Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated read time: 4 minutes

Sometimes when you spin people give you spinning wheels. They do not give you priceless heirlooms that are aesthetically scrumptious, they give away tired wheels that definitely need work and may need parts. The wheels may, as my daughter’s did, come with extra parts that have been taken, with or without permission, from other wheels. Who knows what this wheel had seen? Anyway, it isn’t the giver’s problems anymore. They have freed themselves from responsibility for some old thing that should probably not be dropped at a Goodwill or the local dump. Happy day.

Thus we came to have a great wheel in our house. Sadly, it wasn’t that great of a wheel anymore. It had been used as a stage prop for years and seemed to have been made by the Dr. Frankenstein of wood working out of several wheels pieced together. Broo-ha-ha-ha-ha! The spindle it should have had and the bits to hold the spindle were gone. The belt that would have made the wheel actually useful as a spinning tool was gone. There must have been something that held the wheel onto its support pin because, if you started it spinning, it really liked to work its way off the end of the pin it spun on and crash to the floor in a really melancholy way. 

Despite this we took the wheel in. We tried, using a large knitting needle, some strips of fabric, and some twine, to see if this was something Hannah would want to use. It went poorly. It all moved to the basement where it could be considered from time to time without taking up floor space in the main living areas of our house.

As the wheel settled into our house, we started to notice things. It sounded like people were going up and down the stairs when no one was on them. Sometimes, we would catch sight of someone moving through a room near us, even though that person was elsewhere in the house or not home at all. All of us saw what was possibly a young girl and/or an old crone who really resembled Hannah waiting in dark spaces. Crookshanks would fly up the basement stairs as if a portal had opened near the litter box. A month before we gave the wheel away, we all saw shadowy things that vanished if you turned the light on or went to look as it peeked around corners. Once, for fun, Adia pointed an EMF reader, do with that what you will, at the wheel and it went wild. Was that the furnace and hot water heater sitting right behind it? Perhaps. Perhaps not. 

Now I know minds can create lots of terrible things. Mine seems prone to this sort of ghastly distraction. When Hannah was young and going through a health issue, I used to see skeletal hands reaching for mine if I left a dark room and went to grab the door knob. It was just my mind trying to distract me from thinking about really scary things like my daughter’s health. 

Once when my friends and I drove to New Orleans non-stop for spring break, I saw garbage bags full of heads toppling over and rolling onto the highway. It was my mind saying, “Wow. You are really tired. You should stop.”  Why my mind thought I would be persuaded by bags of heads, I will never know. For the record, bags of heads will only make me nervous and probably drive faster, which could lead to a stop, but not a nice one. Sometimes I think my mind just tries to test me and see what I’ll do.

Eventually, after much research, Hannah decided that she really did not want to fix up the great wheel and it was time for it to make another move. We advertised it online and a very excited woman came to pick up her new fun project.

The people on the stairs who were not there, the things peeking around corners, the sightings of people in other rooms they were not in, and the Hannah lookalike crone girl all vanished. I hope they, too, are happy in their new home. I guess that wheel was two projects in one: Fix up a wheel and cleanse your house. Talk about a two for one deal! I hope the woman who took it away appreciates it. 

Crookshanks still runs up the basement stairs like there is something dastardly after him, though, so maybe a little something stayed. Or maybe, like me, he has an excitable little brain that likes to distract him with terrors.