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Dead Letter Office

A Ghost Story

By Peter DavidsonPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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Upstairs in the old house, Emily had just met ghost.

“I’ve been talking to a man,” she announced casually as she cradled her cup of bedtime cocoa. Her father looked up from his paper at the little girl, snuggly in her flannel pajamas - skin rosy from her bath. She sat with her teddy bear on the couch, her legs tucked up under her. He knew she wasn’t one for make-believe friends or having imaginary conversations.

“What did this man look like?” he asked curiously.

“Oh, he’s nice” Emily chirped. “He’s all in brown and he wears big boots. And he has a gun. It’s a big gun. He has a hat that covers his eyes a lot.”

A cold feeling entered Len’s belly. “Is he here now?” he asked a bit shakily.

“Oh yeah. I was just talking with him.”

Trying to keep his voice steady, Len called “Honey? Lucy, take Emily over to the neighbours.” She came into the living room still drying a dish with her tea towel. Her look of bewilderment changed when she saw the warning look in Len’s eye - she knew that look meant danger. As she scooped Emily up, her husband whispered, “Call the police. There’s someone in the house upstairs – he’s got a gun.”

As the family exited, Len stood on guard by the stairs. Then he followed them to the Carmichael’s where they waited anxiously until the patrol car arrived. Len never took his eyes off their home. Lucy got Emily busy with a story while the Carmichael children wondered why they had late company.

The police found nothing. All the windows were secure. None of the locks had been jimmied – all was well. Len and Lucy could make no sense of it. They knew their daughter well enough that what she had said was neither fantasy nor a dream – but in time, the matter was forgotten in the endless rounds of making lunches, going to school and bringing work home from the office.

The sun had shone brightly that day – everyone had enjoyed a glorious Indian summer that fall. As the weekend wound down, the family settled to enjoy Sunday dinner.

“He said his name was Rexford. That’s a funny name I think.”

“Who, honey?” asked Lucy.

“The man.”

“What man?”

“You know - the man with the gun. I told you.”

Len stopped in mid chew – Sunday dinner was forgotten.

“The same man you saw before?”

Emily nodded.

“Tell me more what he looks like”, prompted Len.

“Umm…his hat has this badge on it kinda like my Brownie badges. He has a big belt and big boots. He’s got a funny belt like this” – Emily drew a line with her finger diagonally across her chest. “And I think he’s lost. He doesn’t know where his home is - he keeps saying it’s his room but it’s mine. He wants to know where his mom and dad are and where his stuff is.”

Len looked deep into his daughter’s clear blue eyes. As he gazed at the china cabinet with its gallery of pictures, his eyes flitted over the images of family patriarchs and matriarchs. At the back of the cabinet was a tattered black and white in an ornate silver frame.

“Did he look a bit like Great-Grandfather?” he asked, placing the picture in her hand.

Emily looked at photo of the young man posing in front of the old Ford truck. Like so many portraits of the time, he looked ever so seriously at the camera. He was about 18 years old, a newly-minted enlisted man off to the Great War.

She nodded solemnly. “Just like that.”

Len and Lucy exchanged glances. “Did he tell you his name?” Lucy asked quietly.

“Uh-huh! It was a funny name. ‘Rexford Kingswell.’ It was so odd I wouldn’t forget. He said his mommy was Frances and his daddy was Abraham. He thinks they live here too and he can’t find them. I told him the only other grown-ups are my mommy and daddy.”

Len quietly excused himself and left the table. He did a quiet search of the house and was not surprised when he found nothing disturbed. After dinner, Len went into his study and turned on the computer. A flurry of letters began that night. He worked late into the night – the full moon shining through his window and in the distance, came the spasmodic hooting of a barn owl. For many nights it kept him company as he explored the different websites trying to fathom the strange phantom. The official brown envelope that came from the War Department was encouraging. The letter was crisp and formal and gave clues but no conclusive answers. A ‘Lance Corporal Rexford Kingswell’ had enlisted in Victoria on November 4th, just months after Canada had entered the war. He joined the Canadian Scottish and had served at Ypres 1915 and then to Vimy in 1917. Kingswell was part of a supporting unit on the assault on Hill 145, a 500 foot knoll that was nicknamed “The Pimple”. While the Canadian 10th struggled through a snowstorm to capture The Pimple, Kingswell was assigned to supply detail for the offensive. This meant the dangerous job of running fresh water and he was likely killed although officially listed as M.I.A. – swallowed by the mud.

What didn’t add up, however, was the address: “The Bird’s Nest” Amethyst Street. Through inquiries with the city, Len discovered Amethyst St. was renamed Shakespeare Street and the Bird’s Nest was once home to the Kingswell family. Now, it was their home.

The next clue came in an e-mail from an amateur historian Len met on line: “Look at local church records”.

Buried among the neat rows of grey cardboard archive boxes at the Diocese a name was discovered. Rexford Arthur Kingswell was baptized on November 1st 1896 on the Feast of All Saints at St. Luke’s Anglican Church Cedar Hill. Len made an appointment.

