13 GHOST STORIES & TEA

Christmas we would go see Gram. She would cheerfully hum while stoking the fire and pouring tea. We would feast on breads, pasties, puddings, and sausages while soaking in her fanciful stories of how Godiva lived, loved, and prayed. I always thought Gram was imagining it all, but now I’m not so sure.

Apparently Godiva loved country life, bred horses, and created an unofficial Benedictine community of monks and nuns. Gram would mesmerize us with ghost stories and fables to keep us out of the labyrinth of tunnels linking the cottage with the monastery cellar, barns, and dormitories. My favorite was the fable of “The Black Ghost.” But sometimes she would get a dark far-off look and growl a command to “protect the children. Every child needs bread. Why can’t people be kind?”

She’d murmur something about children dying in the tunnels after the Blitz. That freaked me out. I never would even go down to get a jar of beans on the shelves at the bottom of the steps. Other times while she cooked she would start singing little songs "the children taught her." Perhaps the signs of dementia were earlier than we realized.

About forty years ago , during the renovations, several layers of flooring were revealed…and a locked trap door beneath it all. Gram screamed and and threw herself over it, demanding it never be opened. She tearfully demanded that sub-flooring cover it, and it was never seen or talked about again. Until now.

Edy

#Godiva

#blackghost

#Eponia

#Blitz

#Trapdoor

#Cola

#EnglishTea

#Tea

#Benedictine