I have not slept the past three nights; I only sleep during the early morning hours before heading off to my college classes. Once the sun comes, it makes everything I worry about seem ridiculous. Sort of like a mother who you tell your nightmares to, and she says they were just dreams. And then everything is better. Until she leaves again. And you’re alone in the dark.

I’d never been afraid of the dark before, but it’s not the dark I’m afraid of. It’s Mary. She scares me. And she haunts my every thought at night.

For the past three nights I’ve tossed and turned, tucked my feet under the quilt and buried my face into my pillows. Her image is printed on my eyelids, and every sound I here is her footstep causing the floor to creak. I become paranoid, leave the bed to watch television or listen to music to get my mind off of her.

“This is ridiculous,” I say hating myself for being so afraid. I knew once the sun came up, everything would go back to normal and I wouldn’t think twice about Mary. But in the darkness, she’s all I can ever think about.

Mary.

And tomorrow, I visit her grave.

A friend of mine is hosting a party before he gets shipped off for Marine’ basic training in Paris Isle. He invited me and knowing my interest in the paranormal, told me the history of the land his house had been built on.

Back in the 1800s, a small home had been built there with a father, mother, and two beautiful twin girls. One of the girls had a cripple arm, with a deformed hand and no forearm. She was not impaired in any other way; she was intelligent, lively, and very beautiful. As she and her sister aged they helped their parents work the small farm to support themselves. The mother, became increasingly irritated that the cripple could not work because of her hand, and was locked away in the basement of the house, to compensate for the labor she could not perform. And was left down there.

The mother would starve her for days, and only occasionally give the girl food and water. She was never allowed to leave, locked in the darkness of the basement with only the occasional light of a lit lantern. At the age of eight, Mary was found dead, wasted away to nothing on the ground.

She was buried at the edge of the property with a large tombstone far from any other burial ground and abandoned there.

One night, the father came back from the fields, shaken and pale. He quivered and his eyes were fearful, and would not respond to anyone. He walked to the mantel, loaded his gun and shot himself in the face.

He was buried alongside of his daughter Mary.

A few weeks later, the surviving twin was playing in a field when she heard her late sister Mary screaming for help in the woods. The little girls ran into the trees and did not return. Two days later, the mother called the police for a search team to find her daughter. They found her with a stick stabbed straight into her chest.

The mother, determined not to meet her demise from her daughter, locked herself within her own home and would never leave. She had young boys to do errands for her when she needed more supplies, but she was terrified to step out of the house.

Mary got her revenge nonetheless.

There was no body to be found of the mother. Just pieces of her all throughout the house and blood on every wall.

Decades passed, the house was torn down and my friend’s Grandfather bought the land and built his own house there. At the edge of the property there stood three tombstones, two twins and a father. After asking locals he learned the story of his property.

“What about the mother’s grave? Where is she buried?” She was never buried; no one knows what became of her remains.

Mary’s tombstone is split in half, cut unnaturally in a perfect diagonal line. Everyone has told me that the top is replaced on the tombstone, weighing a considerable amount, and being found haven fallen again the next day. They also say if you stand outside of the woods near where she is buried, you can hear the sounds of a distant, young girl’s laughter.

“She’s happy, and I’m glad for her,” said my friend, “She got her revenge.”

More recently, my friend came home and found all eight of the collection of stray cats they had dead in the backyard of his home. All of their necks had been broken, like they’d been strangled, and their tails chopped off. All except one cat, found dead at the edge of Mary’s grave site, who still had its tail and appeared to have been sleeping soundly in a ball.
Some speculate that Mary didn’t like the stray cats walking on her grave.

From what I’ve been told, everything I say is true, and I’m going this weekend to the gravesite to investigate and try to reach this infamous Mary. And I’ll tell you all about it next time I write. Until then I’ll be constantly looking over my shoulder for the beautiful girl with a cripple arm.