Before my wife's grandfather brought his osteopathic neuropathy clinic to it's front rooms, the house was a boarding home for retired policemen—one of whom—it's told—hung himself on the premises. So yes, the place was haunted too. But those ghosts went quietly about their business only looking on, mostly approving of the family's stay there. The house was called Nanan's for Nanan, herself, placed it and her own care into the hands of a sixteen year old girl, whose archetypical self had already become that house having lived under its roof for most of her life. A house will begin to die if deprived of life energies either through neglect or through the inevitable winter of the human living cycle. Of these, after Nanan's death, that girl was unable to turn the energies of that house from its own aged decline. Perhaps the house had so imprinted on Nanan that it was unable to survive on the girl's presence alone or perhaps it was more tangible results of life without financial income or support. Although she tried for seven years, the house deteriorated and the girl was so drained that she had a physical and emotional collapse.

But before leaving, the girl reached within herself and summoned protective magic to surround the house and the house seemed to sleep. The magic that she summoned also summoned me from half way around the world, but that's another story. Suffice it to say that the first day I had held my wife's hand was also the first day that I saw this house. Like a small wounded animal found on a road side, Nanan's pulled at my heart and repelled me at the same time. To outward appearances, Nanan's was just another abandoned building—Sheffield is littered with such—but for me and for my wife, it was home. It had almost no indoor plumbing, almost no windows with un-shattered glass and almost no electrical wiring that worked. There wasn't BBC cameras enough in Britain to make a triumphant DIY story of this house. We waited for the miracle where everything would be made shiny and new, but Nanan's was in a legal limbo that required too much cash to free it.

There were even distant and absent relatives that claimed part holdings of the property and solicitors that lost deeds. There was nothing we could do but fight the house's slow deterioration and its frequent attack by vandals with only our own presence barring the doors.

Poor as proverbial church mice, my wife and myself lived in the front room like two homeless squatters around a blue gas bottle fire with two dogs, two cats, a wounded pigeon and a ferret, among other small living things that came and went. We were there to protect our house as best as we could. Some would think us crazy to stay in a house that was falling apart about our ears, but Nanan's became our obsession.

The neighbours invented their own dark rationales for our stay in such a "disgrace" of a house. The net curtains twitched as we entered or exited our home making us unconsciously creep in like house breakers, "Up to no good," vibrations screamed. But we both choose to be there and were chosen by the house. We both felt deeply protective of our home. Except for the days when worry over what our future got too much for us, we were both happy as clams and we both see those days as some of the happiest of our lives.

You didn't feel alone at Nanan's, not watched, but more "looked after." The feeling that one was alone in the world was quite banished from Nanan's. We did catch glimpses of the spirits that shared the walls of Nanan's, not as frightening manifestations of lost souls, but as familiar drifting clouds of pipe tobacco, Dr. Arthur Pimbleton's sweet-curranty brand, or the wafting perfume of aunt Mary's Woolworth favourite, or the blooming scent of Clematis flowers, once grown by Nanan herself. And the house began to live. When our first child was to come, and it became clear that it was necessary for us to leave Nanan's, we left with deep sadness, but we sensed that Nanan's understood. When we brought our infant son, Arthur David Healey to this well of spirits to meet the ancestors, it felt like a true christening.

But as our family grew, twice weekly runs to Nanan's became once weekly, quick feedings of tokens to an electric meter, and quick clearing of junk mail forced through a boarded up front door. But the life energy of was held in abeyance. It was at that time that I felt most drained by going to Nanan's. I feared what I'd find each time I set off—relief at finding the house still preserved, and then worry over what would become of our home as our life path pushed us further and further away. I would sit in stairway at Nanan's, remembering the personal journey of our stay, venting my lingering frustrations, remembering some of our triumphs, and witness to our surrender of the things we couldn't change.

We were not idle at at Nanan's. It represented to us a great deal of spiritual and physical work, someone did care what happened to this old building and the spiritual work of the freeing of souls.

The house was trying to protect itself as well as it could, the back passage way overgrew with stinging nettles and knotted ivy and in the space of one year through cement and blown trash at the houses front, a 15 foot willow tree now grew.

In her dream, the girl stands on a rock that is just wide enough for her bare feet. Inches below the water, the rock is washed by the cold waves of a near placid lake. She is at the lakes center, the shore can be seen but the distance is unswimmable. Around her are hundreds of people each standing upon their own rocks below the waters. Each rock placed in circles round and around in a spiral to the distant lakes edge. Every pair of eyes is upon her. Each stone stander's voice cries out, a chanting song of it's own. The voices find a strange discordant harmony together, the harmony of an orchestra, tuning before a symphony. Closest to the girl, a man with round rim glasses cups his hand over his mouth and leans nearer to the girl and shouts.

"Truth t' be told, yer's is the world of death. No'wt dies 'ere or 'as to."

The old Yorkshire accent and the confrontational tenor was familiar to the girl. "And if ya 'ad popped yer clogs proper, ya wouldn't be stand'n on 'at."

A finger points to the stone at the girls feet. Puzzled, she looks down. Tortoise limbs and head flail through water from the sides of her supposed stone. From beneath her feet, the tortoise struggles to reach the water's surface . In shock, the girl leaps. Her body meets cracked pavement and young willow branches rather than the water she expects. Nanan's is dark in a city's red tinted cloudy night sky.

"Yer's is brick and mortar," the old man said. Unable to move from the distance of his stone, now a corner paver of Nanan's front garden, he offers the girl a broken willow branch to pull her to her feet.

"Yer's is this 'ouse," she reaches out to the offered branch now striped of leaves and twigs. "And yer's is to free us all from stones we'r upon." As the girl grasps the branch, she wakes.

I believe, if you are in your rightful place in the universe, the things that happen to you happen for a reason. I've never been good at waiting but waiting was what was required of me. Each time I rebelled and tried to arrange grants for the building's repair and pursued the bureaucracy to resurrect title deeds, I would be rebuffed by the lack of money to my starting point. Nor could I figure a way to infuse cash into our situation. Humbled at every turn, at the time I chaffed at this, but now I see why we were prevented from any action. (To be continued)

Hartley Healey