Grandma Crackton lived in an old beaten shack down at the end of Crickety Crack Lane. She lived alone and preferred the company of no one. Her cat had died ten years ago but she still had the thing propped up against an old cracker barrel in the kitchen. She would glance at that corner from time to time, thinking wistfully of the better times she'd had with that cracker barrel. Filled with crackers and other crackly delights.

Children would come by from time to time, rattling the dark, thin windows with their weak arms as though summoning a ghoul for its annual hunt and uniquely unprepared for the brutality such a ritual entails. If only they knew. It was a rite of passage for these children who shared the neighborhood with ol' Grandma Crackton, the "grammers" as they'd called her, whispering in unlit corners. Maybe you dared your buddy Graham to trespass on her eerie gray grass, wander through the preternatural gloom that always draped over the grammers' property like a blanket in the foggy sea. Graham would stand in her wispy, web-like lawn for as long as he could bear it.

Sometimes an old bear would come trundling down Crickety Crack Lane, whistling the old bear anthem that was popular in the less organized territories. Bears were friendly in this part of town - the Bear District - and musical as well but Graham would never give himself over to one willingly. At least not these bears. And not at this age. Graham was a wee lad who steadfastly refused the wily charms of ursine psychology. Local legend held that the grammers controlled them from her fortress, imposing her will on them as they carried out her bidding. That wasn't true because local legends proved themselves false with the passage of time, but Graham grew to embrace the local legend anyway because he was actually the grandson of Grandma Crackton.