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Written by William Yves Cirrillo

I was born in raised in Vermont. I still live here in the same house with the same haunt. I say haunt and not a ghost because the experience only happens on a particular date and only if it snows heavily. I was told by the ‘specialists’ that this experience is an environmental residual haunt or an area haunt such as what happens on certain battlefield sites at certain times.

The house was originally an old farmhouse built in the early 1800s. It had been renovated many times and occupied by many families. Like many old houses it had seen good times and bad times … especially on any February 24 - 25 if there was a heavy snowfall. The first time my family experienced it was in 1966 when a storm dropped about 17 inches of white terror in a short period of time.

We were always well equipped for storms as the power usually went out – food was stocked, lanterns filled and there was plenty of wood for our old woodstove and fireplaces. That year grandpa was staying with us and he was always well versed in local lore. I remember him originally telling the story when I was about 5 and he reveled in it but on this night he was more somber and kept checking the window. He turned around, winked at us and said:

“In the Wintertide when the snow runs deep –

The payment due will be reaped –

Better stay warm within your bed –

Lest the axe dispatch your head.”

Of course the story had its own legend to go along with those words. The house was originally built by an older ‘gentleman’ farmer for his young wife who was with child. What he did not know was that the child was not his child but was sired by a young buck from town who his wife had been having an affair. On February 25, the farmer was returning from town with supplies trying to make haste to beat an upcoming storm and to confront his wife about the gossip he had heard in one of the local bars. The horse’s hooves hit the frozen ground with a series of heavy thuds as he pulled his creaking wagon up to the front of the house.

Leaving the supplies in the wagon, the farmer shoved open the front door in a state of bluster and immediately began a fight with his wife. She of course denied the whole affair not wanting to give away her secret plans to run away with her beloved later that evening while the old farmer slept. The old man did not let on that he knew of her plans and pretending to let her go to bed in peace. He told her he would shortly join her. Instead he began plotting a trap for the nemesis who would come for his wife.

Pretending to have fallen asleep in a chair by the fireplace in the parlor, the wife bustled around quietly in the bedroom and then waited anxiously by the bedroom window for her lover. He was to arrive around 1 AM where she would let him in through the backdoor by the kitchen. He would them proceed to shoot her husband dead. They would mess up the proper rooms to make it look like murder/robbery and leave.

As the snow quietly fell she could see her lover at a distance approaching the back the house. She peeked through the parlor door to see her husband sitting in the chair by the fireplace or so she thought.

Her lover approached the door and as she opened it to greet him she saw his expression change. Blood began to pour from his head as he fell forward towards her – blood soaking her clean frock and coat. At the doorway stood her husband with an axe. She began screaming – her voice echoing through the thick woods behind the house never to be heard. She was still screaming as her husband dragged her from the house.

The story ends there because no one knows where the farmer and his wife went or what happened to them. The lover’s body was found the next morning by a visiting neighbor who needed to borrow a horse from the old farmer. Bloody drag marks could be seen on the floor from the back vestibule to the bottom of the door frame. The snow and wind and apparently taken care of anything else. There were no tracks going anywhere. Nothing was taken or missing – not even a horse.

The authorities were brought in and not much was filed except for the fact that a body had been found. Any records that survived time were burned up in a court house fire twenty five years later.

So did it really happen or was it a local legend? There is no way I believe it did not happen because on that snowy February 24^th early evening in 1966 we were all made distinctly aware the sound of horse hooves when there could not have been any. We all just laughed and blew it off as ‘snow sound acoustics’. A little past 1:00 AM on February 25 we were awoken by a loud scream and the sound of something being dragged across the floor by the back door. We all heard it and nothing could explain it.

All we had was grandpa who was nodding and smiling.