Haunted (17 page)

When I told him that perhaps we should, he looked at me for a moment. He had not expected me to want a new house after all the work I had put into our Victorian home. The paranormal activity, however, had made quite an impact on me, and I felt the need to nestle my family in a house with no history whatsoever. Maybe that was the only way we could finally live in peace.

“Are you sure you wouldn't mind living in a new house again?” Ted asked.

“I think I would be scared to move into another old one and go through all of this again,” I told him truthfully.

“We had two other old houses and never had any problems with them,” he reminded me.

“I'm just so tired of all of this,” I said wearily. “I feel like we need a fresh start. A normal life again in a new home.”

Ted suggested we use the computer to research available house designs in the event we went ahead with our plan. I followed my husband up to the attic and connected to the Internet. Within a few minutes, we had the building site online and were comparing a few different designs. There was a reproduction Victorian house plan that caught my eye, and Ted told me that could be our new home if I liked it. As he said that, the Internet connection abruptly failed. Although I tried to reconnect, I was not able to do so. It was completely dead. We finally noticed that the phone jack for our modem had been pulled out of its socket and fairly forcefully. It lay some distance from the wall.

“Do you think someone does not want us looking at new house designs?” Ted chuckled.

I pushed the phone jack firmly into the outlet and did not laugh at my husband's attempt at humour. That was just what I did think, and exactly why I wanted to move.

The next morning Ted contacted a real estate agent and told him we were considering listing our home. A few hours later Mark Gerhen arrived at our door with camera in hand. He would be happy to list our house, he told us, because there were presently very few Victorian houses available for sale in our town. Of the few that were listed, none had been restored as beautifully as ours, and he was currently in the process of trying to locate a turn-of-the-century house that still had the look and charm of that era for the Billings family who were moving into the area. Mr. Gerhen explained to us that, although he had taken them through several homes in the past few weeks, including one in our own neighbourhood, not one of the houses had been completely restored. And that, the real estate agent emphasized, was exactly what his client had requested.

As he walked through our home with its ornate iron radiators, claw-footed tub, and pocket doors, he kept nodding his head and smiling. His camera snapped away as he photographed each room for his records.

Ted had installed an antique water pump from 1894 on the countertop in our kitchen, just for show. We had found it at a flea market soon after we moved into the house. On the wall beside the pump was a large antique oak telephone from 1898 that I had purchased at an auction, rewired for use on a modern phone system. When Mr. Gerhen entered the kitchen and walked over to look at the pump, the telephone's brass bells rang out loudly as a phone call came in. He laughed at how much its loud ring had startled him. I too had jumped, as the old telephone was normally left unplugged. Its bell was deafening, and we preferred using the much more convenient cordless phone with caller identification. Yet the cordless phone on the counter beside me had not rung or registered any incoming calls. And when Ted lifted the antique receiver to see who was calling, no one was there.

The last room we entered on the main floor was the new family room, and Mr. Gerhen was really impressed with the addition. He felt that house would suit his client's needs. In fact, he told us, they would probably want to keep the pump and antique telephone as well. Ted smiled at me, knowing I would never want to part with either item, but said nothing.

“I need to see the basement to ensure there are no problems,” the agent told us.

“What kind of problems?” Ted asked, leading him down to the cellar.

“It mustn't leak,” he said. “The Billings were very firm on that point.”

“Well, we do get a bit of moisture around the walls when it's really wet outside, during a heavy rainstorm or when a lot of snow has melted. But it's never been anything that our dehumidifier couldn't handle,” Ted told him honestly.

Mr. Gerhen carefully inspected the dry stone cellar and was convinced that it would meet his client's requirements. Ted showed him where the dehumidifier was installed and again stated truthfully that we had never had a problem with any excess water in our basement.

As Ted led the agent through the rest of the house, I became apprehensive at the prospect of selling it. I was no longer certain I wanted to leave the house after all. That sudden indecision surprised me, as there had been no doubt in my mind for some time that we should move. Now, with that possibility looming, I was feeling a renewed attachment to the house. I wanted to finally understand why all the strange activity was occurring; it felt like a mystery that needed to be solved. Also, I felt it would be unfair to allow an unwitting family to purchase it and then leave them with the same predicament.

When Mr. Gerhen presented us with the paperwork required to begin the process of listing and selling our home, I hesitated. I told Ted I needed a bit more time to think about it, and he looked at me in surprise. It had been my idea to sell, after all, and apparently Mr. Gerhen had a buyer waiting eagerly in the wings for a house exactly like ours.

“I just want a few more days to think about it,” I told him.

“Well, that's fine,” said the agent. “We can sign these another time. But the Billings are coming into town again tomorrow to look at a few more houses I have lined up for them. Could I bring them through for a showing if they're interested, just in case you do decide to sell?”

We both agreed to that, and Mark called Ted shortly after he had returned to his office. He had informed the Billings about the house and they definitely wanted to see it. They had inquired about the basement, and he had been happy to let them know it was dry as a bone and that he thought the house was exactly what they wanted. We scheduled the showing for 2:30 the following afternoon.

That evening I went into the basement to take some chicken out of the large freezer chest we stored downstairs. As I stepped off of the last stair onto the concrete floor, my foot landed in cold, deep water. Pooled at the base of the stairs, it was bubbling up from beneath the floor as though fed by a fast moving stream. I grabbed some old towels and a mop and attempted to clean up the puddle, but the more I mopped, the faster the water seemed to reappear.

I had no idea where the flow of water was originating. Even in early spring, when the weather was rainy and there was a lot of melting snow, we rarely noticed any moisture at all in the basement. But it was then the middle of winter, and everything outside was frozen solid.

