May 8, 2026
Graced by the Veil
“I can’t explain it…but I know it’s real.”
- By Dennis Easters
It was late Sunday morning when we left Riverview, heading north on Highway 301 toward Zephyrhills. A little more than an hour later, we crossed the railroad tracks and turned onto 8th Street, a quiet, oak-lined street where Spanish moss hung from the branches like icicles from a Christmas tree.
Her house sat slightly above street level on a small rise. It was a charming little bungalow painted white, framed by two grandfather oaks. Its front porch had been screened in long ago.
Mama parked on the street, and we made our way up the front steps. Granny opened the screen door, and we stepped onto the porch. She knocked on the front door and called, “Grace, it’s Luewanza and Gaynell.”
A few seconds later, footsteps crossed the old wooden floors, accompanied by the occasional creak.
Grace opened the door.
She was tiny, no more than four feet eight inches tall.
She had a head full of gray hair set perfectly in place—typical of a woman from her generation.
She reminded me of someone I had seen recently, but I couldn’t remember who.
“Gaynell…Luewanza…come in,” she said warmly. “Dennis, how do you do?”
“It’s a hot one today. Let me turn on the fan.”
A low hum filled the house, followed by the sound of louvers opening as the attic fan began pulling air through the rooms.
The spirits say you’ll have everything you want in your life. It just won’t come as fast as you want it to come. But it will come. Patience—that’s the lesson they say you have to learn.
She looked toward Mama and Granny.
“Who’s going first?”
Mama smiled and said to Granny, “Mama, why don’t you go first?”
As they walked toward the kitchen, it struck me that the two of them were about the same size and must have been close to the same age. Then they disappeared through the swinging door.
Mama and I sat down in the living room, which held my attention.
The double-hung windows were dressed with freshly starched lace curtains.
A painted wooden mantel rested above the brick fireplace.
A clock sat in the middle, with porcelain figurines on either side.
A 1950s-style sofa faced the fireplace.
Near the front window, two wingback chairs angled slightly toward one another, casting shadows across the polished wooden floor.
A doily draped over the edge of a piecrust table, on which sat a small crystal dish filled with butterscotch discs wrapped in golden cellophane.
I asked Mama if I could have one.
“Yes, you may have one—just one. When Grace comes out, tell her you had a piece of candy and thank her.”
The house smelled faintly of furniture polish and old books, both warmed by the Florida heat.
From the kitchen, I could hear talking—low voices, almost whispers.
Was that Granny?
Grace?
Was someone else back there too?
Grace’s bedroom door stood partially open, and I could see the dark wooden headboard, heavily carved, against the back wall. The bed was neatly made with a chenille spread tucked tightly beneath the pillows.
Hanging above it was an imposing crucifix—the first real crucifix I remember seeing outside the pictures in our family Bible.
On the nightstand beside the lamp, I could make out a book with a strand of beads draped across it.
I wanted so badly to wander around, but I knew better than to even ask Mama.
Before we left home, Mama always reminded me to be on my best behavior.
“You wouldn’t want to embarrass me,” she’d say.
Forty-five minutes passed in a flash, and Granny returned to the living room.
“Gaynell, you can come on back,” Grace said, holding open the kitchen door.
Granny sat down and picked up the crochet bag resting at the end of the sofa. She pulled out a spool of thread with her crochet needle tucked into it and the beginnings of what looked like a tablecloth. She consulted her pattern, counted a few stitches, and calmly resumed crocheting.
“Granny,” I whispered, “what were you and Grace talking about?”
“There were some personal things I needed clarity on about Frank and Marlene,” she said softly. “I asked Grace to read the cards.”
“Did she?”
Granny nodded without looking up from her stitching.
“She sure did. Grace always knows what’s going on before you ask. She speaks to the spirits…and they don’t lie. Even when I don’t like what she says, it turns out to be true.”
It seemed like magic to me.
I understood Granny’s words, but I wasn’t sure I understood what they meant.
The bells from the First Methodist Church down the street began ringing the hour.
Two o’clock.
What seemed like only a few minutes later, Mama and Grace stepped out of the kitchen.
I looked up eagerly.
“Is it my turn?” I asked.
Mama looked at Grace, hesitated, and asked, “Would you mind reading Dennis? He’s curious to see how this works.”
Grace smiled gently and motioned toward the kitchen.
“Come on back. It’s your turn.”
The kitchen felt enormous to me—dim and cool despite the heat outside. Cabinets lined two walls, forming a long L. A small table with three chairs sat against the far side of the room. Colorful old tiles formed a pattern across the floor. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the window above the sink, making them gleam.
