Haunted (12 page)

“What's that?” Kammie asked me, pointing to the loveseat beside us. I looked over and saw an old piece of ribbon lying on a cushion. I assumed Rosa must had left it there earlier in the day, but when I picked it up, the material was stiff and brittle with age. As I looked at it more closely, I saw it was beautifully made with delicately woven golden threads. After determining that none of us had placed it on the cushion, I wondered if it were meant to be a small token of appreciation for our having put those items back in the ground. Kammie did not want it, but I appreciated it and used it as a bookmark for the journal I kept about our home.

THE WOMAN AT THE TREE

T
he
night after Kammie and I had buried the objects back in the ground, all was peaceful in our home for a change and we awoke feeling rested. I dared to hope that the strange disturbances we had experienced were over.

Our weekend away at the family reunion was enjoyable and allowed us to forget about the house for awhile. When we returned, the house felt strangely empty of the strong presence I usually noticed upon entering it. I sensed a void in our home and was surprised not to feel comforted. I had hoped for the time when I no longer felt we were sharing our house. Now that whomever had been there appeared to have left, I was surprised to find that, although very relieved, I also felt a slight twinge of loss.

Perhaps the haunting really was over, simply because we had reburied a few small objects in the yard.

After unpacking and resting from our long trip, I went up to the attic and began to write an e-mail message to Rhonda. I told her of our apparent success in ridding the house of its paranormal presence and thanked her for her help in the matter.

A few hours later, I received Rhonda's reply. She was not as optimistic as I that the spirits were really gone for good simply because we had given those objects back. She had suggested we do that and still thought it would be of some help, but she did not think that act alone would be enough to send the entities entirely on their way. She hoped that everything would settle back to normal for my family. If that turned out not to be the case, though, I could feel free to contact her if I wanted Rhonda and one of her colleagues to make the trip to our home to do a more in-depth investigation.

I dismissed her offer. Not only would it have been very costly for us, but I was confident that we finally had our house to ourselves.

The following week two eldest children were back in school, and two of my friends came over for coffee one afternoon. Rosa sat beside me in the living room, facing our company and the foyer, while we chatted. Suddenly my little girl jumped a bit, as though startled. When I looked down at her, she smiled and nodded her head towards the hall. As the women continued to sip their coffee and talk about local events, Rosa and I watched as the foyer light turned itself off, then on, then off again, several times in a row. As I did not want my guests to be aware of that activity, I moved my seat over a bit, redirecting their gaze so that they would not detect the fluctuating light behind them with their peripheral vision.

Rosa started to giggle, as she found the light's activity quite amusing. Each time the light turned on, it would surprise her slightly and she would jump. Then she would chuckle with wonder when it turned itself off. When the women grew curious about what she found so entertaining out in the hallway, I decided it was time for her to go and play in the backyard.

I felt frustrated rather than frightened by that occurrence. Rhonda had been right. Burying those objects in the backyard had not been enough to stop the haunting altogether. It had seemed to quiet things down for a while, but apparently not for long and obviously not for good.

Several days later Kammie went over to a friend's house to play. When Ted and I went to pick her up, we visited for a few minutes with the Mullens. Because Amanda Mullen and Kammie had been best friends since preschool, we knew Amanda's parents, Beverly and Ray, fairly well. We stood outside and chatted with Beverly, who asked us how our trip to the reunion had been. We told her it had been wonderful.

“We drove by your house while you were gone,” she mentioned. “I have to tell you about this really strange woman we saw on your front lawn.”

I glanced over at Ted, who refused to acknowledge what she had said. He had made it clear to me that he did not want us to discuss our house's haunting with anyone in town. He was concerned we would be ridiculed for something he himself had trouble believing or understanding.

“What was she doing?” I asked casually.

“Well, we knew you were away, so when I saw her standing on your lawn as we drove by, I had Ray stop the van in front of the house just to see why she was standing there and what she was doing. We pulled up right near where she stood, but she didn't even seem to notice us. She just kept staring up at that huge weeping willow tree you have in your front yard.”

“She was probably a neighbour,” Ted said.

“No, I'm sure she wasn't. I didn't recognize her,” Beverly told him. The Mullens, who only lived a few blocks from us, were lifelong residents and knew most of the people in town.

“What did she look like?” Ted asked her.

“Really strange. She had on vintage clothing, and her hairstyle looked like it was from about a hundred years ago,” she told us.

I looked at Ted, trying to read his thoughts. I did not think I should mention any of our experiences with the house, but I wanted Beverly to tell us more about the woman.

“What colour was her hair?” I asked.

“It was really blonde, almost white. And she was so tall, taller even than me,” Beverly said, holding her hand several inches above her own height of five feet and ten inches.

“It must have just been a neighbour,” Ted said again.

“Do you have any neighbours who dress like that? I've never seen any. And the weirdest part wasn't even how she looked, but how she acted. We were parked only a few feet away from her, but she didn't even turn her head to look at us. I don't think she even realized we were there. She never took her eyes off of that tree,” Beverly said.

Not wanting to hear any more about the mystery woman in our yard, Ted went into the house to talk to Beverly's husband, Ray. After he left, Beverly looked at me quietly for a moment. “Have you ever met my sister, Dennise?” she finally asked me.

I shook my head.

“She's psychic. No one else in my family really believes in that kind of stuff, but she's made a believer out of me. She has this strong psychic ability, and she uses it all the time to help people.”

I hesitated, not knowing what to say. I did not want to divulge too much about what we had been experiencing, but I was desperate to talk to someone like Dennise about our situation.

“I think there was something really strange about that woman we saw,” she said again in a low voice. “I know this sounds weird, but I think maybe she was a spirit, or something like that, and she definitely seemed to be connected to your place.”

