You all know we moved to a new house not so very long ago.  Well, my “writer’s den” has an exterior wall, covered in books, that I sit beside or before, depending on whether I’m working at the keyboard or on hard copy.  This “exterior wall” has nothing but “outside” beyond it, “outside” being plants, a garden path, and then a fence.  Beyond the fence isn’t much of anything.  Got that picture?  Good.

So I sit in my writing den, oblivious to the world, listening to tunes, watching the fish in my display tank when I get stumped (or lazy-brained).  I’m all alone, without anyone else around, not even a cat…because those ladies and gentleman are more content lounging on plush carpets and chittering out windows at feathered flutters.  And, all alone, lost in “writer’s trance,” there comes a jolt!

It’s like a knock on the wall, but a quick peek out the window in the door that’s but three strides east shows no one is there…not that they could get through the side gate without the my watch-birds sounding Hell’s alarm.  Frowning, I return to my desk.  Again, I become lost in my work…only for two knocks to jolt me out of reverie just about the time I lose track of reality.

I look under the desk for some surreptitious presence of cat, mouse…something.  But nothing’s there.  There’s nothing outside, no one around, at all.  So I sit there dwelling in wonder.  And again it knocks, one sharp rap!

Bounding out of my chair, I launch myself out the door, intent on catching my mischievous other half up to no-good.  But, yet, there’s no one there.  

My frown is deeper now.  

The knocking stops…for the rest of the week.

Next week it isn’t knocking.  It’s squeaking…like an old desk chair, only it is IN the wall.  It keeps up even when I explore outside to find no cause.  It keeps up when I pull manuscript boxes out from their storage cubby under the desk.  It keeps up. For an hour. And there’s no one, nothing, there.

I call the telephone company.  They send someone out.  There’s nothing wrong with the wiring.

I call the gas and electric companies.  Same result.

I get the plumber.  I call a contractor.  They dig into the wall.  Nope. Nothing there.  No plumping in that wall.  No mice nested in there.  Nothing in the wall that could knock or squeak.

Am I going nuts? They certainly think so by the looks they give me (humoring).

And this week?  It’s a moan.  It’s making me grumble under my breath now.  I’ve actually video recorded it, loud, live audio, with the clock on, because I’m calling all of them back, scheduling them all–telephone man, gas man and electrician, plumber and contractor–to come at the same time of day it happened–around 2pm.  It has to be something to do with temperature changes or something.  There used to be a hot tub out and down the path a ways.  Gotta be pipes or something. …Right?

…And, yes, this is just the sort of thing that winds up tucked into one of my novels.  But not until I’ve chased down the cause.  Can’t write about something I don’t know the answer’s end to, now can I?

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