Joe Berini, when he moved with his wife and two children from a previous wife into a home that had been in his family for quite some time, expected to begin a new life that would be happier and bear a hopeful future. What he found, however, was a life that would be wrought with mystery and the presence of spirits from a previous life. The events that would unfold would begin innocently enough, but as is sometimes the case, the innocence of the Berini house would soon be lost leaving behind a horror so unimaginable, that the family would be driven to run from their home, leaving their lives behind.
It all began in the spring of 1979 when Rose, John Berini’s wife, heard a voice emanating from a veil that no human can see calling her “Mama” and telling her that her, “This is Serena.” The words came gently across the morning air to Rose as she was finishing up breakfast, and Rose thought little of it at first. There were enough problems in the world on the Berinis minds. Tanzanian troops had just taken Uganda, and the newspapers were running a humorous story about then president Jimmy Carter being attacked by a swimming white rabbit in the swamps of Plains Georgia. Life threatened to boldly go on leaving Serena’s call from beyond unheard. But that morning a change had taken hold of the Berini household unknown to the rest of the family. And Serena was going to be heard.
Days later, as John and Rose’s daughter Daisy went to the doctor to have her tonsils removed, a rare complication stopped her heart. As the doctor informed her that Daisy would recover, Rose couldn’t shake the memory in her head of the frightened little girl’s voice she had heard from beyond. Months passed, and soon it was November. As the family prepared for the festivities of the season they received a phone call from John’s aunt. As Rose overheard her husband in the other room, his voice took on a solemn tone. It was soon clear that something had gone wrong. Over her shoulder in the kitchen Rose heard another voice then. It was Serena once again calling to her. As they stood at the funeral watching John’s grandmother being buried, Rose once again couldn’t shake the feeling that Serena was somehow preempting every tragedy that befell the family. And then the incidents took a more sinister turn.
After 1979 Serena disappeared. It seemed the little girl had finally passed into another world. But then in 1981, a little boy dressed completely in white was seen several times walking through the corridors of the upstairs hall, intent on looking for something. John witnessed the boy as he was climbing the stairs on one particular incident and stood there watching him move from room to room before returning to the hallway and searching the floor for an unseen object. As John pulled the floorboards up in the spot where the boy rested later, he would find an old medallion with the virgin Mary’s image on it.
Seeing that the presence of the children may mean unfinished business for the family, John asked his father about the incidents. His father was reluctant to talk about it, but as he asked other family members about his own family history he would find out that there was a long history to the house they occupied that had been kept from him, along with a few names that would surface again and again as they unraveled the tapestry of their family’s past. And one of the names was Serena.