Tim Started It All

When I was old enough to deem myself a young woman, I left the comfort of my home in Albany for Washington, accompanied by my brother, Jonathan. After settling in, I pursued a career in writing, a promise I had made to my mother – to retell the events that took place in my childhood.

Although it wasn't my brother's main occupation, he assumed the role of my editor, under the assumption that I would retell the story from my perspective, making his character appear uninteresting. This led to constant bickering about the storyline. He was especially adamant about the events that led to him becoming deaf in his left ear.

Jonathan was convinced that Tim started it all, but I disagreed because Tim wasn't relevant at the time. But we weren't kids anymore and I knew nothing would result from the constant back and forth so to resolve the dispute, I brought the matter to our father, Eric, who advised me to write the story as I remembered it – and that's exactly what I did.

You see, back in the 1930s, people were poor, and although my father owned a mini-mart and an apartment building, my mother constantly reminded us that we weren't wealthy and taught us to cherish everything we received.

The residents of Albany were definitely poor, though. When folks visited the mini-mart, they bought groceries in small portions, and farmers used their produce as a medium of exchange, and my father was among the few people in town who owned a car. On many occasions, I overheard him complaining to my mother about sales being down at the mini-mart.

Despite these financial constraints, Albany had much to offer, and my mother was never one to protest our adventurous behaviour, as long as we stayed within her line of sight from the third floor of our apartment building. That meant we could only play on the nearby pasture or on the playground that bordered the Sleepwalker's house.

These restrictions limited our daily activities and often left us lazing around the playground equipment. However, when I was eight years old and my brother was nearly ten, we encountered a new face on the pasture.

It was a sunny day when we noticed a short, fair-skinned boy digging in the dirt. "What on earth is he doing?" I wondered silently as we approached.

"I ain't ever seen you around here. Where're you from?" my brother inquired, looming over the boy, who was shorter than us.

The boy rose slowly, dusting off his blue overalls, and replied, "That's because I ain't from around here. I'm just staying for the summer, and then I'll go back down to Jacksonville."

Curious, my brother asked, "Why were you digging in the ground?"

"I was looking for worms," he answered with a face straighter than an arrow.

"Why would you do that? Worms are dirty!" I blurted out, asserting my authority over him, given that he was slightly shorter than me.

My brother, however, silenced me, "Ignore Lucy; she acts like a girl sometimes." He often had a knack for delivering remarks that would prompt me to quiet down. Luckily, I wasn't in the mood to argue, so I scowled and remained silent. "How old are you?" my brother continued.

"Seven," he replied, attempting to wipe the dirt from his hands.

"Wanna play with us? We have lots to play," Jonathan was obviously lying, but that reply meant he was now a part of our circle.

The boy agreed, and we exchanged names. He said that his mother had named him Timothy, but everyone called him Tim. He wasn't afraid of insects and had once travelled on a train for three days by himself.

"What about your father?" I asked. After all, if you mention your mother, you ought to mention your father, right?

"I don't really have one," Tim replied, looking down at the ground. His shy demeanor left me puzzled.

"What do you mean? Either you have a father or you don't," I retorted, not fully comprehending the situation. However, my brother caught on and hushed me again.

"Lucy, you need to think sometimes," he scolded me. At the time, I didn't quite grasp what he meant, so I sulked and remained quiet. "How long were you on the train by yourself?" my brother inquired.

Tim explained that he had been on the train for three days. I found it hard to believe, but for some reason, my brother was captivated by his story. Our daily meetups and activities continued throughout the summer, often revolving around discussions between Tim and my brother on various subjects that seemed alien to me. Eventually, these conversations touched on a topic my brother had been eager to bring up - the Sleepwalker.

One day, they engaged in a deep conversation at the far end of the playground, near the border between the pasture and the Sleepwalker's house. They were discussing a topic they called marraige when Tim glanced at the old house adjacent to the pasture and asked, "Who lives over there?"

My brother's attention was immediately drawn to the old house. He replied, "I don't know the whole truth." His voice softened, as if preparing to share a long story. "But people say the Sleepwalker lives there."

"Who's the Sleepwalker?" Tim asked curiously, prompting a mischievous grin to spread across my brother's face. This signalled that he was about to add a bit of gravy to the true story, but this time, I refrained from interrupting, determined not to be labelled as a girl.

Now, what my brother told Tim was mostly far from the truth. In essence, the Sleepwalker was a kind of bogeyman, an unusually tall guy who only emerged at night, dressed in funeral clothing. My mother often warned me that if I didn't go to bed on time, the Sleepwalker would come for me during the night and take me away to a distant place where I would be forced to work endlessly.

This was enough for me to go to bed at 8 p.m. every night. However, when my father informed me that the Sleepwalker tale was a myth, I began to question the whole thing. When I told Jonathan what our father said, he suggested I prove it by going up to the front door of the Sleepwalker's house at night and call out his name. If I didn't receive an answer, he would disown the belief.

I knew better than to trespass on someone's property at night, but Jonathan was right - I was dead scared of the place we all were. It was an old, two-story wooden house that leaned on one side, supported by four ageing wooden posts, rotting wood planks made it almost possible to see inside, and there was a rusty roster on its roof.

Some of the steps leading to the porch were missing, and the veranda lacked a floor. The windows were ancient, and a lush green vine had colonized one side of the house. For as long as I could remember, white curtains covered every window in that house. And if that wasn't eerie enough, my mother claimed that they had been there since she was a girl.

The house was encircled by a decaying wooden fence, and the gate's hinge was broken. The mere sight of the place repelled me. However, Tim was different. After absorbing a good dose of information from my brother, he became attached to the place.

But this attachment had its boundaries. He would always stay some distance from the house as my brother had warned and only looked at it from the sidewalk across the street. For some reason we all avoided walking on the sidewalk adjacent to the dead lawn.

Still his curiosity for that place continued to grow day after day and it eventually led to his first stupid idea. One day, I met up with Tim and Jonathan on the sidewalk. They were in a deep discussion, so I approached them and asked what the discussion was about, and Tim revealed to me that he and Jonathan planned to catch the Sleepwalker sleepwalking.