From the time I could read, I’ve been enthralled by mystery stories. An unsolved case, a missing person, an inexplicable event – it didn’t matter the context, I just wanted to follow the clues with the characters and know the answers.

My first mystery stories were ones from my local library. They weren’t exactly mysteries in the traditional sense but they definitely had that mystery element and tended to be about things like ghosts and kids with strange powers. I found my way to traditional mystery novels in junior high and high school, and to this day, I power through mystery novels as fast as I can get my hands on them. Cozy, twisted, themed, classic, contemporary, historical, it doesn’t really matter; I love them all.

But life isn’t often much like books, especially ones that are high concept and take situations to the extreme like mysteries do. I got to thinking about the mysteries I’ve experienced in my own life, true mysteries for which I don’t have the answers. I only have a few, but I decided to write a little about them and speculate as to the truth.

The White Rose

When: December, 1999, the last day of fall semester

Where: my combination junior/senior high school

What happened: School was over and winter break had begun, but I think I had basketball practice that afternoon, so I was staying at the school until practice was over. I had cleaned out my locker, leaving only a few school books I wouldn’t need, and headed to the girls’ locker room to hang out until practice started.

I got to talking with one of my friends and fellow teammates and realized that one of the books I needed to take home over break was one I’d left in my locker. I trudged all the way back to the junior high lockers to retrieve it.

The school was practically empty and no one was about in the halls. Our lockers were old and didn’t have locks, so when I opened my locker, I found that someone had left a white rose inside. The rose was rather large and pretty, and had one of those plastic tubes at the bottom filled with water. I looked around, but no one was there. They had to have put it in my locker in the short time between my first locker visit and me returning to retrieve my book. If I hadn’t needed that book, the rose would have stayed in there until school started again in January, so I was really glad I’d had a reason to go back to my locker.

Whodunit: I’ve always thought it was one of two boys. One of them had a girlfriend at the time, but we flirted a lot and I really liked him. The other liked me but I wasn’t interested in him as more than a friend. Neither of them ever admitted to leaving the rose. And because of the lockless-lockers, it could have been anyone.

Why: Either someone wanted me to have a rose, or they put it in the wrong locker. Your guess is as good as mine.

The Footprints

When: winter of either 1998 or 1999

Where: my house

What happened: School got cancelled because of snow, so my parents were at work and I was at home with my little sister. The snow fell until about noon, leaving 4-6 inches on the ground the rest of the day.

In the afternoon, my sister got hungry so I made her some ramen noodles. My sister has always been a ramen fanatic, but this was the first time I ever tried making food using the stove without my parents around. When my parents got home a couple hours later, I stood at the door in the laundry room that led to the garage and watched them through the open garage door, facing the backyard and looking at something in the snow.

They asked me if either of us had gone outside. I said no (they’d told us to stay inside during the day and we had). Again, they told us to stay inside instead of coming out there to help them bring in dinner.

We had a window with blinds on it that looked directly into our kitchen from the back deck. I peaked through the blinds that had been open all day to see my mom and dad peering down at the ground as they walked carefully through our snow covered backyard.

When they came inside, I asked them what was going on. They asked if either me or my sister had seen anyone around the house. We hadn’t. They told me to put on some shoes and a jacket and come outside. We walked out on the deck through the back door and there, in the snow in front of the kitchen window, was a pair of footprints.

They were bigger than my dad’s size twelve. They trailed from the copse of trees behind the neighbor’s house, through our yard, and to our kitchen window. They had to have been made after the snow stopped falling since they hadn’t been filled in, which means someone was likely watching me while I was in the kitchen or watching me and my sister while we were in the living room (where we would have been visible through the open kitchen door).

Whodunit: Due to the shoe size, the culprit was probably a large male or a medium male with snow boots, and therefore, I’ve always thought it was a pervy neighbor we weren’t acquainted with. But we never found out and nothing like it ever happened again.

Why: People can be creepy.

The Empty Thank You

When: sometime in late 2004, early 2005

Where: my house

What happened: I was at home from my freshman year of college, either on break or on a weekend, when my mom checked the mail and saw that I had received a card.

The card was smaller than a greeting card and in the return-to-sender corner, all that was written was D. Drury.

I opened the card and saw that it was a thank you card. It was standard white with a simple gold cursive THANK YOU printed on the front, and inside, it was blank.

No message, nothing. I studied the card and envelope for several minutes, showing it to my family. I hadn’t done anything, been to anything, that warranted a thank you card, and I didn’t know anyone with the last name of Drury, but whoever they were, they knew my name and address and thought for some reason to send me this card, blank as it was.

I searched the internet as best I could considering the little information I had (and considering it was 2004/5) and came up with absolutely nothing. I didn’t know whether to think it was some kind of mistake or some kind of weird trick.

Whodunit: I would love to know.

Why: Seriously, I would love to know.

So those are my little mysteries! Do you have any unexplained happenings in your life? If so, are they interesting like in mystery novels or a little mundane, like mine? Let me know in the comments if you wish!

Photo Credits:

© 2016 Dmitry Ratushny via Unsplash
© 2017 Annie Spratt via Unsplash
© 2016 Paul Green via Unsplash
© 2017 Aaron Burden via Unsplash