Sally Breslin: My Life: IS MY HOUSE LOCATED ON AN ANCIENT BURIAL GROUND?

I’m not superstitious or anything like that – at least I try not to be. I mean, I do find myself occasionally tossing salt over my shoulder when I spill some, and I wouldn’t ever break a mirror to test the “seven years of bad luck” theory, but something that happened recently has made me do some serious thinking about everything from superstitions to the spiritual world. And after all of my serious thinking, what I’ve come up with is…I think I still need to do some more serious thinking.

It all began back in 2007 when my husband and I purchased a parcel of land near Bear Brook State Park. Originally it was a 23-acre parcel of forestland, but we were allowed to buy 7.6 acres of it, part of which was listed as protected wetland. The rest of the parcel was sold to a big-time contractor.

Our parcel was located on a quiet cul-de-sac and already had a rough driveway cut through the forest, and a nice area cleared for the house. There was nothing left for us to do but get the permits and start building!

As it turned out, the driveway had not been approved by the town. When we attempted to get a proper permit for it, the town officials said they couldn’t allow a driveway in that location because that was where the town’s plow-drivers piled up all of the snow in the neighborhood, and the land had a 30-foot setback for them to use. We were told our only option was to build on the next road over, a private road on the far side of our property – away from all signs of human life. Essentially, were being banished to the boonies.

So then we were faced with having to clear out the Forest Primeval, which we hadn’t originally planned on or budgeted for. Even worse, after we had the perk tests done on the soil, the experts determined that the best – and only – place for the house to be constructed was 420 feet from the road!

"We're not building a driveway," my husband had muttered at the time, "we're building a (insert any expletive here) dragstrip!"

After getting a few estimates for the work, we finally hired a company out of Concord. Two weeks into the job, they increased the original estimate by a "mere" $100,000. When we refused, they quit.

The second guy we hired managed to clear most of the land and cut a rough driveway through the “outback” before he fell off his backhoe and severely injured his back. So he also quit.

The third guy was not just an excavator like the others, he also was a building contractor. So we figured we’d hire him to build the house, seeing he’d be there already anyway. Plus that, he’d come highly recommended by everyone in town – including the building inspector, a planning-board member and a zoning-board member. He asked for $55,000 down, and we readily gave it to him

He finished clearing the land and it looked great. Then he started building the house. He was moving at such a rapid pace, he said we’d be able to move in within three months. He asked for another $55,000. Again, we obliged.

A year later, we still had only a quarter of the house finished, and the contractor began to show up less and less often, sometimes only one day a week. He finally confessed to us that he’d spent all of our money on something else and couldn’t afford the materials to finish the house. He said if we could be patient and wait until he got a few more construction jobs and earned some more money, then he’d be "good to go" again

We waited three more months and all he managed to do was put up one room of sheetrock - using small scraps left over from another job. That was when we fired him.

The fourth contractor was very gung-ho and getting things done at a rapid clip…until he suffered a stroke and died a couple weeks later.

The fifth contractor finally succeeded in building our house. By then, it was four weeks short of the year 2010. My husband died in 2012.

During the eleven years I’ve lived in the house, there have been so many disasters associated with it (a sinking foundation, super-high levels of arsenic in the well, all of the flooring being recalled due to toxins in it, etc.!), people constantly joke with me that we probably built it on an ancient burial ground, like in the movie “Poltergeist.”

I've always just laughed it off, but strictly out of curiosity, not long ago I finally decided to do some research on the land.

Sure enough, there once was a Native American settlement in this area…a few hundred years ago. So I guess the odds are pretty good that there just might be a burial ground located somewhere around here, too.

Surprisingly, the big-time contractor never did a thing with his piece of the land that borders mine. It’s remained a thick forest all these years, and keeps getting thicker. So I've explored the whole area many times and even found some old trails through it that connect to the trails on my land. I soon got into the habit of walking on them every morning and enjoying the beauty of all of the unspoiled nature surrounding my house...even though it meant half of my walk was spent trespassing.

Well, a few weeks ago, there was a huge windstorm here. Trees fell and power was lost. Bright and early the next morning I went out on the trails, expecting to find tons of limbs strewn across them, but everything looked pretty clear except for an occasional small branch here or there. Suddenly, up ahead, at the very edge of my land, I noticed two trees, one on the right side of the trail and the other on the left, that had snapped during the storm. Both had fallen toward the middle of the trail, but had hit together at the top and stopped each other there, forming an X that made an arch directly over the trail. It actually reminded me of the shape of a teepee.

The sight stopped me dead in my tracks. I mean, I had to pass under that X if I wanted to continue on my walk, but for some reason, it gave me an eerie feeling. I finally got brave, however, and decided to examine the area more closely. For one thing, I suspected someone might have cut down the trees and purposely placed them in that position (although I couldn’t imagine anyone being foolish enough to go out in the middle of a 50-mph windstorm to do it). But when I checked the two trees, I discovered they indeed had been snapped off by the wind, and not cleanly because they still were attached to the trunks by thick shreds of bark.

What puzzled me was how the trees had managed to fall toward each other from opposite directions. Maybe the wind had zigzagged from side to side through the forest during the storm?

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting occurrence, a rare phenomenon, so I snapped some photos of the X and posted them on Facebook. Everyone immediately said it was a sign of good luck, a blessing, even a divine message from above. I, however, was thinking it might be more of a warning, especially when you consider all of the bad luck I’ve had to suffer through with my own land and house. It gave me a distinct, “Keep out! And this means you!” feeling.

Well, just the other day when I took my morning walk, I noticed something new. A portion of the woods just past the two X trees, had been cleared of some small trees, and there were red markers in the ground outlining an area that looked large enough to fit a house.

"Don't tell me!" I said out loud. "The big-time contractor finally is going to build something on his land?"

Immediately, I had visions of the builders shouting for help while dangling by their fingernails from the roof, flying head-first off their bulldozers or being swallowed up by a giant sinkhole. My gut feeling was telling me that something bad was going to happen to anyone who tried to build on that piece of land.

Were the fallen X trees merely a coincidence – a coincidence with perfect timing after all these years? Perhaps. Or could they be sending a “get out now, while you can, or else!” message to the contractor?

I don’t know. But a part of me feels compelled to give the builders a “heads up” when I see them, just so they’ll be extra careful. Yet if I do, I’m afraid they’ll immediately label me the “crazy lady next door.”

So maybe I should just remain silent?

I don’t know…I honestly don’t.

But whatever happens, I have the feeling I might end up with an interesting plot for my next novel…

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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines for most of her adult life. She is the author of “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “Inside the Blue Cube.” Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.