Prunella, the Seer of Ghosts.
Francine (talking to Prunella): "You think jangling these spoons, I mean...cowrie shells will summer the ghost of the Rosewood Apartments?
Prunella (talking to Francine): "It never fails."
Later that night as Francine hosts a sleepover with Prunella and Marina in the room that she shares with her older sister Catherine...
Francine (talking to Prunella): Forget it, Prunella. The Ghost of the Rosewood Apartments is probably just a myth."
Prunella (talking to Francine): "I don't know, Francine. I've seen ghosts before. My mother and sister Rubella can, too. But it seems that whenever I'm around other people the ghosts only ever appear to me and no one else."
Catherine (talking aloud): "You know, legend has it that the Ghost of the Rosewood Apartments was a teenage girl, in 1948, who was killed one night when a fire broke out at the old apartment building that once stood where our apartment building stands now. No one ever figured out who or what caused the fire. Although the girl's parents and her identical twin sister, along with every other occupant of the building, made it out...the Ghost of the Rosewood Apartments did not. When the fire department searched the ruins, believing that the fire had originated in the bedroom that the ghost girl and her sister shared...the firefighters were only able to find the locket that the girl had been wearing.
The remains of the Ghost of the Rosewood Apartments were never found. Some say the girl was burned so badly that the fire consumed her body entirely. Others say she never burned to death at all but mysteriously vanished just as the fire broke out. Construction on our apartment building began in 1950 and wasn't completed until 1956...just forty years ago.
Marina (talking to Francine, Catherine and Prunella): "I heard that it was another ghost who caused the fire at Rosewood in 1948 because he wanted a companion to accompany him in the afterlife for all of eternity, and the girl who was killed in the fire was the perfect companion. Why? Because she was very spoiled, selfish and greedy. You see, the ghost who allegedly set the blaze was rumored by some residents of the old apartment building before and at the time of the fire to have been the spirit of a murderous child named Finky Barts. Supposedly, Finky Barts suffocated his little sister to death with a pillow in 1910. He was arrested and then tried at the local courthouse. He was found guilty and was sentenced to die by the electric chair in 1911 when he was only 9 years old.
On the day of his execution, in the room where he was to be put to death...as he was being strapped into the electric chair -- Finky cried out that he was sorry and that he didn't mean to kill his little sister, but no one showed him any compassion...not even his own parents. Before he was fried to death, a frightened and sobbing Finky cried out that his ghost would seek out a child who was also just as morally corrupt as he was, whom he would then kill and make into his eternal companion. Finky Barts was the youngest person in Canada to ever receive the death penalty.
Legend has it, the prison where Finky was placed in and executed after his arrest had been built on the site where the Rosewood Apartments once stood. The prison was torn down in 1916 and construction on the Rosewood Apartments started in 1917 and was finally completed in 1922. As residents moved in and out of the Rosewood Apartments over the years before the fire, some claimed to have either seen or heard the ghost of Finky Barts swearing to wreak his horrible vengeance on any corrupt child who might live in the building. What's interesting is that all the residents who claimed to have seen or heard Finky's ghost were believed to have psychic powers. It's been said that Finky's ghost only appeared to those residents of the apartment building who claimed to have psychic abilities.
In fact, this became such a phenomenon that many people with alleged psychic abilities moved into the Rosewood Apartments hoping to hear or catch a glimpse of the threatening ghost boy. Stories not only circulated in local newspapers or psychic journals in Elwood City about Rosewood's own occupants having heard or seen the spirit of Finky Barts, but people came from miles around wanting to visit the apartment building that was home to the ghost of a murdering child. The story of Finky was widely known amongst the occupants of the Rosewood Apartments in the decades leading to the fire. In fact, this mirrors another interesting phenomenon. Finky's murder of his sister and his execution received such notoriety in the press that Elwood City became a minor tourist destination. In the few years before construction began on the Rosewood Apartments, people came from all over to visit the site where the youngest person in the country had been imprisoned and executed.
Miss Turner, the librarian, told me that her mother and her mother's family were survivors of the 1948 fire. Miss Turner's mother and her family had lived in the Rosewood Apartments since Miss Turner's mother was four years old. In fact, Miss Turner's mother and her family lived in the apartment just two floors directly below the apartment where the ghost girl and her family lived.
Miss Tuner said that before the fire, her mom's mother would sometimes hear the sound of a young boy loudly and angrily crying from somewhere in the apartment building. Her husband and her daughter never did and they, along with everyone else, just assumed she was merely hearing things. Miss Turner said her grandmother had always claimed to have psychic abilities. In fact, Miss Turner told me that her maternal grandmother went to elementary school with Finky Barts at the time he killed his sister. Miss Turner's grandma's dad even worked on construction projects throughout the city with Finky's father.
When the new apartment building was constructed, residents claiming to have psychic abilities claim to have either seen or heard the ghosts of Finky Barts and the girl who was killed in the 1948 fire. Although, the story of the girl killed in the fire at Rosewood never gained the type of regional, national or international media attention that Finky Bart's story did. The story of the mysterious circumstances surrounding the Ghost of the Rosewood Apartments' death has since become the stuff of local legend.
Miss Turner told me that a number of descendants of survivors of the 1948 fire who heard the story from their survivor relatives still live in the city to this day. Now the Ghost of the Rosewood Apartment's spirit haunts the new apartment building looking for a companion of her own. I've heard that she seeks a young, troubled girl for her companion. Whomever she seeks and kills for her companion must go on to do the same thing. It's a never-ending cycle.
The Female Ghost of the Rosewood Apartments (talking to Prunella): "You called?"
Prunella (talking to the Ghost of the Rosewood Apartments): "Are you the ghost of the Rosewood Apartments? Francine. Marina. Catherine. Look!"
Marina (talking aloud): "Who are the heck are you talking to, Prunella?"
Catherine (screaming): "Oh my God! Could it be the Ghost of the Rosewood Apartments?!"
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