Work Text:
[Tape clicks on.]
JONATHAN SIMS
Statement of Daphne Trenton, regarding a recurring sequence of strange happenings in her childhood home. Original statement given November 23rd 1999. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.
JONATHAN SIMS
(Read aloud from the archived witness statement of Daphne Trenton)
I’m still not sure your archive was the right place to come to with this kind of… problem. Maybe I’m just scared you won't believe me. That you’ll just chuck my statement in a filing cabinet as soon as I leave, never to be seen again. But, I have to try. I want all this to be over already and I’m willing to try anything at this point.
My parents moved into 62 Cromford Road a year before I was born. They don’t remember anything bad or strange happening, before or after they had me. But then again; they don’t really believe in any of this. Don’t get me wrong, my parents are great people and amazing parents and I love them dearly. But they’re sceptics. They never saw anything, so nothing ever happened.
I started to notice it when I was around seven years old. It began with weird crackling noises around the house. In hindsight, I would say it was the bones. Bone hitting bone and snapping and grinding against each other. The sounds always came from tight, hidden spaces. From the cupboard under the sink, behind bookshelves, the cubbies under my bed. Seven year-old me didn’t concern herself too much with the noises though. What seven year old would, honestly? I just assumed it was the house. The sound continued on for months and it got louder. Like it was getting closer to me.
I also remember this powder that appeared all over the house. It was this yellowish gray colour and it smelled really weird. I still can’t really point to what it was closest to. Sorry, in case that would be important information. My Mother thought I was bringing home sand from the sandpit at school. No matter how hard I tried to get her to believe that I didn’t. That I was not the one leaving the little piles everywhere. She didn’t believe me. What’s more, I never quite understood how she thought it was sand. It looked, smelled and felt nothing like it.
It eventually got to the point I couldn't sleep anymore. The noises got too loud, the smell too strong and I started to see this… weird figure around my room after the lights got turned off. It looked vaguely human, but… twisted, somehow. I only saw it a few times in a year or so. We moved away because of my Father’s job when I was eight, but my parents kept the house and we moved back when I was seventeen. Looking back on it, I don’t remember anything from when we moved back. I only realised that some weeks ago when my Daughter, my Husband and I moved back to my childhood home to be with my Mother. She got very sick you see. She can’t do much by herself now, and considering my Father died two years ago, we thought the easiest thing to do was to move in with her. My Husband thought it was a good idea, and my Mother and Daughter love to spend time with each other and were thrilled to have the opportunity to do so even more.
My Daughter, Valerie, recently complained of a crunching noise, as she put it. That was what brought the memories back. Maybe the noise she hears is not at all the same as I did at her age. But I also started finding little piles of… sand around the house. Valerie swears she didn’t bring home any sand. I believe her.
Maybe none of this is related to what I experienced when I was her age, but if there is a chance it is, I don’t want it to escalate to the figure in the dark. There’s maybe further I don’t know about. And honestly, I would like to keep it that way.
JONATHAN SIMS
Statement ends.
It seems like we are dealing with an entity that only affects children. That is rather disconcerting.
Investigations at the time did very little. There are notes about the sand, but nothing else mentioned in the statement. I had Martin look into the address and family. Apparently Mrs. Trenton and her family moved out of 62 Cromford Road two months after she gave her statement. The house was sold in 2006 to an elderly couple, who have occupied it since. Both Mrs Trenton and her daughter Valerie Trenton are alive and well today. Whatever was in that house, it did not manage to do what it intended to before the family moved.
Martin found one case that could be related to this statement. At the end of 1970, a little boy disappeared from 60 Cromford Road. His Mother claimed the boy had been complaining of crunching noises and weird smells for a year before his disappearance. He also started bringing sand home.
End recording.
[Tape clicks off.]