I didn't like playing at her house, so we mostly played outside and in the old county creek. I remember her parents went out allot on the weekends and a boy that lived across the street from my home baby-sat Becky. David was about 16 years old and we liked him allot, he fixes our bikes, etc.

One morning when I woke up, my parents said they needed to talk to me. I couldn't figure out what I did wrong as I got my robe and slippers on. I walked into the kitchen and my dad held me and told me that Becky had died last night. She had been playing upstairs with matches and she fell down the stairs and had died. I found out years later that she had most likely been running for help and fell down, breaking her neck.

It seemed like immediately her parents moved and the house stood empty for many years. I used to walk to school that way, picking her up along the way, but I changed my routine, walking another way. I had lost my friend, I didn't want to see her house so empty.

About 10 years later, the house finally sold. It just didn't sell for so long due to what had happened in the house and everyone knew it. Their were rumors of flames being seen, screams. I never went to find out, Becky was someone I knew, and I didn't want to see it. By the time the Martins bought the mansion, it was in ruins. They were a young couple with a ton of kids and they started another Boy Scout Troop and Girl Scouts also, very involved in the community. It seemed like the house came back to life again, somebody cared about it.

A couple of their kids were my age and we didn't become real close friends but knew each other, I still tried keeping my distance from the house. By this time I had realized that I was a sensitive and I didn't want to see anything that had happened to Becky. There were so many stories for so many years, I didn't walk down that road. Once, to get home in time I rode my bike past it and I had gotten a really bad feeling, although I never looked at it.

I was around 16 years old and one of the boys that lived in the house said he heard about a little girl dying in his house. I told him to talk to someone else. David who was the sitter that night was so distraught, for many years over what happened. We all just didn't talk about it, it was the only way we could handle it I assume.

The Martins were pretty poor and they didn't do much to fix the place up. They ended up getting divorced and Mrs. Martin became the party mom of the neighborhood, you know hippy? She was really weird, dressing like us kids, partying with their friends. One night everyone was going to a party at the mansion. I begged and begged off. Everyone started making fun of me so I went, and what happened everyone saw.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs with their St. Bernard and I was shaking. I stood right there for a long time, I don't know why. Everyone was partying and the music was blaring. In one second, terrible screams were heard way over the music, a ball of flame fell down the stairs and disappeared. I couldn't move and started crying. Everyone else was freaking out and we all started leaving. I never went back again, but Mrs. Martin and her kids moved out soon after that. And the house was empty again.

As an adult, I bought my first home on that street, but farther down, way farther down. Again it was so sad that the mansion was decaying even further, sometimes I felt like I was the only one that cared. One day I noticed workmen, someone was moving in again. The house was being restored to its original beauty, it was amazing. At the time I was having an attachment built onto my house and I asked one of the guys working on my home if he knew who bought the Martin Mansion, we had gone to school together. He said David, the baby sitter had bought it? He and his family still live there. I do not know why he bought it, I never asked.