I could not clean up the water and finally called for Ted to come down to the basement. When he joined me, he asked what I had spilled. It did not even occur to him that the floor itself was the source of the water.

“I just found it like this,” I explained to him, as I wrung out the soaking mop.

“What happened? Did a pipe burst?” Ted asked. He had been downstairs earlier that day with the real estate agent and it had been, in Mr. Gerhen's words, “as dry as a bone.”

“No, Ted. It's coming up through the floor,” I replied. “Why would it be doing this now?”

We looked at each other and back down at the flooded concrete. We both knew why.

“I told you someone didn't want us to move,” Ted sighed.

“You better call the agent and tell him not to bring the Billings over tomorrow,” I suggested.

“Let's leave it as it is for now,” Ted said. “Maybe it will look better tomorrow.”

When we went down to check on the basement the next morning, we found its condition had worsened. Although the water was contained in the area directly below the stairs, the pool had grown deeper.

As Mr. Gerhen had stressed that the Billings were not interested in a house with a leaky basement, I pointed out to Ted that it would be a waste of their time to view it and see this water on the floor. Ted agreed and tried to reach the real estate agent in his office to cancel that afternoon's appointment. When he was not there, Ted asked that he be paged, but we did not hear back from him.

As Mr. Gerhen never confirmed the cancellation of the showing, we decided to leave before the Billings came so they could go through the house in privacy. Ted, the three children, and Piper waited for me outside in the car while I checked all the rooms one final time to make sure our home looked presentable. Everything was spotless and showed very well, but I could not help but sigh when I went down to the basement and looked at its flooded floor.

I took a deep breath and spoke aloud in my most authoritative voice, as if to mischievous children: “Please be good. Just let these people come through the house and see it today, and stop making this mess in the basement. I know you don't want us to leave, but you can't do things like this.” I had nothing to lose, and I did not know what else to do.

I felt a bit calmer as I walked back upstairs. I wished we had been able to cancel the appointment before the prospective purchaser saw all that water, but perhaps the flood would not get any worse following my talk to whomever might have been listening. I left the front door unlocked for the real estate agent and his client, and joined my family in the car. As we drove away, I quietly told Ted what I had said in the basement.

“I bet that will be a big help,” he chuckled.

After thirty minutes, we drove back to our house to see Mark Gerhen's car still parked in the driveway. We then drove to a nearby park and watched Rosa, Matt, and Kammie play on the toboggan hill for another half an hour. When we again returned to our house, we saw the agent's car just pulling out of our driveway. We had not expected the showing to last that long once the client had seen how much water was in the basement.

The real estate agent had left a note for us on the kitchen table, written on the back of his business card. I felt certain he would have mentioned the flooded basement but instead read: “Thank you for allowing me to show your beautiful home. They really loved it and think it is exactly what they have been looking for. I will call you in a few days. Mark.”

I shared the note with Ted, and the two of us hurried downstairs to see the condition of the basement. When we reached the bottom of the stairway, we could only gape, speechless, at the completely dry floor. Not only had the flooding ceased, but there was no sign of dampness on the concrete to indicate where the large puddle had been.

“Okay, this is a little weird,” Ted said.

I was so shocked by what I was seeing that I did not acknowledge Ted's concession that there was no logical explanation for this occurrence.

“No wonder Mark didn't mention anything about the flood in his note,” I mumbled.

Ted nodded, and we went back upstairs, closing the basement door behind us.

" GO TO THE LIGHT... "

M
ark
Gerhen telephoned us later that week to ask if we had decided whether or not to sell our home. The Billings had expressed a strong interest in the property, and they were eager to make an offer if we wished to sell.

Ted and I talked about the proposition long into the night. It had become such a difficult decision for me. We could sell the house, put all the strange and unnerving experiences we had undergone behind us, and have a fresh start in a new home. Yet, I felt somewhat irrational feelings of sadness and guilt at the thought of leaving. I almost felt as if we would be abandoning the spirits, especially those of children, who were so attached to the location and perhaps, somehow, lost. It felt impossible to simply move away from the house without first doing something to help the spirits do the same.

I wanted to put the matter to rest, and to live in an ordinary home. I wanted us to sell our property for practical reasons, such as job relocation or our need for a larger home, and not because we were fleeing from ghosts. And, I needed help in doing that.

When I had first contacted Rhonda from the paranormal society, she had warned me to be careful with whom I discussed our situation. She had seen other people persecuted for similar claims. They had been fired from their jobs or driven from their neighbourhoods. Yet if we had experienced such strange occurrences within our family's home, surely others must have experienced them in other places too. I wanted to know we were not alone in dealing with such events, but felt isolated because so few people were willing to discuss them.

I pondered contacting Rhonda once again. Unfortunately though without actually visiting the site of the haunting, the investigator felt she had already done everything she could through our e-mail correspondence other than offer moral support.

I then thought about calling Beverly and asking her to contact Dennise for us again, but I hesitated to do so. Because she had been the one to initiate our first discussion of paranormal activity and because her sister was a psychic, I had thought we could confide in Beverly and her husband, Ray, without fearing their doubt or ridicule. Yet whenever they visited us, I sensed a slight uneasiness on their part. I understood though that the disturbances in our home were frightening because they were caused by the unknown, and I had not discussed the house with her for some time.

Although Ted was adamant that he did not want a research group conducting ghost-hunting experiments within our house, I felt the need at least to speak directly to a psychic to see if more information could be gleaned. There were many so-called psychics who advertised their services over the Internet, on television, and in the newspapers, but I did not want to waste our time and money talking to just anyone who claimed to have the ability to make contact with the spiritual realm. I began to research who would be most likely to give me the answers I needed.