The priest leaned back in his chair gazing over his glasses at Len as he told his story. Emily had since had two more visits and reported that the “man with the gun seems very lost.” Outside the warm office, the rain battered against the stained-glass window. It was November 2nd and the wet fall had settled in, and the autumn crispness was soon lost in the dismal line of grey and soggy days that plodded towards winter. Outside he could see the church cemetery markers awash in the downpour. The priest who had just finished saying the Mass for All Souls Day had graciously ushered Len into the office. Over coffee, he had heard the stranger’s story patiently. The office was silent now except for the occasional fitful slaps of rain on the window. Len shifted uncomfortably. He drew the paper back from the center of the desk. He had brought a photocopy of Rexford’s baptismal certificate with the signature of the Reverend J.W. Flinton. A second photocopy was of the Baptismal Register – under the names of Abraham Ashley and Frances Eileen as parents, were listed L. Moon and A. Richards as godfathers and an E. Crowdis as godmother. As he slipped the papers back into the Manila envelope he sighed to himself. The whole story he sounded mad.

The priest rose and walked over to a grey filing cabinet. Pulling open the bottom drawer he rummaged around until he brought out an old brown plastic bag and drew forth a small bundle of letters. He placed them silently in front of Len. About a dozen letters were tied together with brown string. As he undid the bow he realized the documents were old. The first envelop bore a London postmark dated 1914. All of them were addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Kingswell, Amethyst Street. None of them were opened.

Len looked up enquiringly at the priest.

“They never got there. An old man in the church told me years ago they were lost in the works and ended up in the army’s dead letter office. They kept accumulating and when they were finally processed the Kingswells were gone – Frances had died in 1916 and Abraham followed her just a few months after. Apparently some kindhearted neighbour collected the letters – there was no one left to read them. Rexford apparently was an only child. The neighbor didn’t know what to do with them so they were dropped off at the church, in case some relative ever claimed them. No one ever did so they ended up kicking around the office. No one had the heart to throw them away.”

The priest drew out of the stack a smaller letter. It bore the name of Lance Corporal Rexford Kingswell, Canadian Scottish 16th Battalion CEF, France. The words were neatly written in a feminine hand – next to the green King George the Fifth one cent stamp.

“It’s from his mother” Len said quietly. It had not been opened but returned with a CANNOT BE FOUND stamp on the front. The two men looked at each other – each wondering if the letter had arrived before their deaths. Did they ever know? The priest handed the yellowed papers to Len. “You may have them if you wish. It seems right. Before you go, I want you to look at this.”

Out of another drawer, he pulled out a long flat map and unfolded it. It was a cemetery map. The priest put on his reading glasses and for several moments scanned the documents. Then he jabbed down with his finger – “There! I thought so…”

A few minutes later, huddled under black umbrellas, the two men wandered into the rain to a long neglected part of the St. Luke’s cemetery. Partly sunken into the earth and heavily obscured by moss and the debris of autumn, were two graves. Scraping away the leaves and dirt, Len could just read Frances and Abraham Kingswell, d. 1916 Victoria.

The next day, Emily was given an address – to tell Rexford should he appear again. That week, the Kingswell gravestones were power-washed and the grass around them was trimmed. Between the two stones was placed a new, small black granite marker that read:

Rexford Arthur Kingswell 1896 - 1916

LCpl 16th Battalion Canadian Scottish, CEF

A Soldier Home from the Great War

Pegged into the ground by the headstone, carefully sealed in a clear plastic bag were the letters. The day after the headstone was placed, Emily announced over breakfast that she had given the man with the gun the address. “He didn’t say a thing this time. He just walked right through the wall. He never did that before” she wondered before turning again to her Rice Krispies.

That night, Len browsed through the history of Victoria and the Canadian Scottish and the Vimy Ridge battle – one thing led to another until early in the morning he shut off his computer. As he did so, he realized that the owl had not cried out that night….a lost soul found he thought shutting off the office light.

Remembrance Day was sunny for a change. The family sported new poppies - and at Emily’s insistence, were heading to the Cenotaph. On the way, they made a small detour to a little visited part of St. Luke’s cemetery. Emily placed carnations on the Kingswell graves – no one had placed flowers there for a long time. The headstones were beaded with raindrops and glistening in the morning sun. The wind had blown hard all the night before and the maple trees around had been stripped bare. The envelopes were gone.

“Must have been blown away”, mused Len. “Perhaps blown back into the Dead Letter Office?”

“Uh-uh!” Emily shook her head emphatically.

“Well,” wondered her mother, taking Emily’s hand as they turned back towards the cemetery gate, “Perhaps they’ve finally been delivered.”

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About the Creator

Peter Davidson

I have happy memories of listening to stories played on on a scratchy old record player so I have always loved stories. I am a school teacher and a pastor. I live in Nanaimo BC with my lovely fiancee Milagros and our puppy Tillie.

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