.” A single tear made its way down Rose’s cheek, making a path straight over each wrinkle. Rose added, “As soon as Michelle got into that room she had the worst vision yet. She saw her own death.”