an urban childhood legend haunts a young woman as she grows older after a traumatic experience with it when she was seven.

We all knew the legend, but only the children believed it. Down by Cannon Lake was where the spirit was said to live. There was an old mansion by the lake that belonged to the Anderson family in the late 1700’s.

They came from Britain. Arthur Anderson was an extremely wealthy man. He ran a successful mill business. He grew tired of Britain, and moved his wife and son to Manchester, New Hampshire, where his mill business grew even more successful.

He became a mill fanatic. His son was his only child, and he trained Nicholas ever since the boy was young to be just like him. Nicholas wanted to be a poet and grew to detest the mill business.

When he turned seventeen, Nicholas couldn’t stand it anymore. The normally quiet young man lashed out at his father and swore that he would never follow in his father’s footsteps.

This drove Arthur Anderson mad. He supposedly grabbed a butcher knife, stabbed Nicholas in the chest, and threw the body into Cannon Lake. The body was never found, but a week later, Arthur’s body was found in one of his mill buildings. His body was forced through one of the cotton gins. The body parts were assembled into the word, “Father.” It was never suspected that Nicholas was even killed until Arthur’s body was discovered.

The Anderson family and their mills faded away. The beautiful mansion became abandoned and in ruins. The mill buildings went on to become restaurants and stores. The one constant was Cannon Lake, sparkling beautifully next to the dead Anderson mansion. It was said that at nine every night, the now assumed time of Nicholas’s death, the decomposed body of the murdered son wonders inside the Anderson mansion, looking for his father to get revenge.

It was 1990. At the age of seven, I was a daredevil and a tomboy. Among my friends, the Anderson legend was always the topic of conversation. We made it our destiny to be the first eyewitnesses of Nicholas Anderson’s walking corpse.

One cool summer night, we all snuck out of our homes and ran the half mile to Cannon Lake. There were four of us. “Ana,” Peter Lafayette gasped, “Do ya have the time?” Peter was a year older than I and was my best friend. Everyone said that we would marry. Our children would have my beautiful red ringlets and Peter’s clear blue eyes. I always cringed when adults would make us dance together at parties.

“Nine O’clock,” I wheezed. After we caught our breathes, Peter and I, along with eight year olds Bill McGraff and Tom Johnson, ran up onto the back porch of the Anderson Mansion. The porch overlooked Cannon Lake. The old house groaned with every step we took.

We watched the like for forty-five minutes. Peter sighed and turned towards me. “I guess he’s not coming Nic…” He trailed off and his face turned deathly pale. His eyes were fixed on something behind me. Bill and Tom turned to see what was happening, screamed, and ran as fast as they could off the porch. I spun around and gasped in surprise.

A young man in a black suit stood behind me with his arms folded across his chest. His long, sleek black hair was tied back in a pony tail. His ice blue eyes flickered with amusement. His skin was whiter than anything I had ever seen, and his lips were tinted blue. A gentle breeze blew his wispy fringe into his eyes, and his lips formed a devilish smile. “It is not nice to stare,” he said in a British accent. As he spoke, his long, sharp incisors shone in the moonlight. “Be gone with you.”

Peter backed away slowly. I copied him, but the strange man grabbed my wrist. His cold touch made me shudder. “Do not forget me, little one. Return to me when you are older. I choose you.” He stroked my cheek and kissed my forehead.

When he released my wrist, I grabbed Peter’s hand and ran as fast as I could. We never spoke of the incident again, not sure if it was real or a figment of our imaginations. We didn’t want to tell the other and get laughed at if it wasn’t real.

Time passed quickly, and soon we found ourselves turning twenty. Our friends changed over the years, but Peter and I never grew apart. We went to different colleges, but during spring break, we would return home to Manchester and visit each other. He was studying to become an architect, I an author.

When it was time to return home the year of my twentieth birthday, Peter and I planned to meet for a spring dinner. I grabbed my notebook. My story got accepted and I needed an illustrator for the cover. If anyone could draw me a Buddest temple, I knew my architect could. My story centered around a young Buddest priest who dreamed of world peace. Peter read the story before I submitted it to a publishing company and said it opened his eyes as to how violent the world had become.

Before I went to meet Peter, I had the urge to visit Cannon Lake. I had been under a lot of stress lately with my new story, and going to the Lake always put me at ease. My past experience with the Lake, I had decided many years ago, was a figment of my childish overactive imagination.

I walked onto the Anderson porch and gazed at the Lake. The porch still creaked with my every move, and the “no trespassing” sign that everyone except local children ignored was still on the back door. I closed my eyes, and a wave of relaxation passed over me. I never understood why I felt like I belonged here, why I felt at one with the Lake as I grew older. It didn’t matter. I was happy.
My peace, however, was disturbed when someone wrapped their arms around my waist. A seductive male voice whispered into my ear. “You have returned to me.”