Teasing Tessa.
She was born in Cooksville Illinois in 1880, it is a small farming community on the prairie...nothing out of the ordinary for the average visitor, until you look closer...
Most of the settlers in this area came from back east, and when they came, they brought with them, things that can't be seen...things that go bump in the night, or far worse...
Tessa Came from one of these families, she was a very odd girl, she was normal in every way from outward appearances, but inside, it was far different...
Remember I mentioned things unseen being brought here...well unseen things already existed here...
Cooksville grew very fast when it was first platted, mainly because it was built around the railroad going through...
It built a big school building in 1882 to educate its children, by this in 1895 the town now had four churches, across from the school was the Christian church, it was an average church on the prairie at this time, but its preacher was not...
Izbert Calshank was a very odd man, but he was a preacher so people that attended the church overlooked his eccentricities...even his name was very odd...
He had a very nervous tick, he would count backwards in stages of tens...it was very odd...
I mentioned Tessa had been born here in 1880, that is true, her mother had arrived in Cooksville in late 1878...Tessa was born in August of 1880... she came to live with her Aunt and Uncle that ran the only hotel in town...the whole situation seemed strange to locals... Tessa's father was still back east, that is how the story goes anyway...
Several days after Tessa was born, her mother disappeared...she was located several days later, wandering around in some woods, outside Havana Illinois...this is nearly 60 miles from Cooksville???
Her mental capacity was that of a small child, she was immediately sent to the insane asylum in Bartonville Illinois...
Tessa and her family did not attend church, this was frowned upon in the community, but that talk was kept in secret...as were many other things about her and her family...
Each day when school was in attendance...at recess, Tessa would sit on the front steps of the school, staring at the church across the street, her face was always unreadable...but she would drool outside the corner of her mouth in a steady stream, never moving, never taking her eyes off the church...it was a odd sight to behold... nobody paid her any attention though...they knew better... except for one other did???
Whenever Tessa was outside for recess... Izbert was outside too...the preacher didn't stare at her though...he would sit sideways on the steps of the church, looking north...he would count backwards in stages of tens...when recess was over, he would go back inside...
The other watched both of them...it was unseen...
You might be wondering why I am telling you this story???
My name is Audrey...the year is 1979...I am 9 years old...I live in Cooksville Illinois...I attend school here...
From my class room I can see an old abandoned church...
I don't want to look, or write down this story...but something is making me???
This Story Will Continue In Stages Of 1...Counting Forward...Not Backwards...
Comments
Post a Comment