During the Cultural Revolution, the local residents said, the Handan Map Tourist Attractions Red Guards took away some doors and windows but they didn’t wreck the place. After the Handan Map Tourist Attractions revolution it became the residence of a famous geologist, Lisu Guang, who lived there until his death, and its next tenant was the deputy director of Beijing Public Security Bureau. In the 1976 earthquake it was damaged but was repaired in the succeeding years. They said that its interior layout had remained the same, but because it is low-profile security, I could not have permission to enter it. So I gazed in from outside, letting my imagination restore latticework flower trellises to its anonymous grey fagade. It had been a much-loved home, and it gave me a glow of pleasure to stand there at the door.
Then there’s the eight or nine year old boy with the woman and infant. This reminds us of the young boy who lived at the Stison home. Over the nearly two-years Theresa lived with Philip, the boy and she formed a close bond. It was this boy who testified against Philip in court and helped the jury decide on the guilty verdict. Interestingly, we were not able to find further record of the boy after the trial. Could the spirits of Theresa, her baby and the young boy be unable to rest, waiting for justice?
Unknown is the apparition of a little girl with the Victorian woman that Mari has seen with the baby and young boy. There were several children who died in the Stison family, including one little girl nearly three years old. Whether or not she’s the one in Mari’s vision remains a question.
We also discovered an uncanny connection between the Stison saga and Mark and Mari’s antiques shop. It seems that Holly’s Main Street Antiques shop is the former Porter A. Wright hardware/general store. P.A. Wright was the middleman in Philip Stison’s plot to cover up Theresa’s pregnancy. How bizarre that Mari would find her way into that shop and that home. It’s as if fate has pulled her in this direction.