I looked at Beverly and nodded my head. I could not bring myself to dismiss her account of what she had seen, and I wanted the opportunity to talk to Dennise. The spirit of the girl witnessed by both Kammie and I had been that of a thirteen-year-old, although her hair colour and clothing were similar to the woman Beverly had described. The “nurse” who had manifested in my bedroom had worn a headpiece and cloak, neither of which Beverly had mentioned. Perhaps what she had seen was another entity entirely.

“Would you like me to ask my sister to visit your house the next time she's in town? She could walk through it and tell you what she thinks,” Beverly offered.

I quickly agreed. Although she lived fairly far away and would not be in town to visit for some time, Beverly promised she would discuss the matter with Dennise on the phone when they next spoke and let me know what was said. I felt very relieved. If there were so many spirits connected to our property, a psychic might be able to help us in dealing with them.

THE NEWSPAPERS

I
cleared up the kitchen after breakfast as Ted, Kammie, and Matt headed out the front door to work and to school. Little Rosa waved to them from the living room window, and when they were finally out of sight, she joined me in the kitchen. As I turned to greet her, I saw the foyer light begin to switch on and off. I watched it for a few seconds, shrugged my shoulders with exasperation, and continued to load up the dishwasher. Rosa did not even acknowledge the blinking light as she wandered back to the living room, with Piper close behind.

It was a warm spring day, and the sun was streaming in through the windows of the kitchen and family room. I was just about to turn on the dishwasher when a pocket of cold, dense air passed right in front of me. I could actually feel it brush my nose, and I stood perfectly still, scarcely even breathing. The sensation passed within seconds, and the air around me reverted to normal room temperature. I was left standing in the warm kitchen with goose bumps all along my arms and legs and the tip of my nose still frigid.

I rushed into the living room to check on Rosa but found her engrossed in the cartoon show she was watching on television. She looked up at me when I came into the room.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said as calmly as possible. “I just wanted to see what you were up to.”

“You look sad,” my little daughter said with concern.

“No,” I said and smiled. “I'm all right.”

“That's good.” Rosa smiled back at me and turned again to her program.

I stood in the living room for a few minutes, reluctant to return to the kitchen. The telephone's ring startled me, and I felt my heart racing as I picked up the receiver. It was our dentist's office calling to remind me that our six-month check-up was scheduled for the following afternoon. Just as I was about to thank the secretary for calling, the stereo in the family room came on, blaring music at full blast. The whole house seemed to reverberate with the noise. I ran into the family room with the portable phone, turned off the stereo, and apologized to her for the earsplitting racket. I was beginning to feel that whatever was sharing our house with us demanded a great deal of our attention.

The day was too sunny and warm to waste time sitting inside, so Rosa and I quickly got dressed and went out to enjoy the morning. We had recently given her a two-wheel bicycle for her fifth birthday, and it seemed like the perfect time for her to practise riding. I got the bike and some gardening tools out of the shed in the backyard and carried them out to the front of our house.

I stood on the front lawn watching Rosa wobble up and down the sidewalk. With one eye on her tiny helmeted head and one on the patch of soil before me, I started to dig away in our front garden beds, preparing the ground for planting a little later in the spring.

Rosa rolled by happily on her bike, turned proudly in the driveway, and went for another spin to the extent of her boundary, six houses away. She was content riding her bike for the remainder of the morning, and I was able to till and weed all of the garden beds. When I had finished my work, I sat on the top porch step and watched Rosa, who waved to me as she circled in the driveway yet again. It was such a beautiful day. The winter had been so harsh that this spring was especially appreciated.

I closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face. Suddenly an image came into my mind of a middleaged man sitting in a rocking chair and reading a newspaper on that very porch, although its floor was painted a bright red. From his clothing, and the chain leading to the watch in his vest pocket, the scene appeared to be set many, many decades ago.

I opened my eyes and gave my head a slight shake. That had been very peculiar; the vision had just seemed to spring into my mind. I closed my eyes again but experienced nothing unusual. Still, the image had been so vivid that I could clearly recall what the man looked like. The porch had appeared just the same, except that the floor boards were red instead of brown.

I took another look at Rosa riding up and down the street then left the porch for a moment to retrieve a small paring knife from the kitchen. When I came back out I looked around at the floor of the porch and decided to scrape in the far left corner. I kneeled down and began gently to peel away the many layers of paint affixed to the wide pine floor boards of the porch.

The first layer, of course, was brown. I gently lifted up a fleck of paint from the top coat and saw another layer of brown. The layer beneath that was also brown. Next, I came to a layer of blue. Beneath this, I found a layer of white, and finally, a layer of red. It was the last layer I found and had therefore been the first coat of paint applied. I stared at the colour for a moment and felt a slight chill. I had not known the porch had ever been painted red, yet the colour had been prominent in that flash of an image I had seen. The vision had been so clear, it was like sitting right next to the man reading the newspaper in his rocking chair.

Rosa noticed me crouched down on the porch.

“What is it, Mommy?” she asked as she drove up the walkway towards the stairs.

“I was just looking at this old floor,” I said. “Do you want to ride for a few more minutes before we have to go in to get lunch ready?”

She nodded her head vigorously and went off for another spin. I sat down again on the top step, watching my daughter ride her new bicycle. I was having trouble forgetting the image of that man reading the newspaper. I had always been a history buff and enjoyed poring over books, photographs, and journals of other eras. I thought of all the historical events over the past century that would have made newspaper headlines to be read in a rocking chair on that very porch. It may have been a similarly warm spring day back in 1912, for instance, when the owner of that house sat on the porch reading about the sinking of the Titanic. But, I reminded myself, the house had actually been vacant for some reason then and would remain so for several more years. It would be a wonderful experience, though, to find a sample of some of the old newspapers that had been read there.