Fourteen year old Katherine sat on the church pew, while her younger sister, Anne, who was twelve-and-a-half, sat at the piano. Katherine held in her hand a recorder. “Alright, go!” She said, at the same time hitting the ‘record’ button. Anne began to play ‘Fur Elise’ on the piano. Her hands moved gracefully across the old, church piano’s keys. Katherine stopped the recorder as the song ended. “Nice job, Anne,” she praised her sister. Anne smiled. Katherine walked up to the platform, the recorder in her hand. “Do you want to listen to it?” She asked Anne. “Sure, if you want to,” Anne said. Katherine pressed the play button, and they both listened to the song Anne just played on the piano. Halfway through the song, Katherine and Anne all of a sudden stopped short. “Did you hear that?” They both asked in unison. Each girl nodded, a little shakily, but nevertheless they to continued to listen to the recording, no longer mindful of what they had heard. By the time they had finished listening to Fur Elise, they had completely forgotten the strange noise they had heard. So, Katherine recorded Anne, who was now playing Greensleeves. She hadn’t been playing long, when all of a sudden came the mysterious noise of

thump! Thump!

Katherine and Anne stopped dead in their tracks. It was the same noise they had heard minutes before! Anne felt like screaming, and Katherine wouldn’t have minded it either, but they both knew that that wouldn’t be a smart idea. Katherines feet felt frozen to the floor, but finally she forced herself to move towards the big doors, which would lead to the another room, which would lead to the exit door. “Anne,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I think we’d better go.” Anne nodded, and without another word, Katherine swooping up the recorder off of the church bench, which, needless to say was still recording, the two fled towards the church exit, which, unfortunately for them, was in the room that the basement stairs were, of which the could have sworn that the mysterious thumping had come from. As they half-ran towards the door, they gave a quick glance down the basement stairs, and seeing nothing, or no one, strangely, and creepily enough, they reached the door, stopping merely to the lock the door, which they did in a very panicky and speedy way, then fled down the many church steps. Down at the bottom, Anne picked up a big stick, and she and her sister ran down the road…toward home…and safety. It was sometime before the incident, or maybe afterward, but to be honest, I’m not really quite sure which, that their older brother, Will, and even older sister, Elizabeth, heard the same mysterious

thump! Thump! Thump!

On the basement stairs of that old, old church. It was, of course, a very strange and creepy incident that the four had experienced. And even to this day (all though they have long ago moved from that state in America, in which the church stood;) the strange, awkward, and rather frightening mystery of the thumping on the stairs was never uncovered….and will remain a mystery to the four siblings and the rest of their family for the rest of their life….