Interesting Short: Luella Miller

“CLOSE to the village street stood the one-story house in which Luella Miller, who had an evil name in the village, had dwelt.” Thus begins the story by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, first published in Everybody's Magazine in December 1902 and then her collated collection The Wind in the Rose Bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural (1903). We are dealing with an energy vampire – perhaps unknown to herself – and maybe even a vampiric building.

The main part of the story is as narrated by Lydia Anderson, who lived opposite Miller. However, when she came to town (with the Maiden name Hill) she had become a teacher – and a poor one at that. It is noted that one of the students, named Lottie Henderson, actually taught for her but Lottie died within the year. As it was, Luella had caught the eye of Erasmus Miller, who married her and Luella stopped teaching. The boy who helped her in the school after Lottie’s death went crazy a year after she married. Also within the year Erasmus’ health had declined so much he died – the story connects this to consumption (which is intimately tied into American vampire folklore).

There then follows a series of people who become obsessed with Luella and do everything for her, with her claiming she was unable to do the slightest household chore. The way she drew a victim seemed supernatural in and of itself. Anderson seems immune and indeed states “There was somethin’ about Luella Miller seemed to draw the heart right out of you, but she didn't draw it out of me”. The townsfolk do mention witchcraft and the ending indicates that the spirits of those killed by her stayed with her, still serving her.

At the head of the article, I mentioned a vampiric building and that would be Miller’s house. The house stands unheimlich in the town, causing children passing by to shudder and had not had a tenant since Miller had died, except one hale and hearty old woman who took up tenancy and “in seven days she was dead; it seemed that she had fallen a victim to some uncanny power.” Not conclusive, of course, but it is implied that the house holds something of what made Miller so dangerous. Just to note, there was a 2005 New Zealand film of the same name but, at best you could say, they borrowed the name. The film is more a sexual cuckoo in the nest story and has no hint of vampirism.

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