The house in which my mother grew up was located in Moss Point, Mississippi and was built by a grandfather I never knew, sometime before World War I. Classified as a bayou bungalow, it appeared somewhat squatty in height but was completed with a detailed gingerbread-clad front porch that belied the southern charm it sought to achieve. The one time three-bedroom floor plan had been reduced to two in order to accommodate the indoor plumbing, replacing a trail that snaked out the backdoor to the facilities.
Nothing was deemed off limits to grandchildren when we visited and we explored every nook and cranny, every bureau and cabinet, every drawer and secret place except the locked storeroom off the back porch. My sisters told me that all the family secrets were housed in that locked room but judging from the wall location in the back bedroom there weren’t many secrets. In fact when we asked about the room, Grandma’s response was always, what room, there’s no room off the back porch. But there was a door and that door lead somewhere. Peering through the keyhole revealed ghostly figures including an abandoned white whicker baby crib. With my best Nancy Drew sleuthing skills, I was determined to uncover and conquer the bayou monster that filled my dreams each night I slept in the house.
Softly slipping off the bed in the back bedroom during afternoon naptime, I silently crept past the sleeping bodies of my three sisters and made my way through the kitchen without being noticed. As I walked out on the porch, a large black rain cloud covered the sun and the brewing storm winds shifted the moss covered trees like breath on a cobweb. With the old skeleton key from the back door, I unlocked the storeroom and carefully opened the creaking door. I screamed as I saw the heads of my sisters triumphantly smiling at me over the bedpost in the back bedroom. There was no storeroom. And the love of mysteries began.
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