Grace motioned toward the chair beside her, then took her place at the head of the table.
She picked up a deck of cards like the ones Daddy used for solitaire and began shuffling.
“Has your mother explained why she comes to visit me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
“Do you understand it?”
“Kind of…I think I do.”
Grace nodded.
“It’s nothing magical, really. Here…cut the deck for me. We’re going to play the cards and see what they say.”
I cut the cards into two uneven piles. She stacked them again and shuffled once more.
She turned over the first card.
“You’re a bright boy,” she said quietly. “You’ve got the gift too. Your mother as well—she isn’t always easy to read. You won’t be either. I can see the veil.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant.
Another card hit the table.
Grace glanced slightly upward and muttered something under her breath.
I looked around the room.
“Who are you talking to?” I finally asked.
“The spirits,” she answered matter-of-factly. “They speak to me—give me clues.”
Another card.
“You worry too much for such a young man,” she said. “There’s nothing to worry about. Your mother will be fine. She isn’t going anywhere. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
How could Grace possibly know that my greatest fear was losing my mother? Even as a little boy, that fear lived quietly inside me.
Another card landed softly on the table.
“Yes…he will,” she murmured toward the ceiling again, as though answering a question I hadn’t heard.
Then she looked directly at me.
“The spirits say you’ll have everything you want in your life. It just won’t come as fast as you want it to come. But it will come. Patience—that’s the lesson they say you have to learn.”
A silence settled over the room.
Then Grace smiled faintly.
“It’s quiet on the other side. The spirits have stopped talking.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Well,” she added gently, “I hope that satisfies some of your curiosity.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Thank you for showing me what a reading means. When Mama said they were coming here for readings, I thought I understood, but I wasn’t quite sure.”
Then, with complete innocence, I added:
“I mean…I know you’re a librarian at the college.”
Grace laughed softly.
Then I remembered.
“Oh, and I had a piece of butterscotch. Thank you.”
As we walked back toward the living room, where Mama and Granny were waiting, I felt older somehow—as though I had crossed into a world I didn’t fully understand but knew was real to the adults around me.
I had always been curious, so before we reached the doorway, I asked one more question.
“But how do you do it? How do you read the cards? How do you hear the spirits? How do you know these things?”
Grace paused.
“Dennis,” she said softly, “I was born under a veil…en caul, as they used to say. It’s a gift from God. Only a few people have it.”
She shrugged gently.
“I can’t explain it. It just is. It always has been.”
Then, after a moment, she added:
“Since I was a little girl, I could see things—visions. I knew things but didn’t know why. Sometimes I could hear them too: people talking back to me, people I couldn’t see.”
She looked toward the crucifix hanging in her bedroom.
“Somehow the gift is like God. I can’t see Him either, but I know He’s there. I know He’s real. My gift is like that. I can’t explain it…but I know it’s real.”
We said our goodbyes a few minutes later, but just before we stepped out the front door, Grace looked down at me and said something I have never forgotten.
“Remember this, Dennis. You have the gift too. Your mother knows it. I know it. The spirits know it. You’ve just got to discover it, trust it.”
Then she smiled.
“Listen…and it will speak to you. They will speak to you.”
I was unusually quiet for the first part of the drive home. Then, somewhere along Highway 301, my eight-year-old mind finally found a way to make sense of Grace.
She reminded me of the little woman from Poltergeist.
I was still trying to understand what had happened.
I couldn’t fully articulate it then.
Truthfully, I’m not sure I can now.
But after all these years, I can still hear Grace’s voice as clearly as if I were sitting in the kitchen of her little bungalow in Zephyrhills:
“You have the gift too.”
Grace’s small white bungalow sits slightly above 8th Street, framed by two grandfather oaks draped in Spanish moss. An old-fashioned screen door opens onto the enclosed front porch, inviting us into the mysterious childhood encounter at the heart of Graced by the Veil.
A recreation of Grace’s kitchen as I remember it—slightly dim, quiet, and cooled by the movement of the attic fan. Afternoon light filtered through the lace curtains above the sink and fell across the colorful tiled floor. At the small wooden table, a deck of ordinary playing cards waited to reveal something extraordinary.
A portrait of Graceas a young woman, long before I knew her in Zephyrhills. Years later, she would become the quiet, enigmatic figure at the center of a childhood afternoon I never forgot.
About the Photograph
Oneonta, New York
A portrait of Graceas a young woman, long before I knew her in Zephyrhills. Years later, she would become the quiet, enigmatic figure at the center of a childhood afternoon I never forgot.