She knew it was a mistake moving across from Rainey Park.
Francine told her brother numerous times she regretted relocating in the fixer-upper bungalow on Abigail Avenue after their not-so-old mother passed away suddenly from a massive heart attack.
“Never thought it was good idea moving next to a park; but the house was cheap, and it was close to our old neighborhood,” she repeatedly told Terrence, sometimes slightly altering her pronouncement, but always driving home the gist of it.
“I know, I know the refrain already. Let it go!” Terrence would shoot back, rearranging the words at times, but consistently emitting his exasperation.
The house was inexpensive because it was undeniably shabby, but also because it bordered a park known for trouble – young folks yelling and carousing deep into the night during summer was one headache for area residents that local police didn’t seem to care much about.
The drug deals that occasionally went down there got more of the cops’ attention, but not much more.
But for Francine, the main source of irritation increasingly became the swing set that was set back from the front edge of the park by 30 feet or so.
Francine didn’t like to call it a swing set because it only had one swing, and it hung from a strange looking and heavy-handed X frame.
On one late September morning, Francine and Terrence stood and sipped coffee by their front-room window as they looked out into the windy park, where the empty swing rocked back and forth.
“The shape of that X looks like it comes from the Dark Ages or something – it’s creepy, something you could torture somebody with,” Francine said.
“It’s supposed to be kind of a piece of art; the town board commissioned a local artist to design it,” Terrence related while surveying the overcast sky. “It’s an arty-farty thing. That’s why there’s only actually one swing to swing on. The artist wanted to make some kind of statement. You would think there’d be at least two swings. It’s not functional, not practical. But it’s no big deal.”
Francine looked at her brother in mild disgust: “Well, it’s a big deal to me. I think it’s ugly. And it’s noisy.”
Terrence knew what his sister meant by “noisy,” and awaited her reiteration on the subject.
“It creaks and creaks and creaks,” she complained, growing more irritated each time the word sprang from her mouth. “It even creaks when no one’s on it. It’ll sway by itself in the breeze, and gets pretty loud. It was a pain having the windows open this summer and having to hear that. I don’t know how it makes so much noise, so often.”
Pausing for a few seconds, Francine finished her diatribe: “It’s weird how it makes noise so often. It’s just weird. Almost sounds like little screams.”
Terrence smiled to himself.
“Little screams, you say,” he slightly joked.
“Yeah, I’m serious, little screams,” she retorted, throwing a stern glance his way. “I don’t think I’m crazy.”
Terrence said if there was a lot of noise from the swing all the time, he really didn’t hear it.
“I guess it’s in the background where I don’t pay attention to it,” he casually said while walking away from the window. “I just think you’re hypersensitive to the sounds.”
For a minute or two, Francine stood and looked out the sizable rectangular-shaped glass in front of her before thinking about how she had never told her brother what she had seen on occasion, at night, or just before dark.
It seemed a thin, sickly boy – with unkempt, stringy hair – would lifelessly rock back and forth, ever so slightly, on the swing.
To determine if she was imagining things, Francine would turn away from the window, then look back at the swing, only to find nobody there. If there was darkness, the area would be sheathed in an unsettling yellowish glow from a park lamppost that was almost covered by tree branches.
The boy she’d see appeared lost – forlorn, resigned to his fate. Three birch trees, with gashed and knotted bark, stood in the background as morose sentinels in the twilight. The only other playground equipment nearby – a slide and dome-shaped climber – were worn and neglected, radiating an air of abandonment.
Francine didn’t understand how she could read so much into her sightings – she never got a good, clear look at the presence on the swing.
It hung from thick chain links, and was bolted with oversized metal fittings on the underside of the junction of two large dark-wooden beams – at the point where they met to form the X.
One chain hung on each side of the point of intersection, perfectly spaced.
The two legs of the swing set were splayed quite a distance apart, and supported with metallic bracings that drove into the ground at the rear of the unique playground equipment – undetectable from the front.
It all made for a big and cacophonic contraption, in Francine’s mind – perhaps as much as 20 feet high.
The seat of the swing itself was unusually large, perhaps made of oak and coated with a semi-glossy sealant – that’s how Francine saw it.
She paid more attention to the swing than she wanted to.
That afternoon, Francine visited her next-door neighbor, Myra, and confided to her about seeing the boy on the swing. She didn’t want to hold in such a secret anymore.
Saying she had never seen such an apparition, Myra imparted a story Francine never knew: “Many, many years ago, a boy – I think he was 8 or 9 – was being bullied and chased by some neighborhood kids. They surrounded him, and the boy jumped into the canal at the back of Rainey Park. He had no choice. He was cornered. He couldn’t swim. He drowned. True story. I don’t believe in ghosts, but just thought I’d tell ya.”
Myra felt that Francine and Terrence were a rather sad sister-brother duo – both unmarried, in their 40s and not particularly attractive.
Myra was not surprised Francine was a bit eccentric. Myra didn’t consider herself especially close to Francine, but liked her well enough. When she heard Francine’s peculiar story about the park, the tragic drowning incident came to mind.
Myra had no doubt the boy’s death and Francine’s apparition were not connected, but felt if it gave her neighbor a rationale for what she thought she was seeing, maybe it would help her make more sense of things.
That night, Francine awoke to the familiar creaking at around midnight.
It was a surprisingly warm night in early fall, and some of her windows were open.
Leaving her bedroom for the front room, Francine slowly parted the thick, closed curtains.
Peering across to the park, Francine saw that the dreaded swing was empty, and swinging wildly, although little wind existed.
She turned way and closed the curtains.
The creaking continued until it reached a fast and manic pace.
Creak.
Creak.
Creak.
Faster.
Faster.
Faster.
Finally, Francine dredged up the courage to look outside again.
Drawing back from what she saw, Francine could see that the swing was wrapped totally around its hanging point at the intersection of the X beams.
Only a little of the swing’s chains hung down, as the swing itself rose high off the ground.
It was as it the swing seat had thrown itself over its support beams – over and over again.
Next door, Myra had heard the commotion from the park.
Opening her front door and looking out, she was astounded at the state of the swing.
Then, with a bright half-moon spreading light below, Myra noticed something glistening on the ground, below the swing seat.
Taking two or three steps closer to the sight, Myra – standing on her front porch – pretty much decided that there was a good-sized puddle of water under the swing, reflecting light from the moon and the nearby lamppost in the park.
Myra knew it hadn’t rained in a long time.
Francine’s story of unearthly goings-on with the swing set suddenly made more sense.
Myra became a believer.