My Friend, the Ghost

I told the story of discovering the ghosts in my old home in the first part. I was to learn a great deal about them through the years.
After the money quit coming from wherever it had come from, I thought that things would quiet down but they didn’t. We heard the sound of two children quite frequently as they ran and played up and down the hall. I would never see the children but they certainly made their presence known in many ways. They moved things, played jokes on us and was fascinated with our Christmas traditions–but that is another story.
We had only been in the house for a couple weeks when I woke one night in the middle of the night to see a woman standing at the foot of the bed in the master bedroom. She had dark blond hair, a white blouse and a dark long skirt. Her hair was pinned up and she looked to be in her 40’s. She was pleasant looking. She was there for only a few seconds and then was gone.
She was watching me sleep, I thought and that was unnerving. I could understand her curiosity but even I have limits.
For several nights I would awake to find her standing at the foot of the bed watching me. I had had enough. The next night I went to my room, closed the door and sat on the side of the bed. I saw no one but I could feel that the lady was there.
“Look,” I said, feeling a bit silly. “I know that this is your house and that you have been here a long time. I understand that buy my boys and I have nowhere else to go. Even if we did, we don’t have the money to move again. We just want to stay here. We will try to be good roommates, but I need you to be a good roommate for us, too. We need to share the house and one thing that I really need is for you to stop watching me sleep. I know that seems harmless, but it is creepy for me to wake up feeling you watching me. Please stop.”
Never again did I see her just standing at the foot of my bed. Well that’s not exactly true, but this time I wasn’t a bit upset.
Several weeks went by and fall gave way to winter. We settled in and life continued on. We learned a lot about our “roommates.” The children ghosts continued to play and run and giggle. They’d move things and I would have to ask them to return them. Usually I’d ask and within seconds it would just be “there.” You’d turn to look at the table or the counter or walk out of the room and back in and there would be the thing you asked to have returned.
We discovered that there were actually four spirits in the house and the last one was not as friendly as the first three. The lady and the children were welcomed spirits, but the fourth was one that my boys brought to my attention.
The boys were little, just four and six years old. My youngest, Ben, first brought up the mean man who stood in the laundry room doorway just across from the boys’ bedroom. I didn’t believe them at first. I was trying to play down the ghost stories about the house. I didn’t bring it up or brushed it off if I could. But one night both boys changed that.
It was bedtime and I had told the boys to go brush their teeth brushed and get their pj’s on. They started down the hallway and suddenly they both froze. Mike grabbed his baby brother’s arm as if to protect him. I was watching from the end of the hall. Suddenly the door to the laundry room swung open and both boys broke into a run past it. I felt the hair stand up on my neck. I could feel a coldness suddenly engulf the hallway. I hurried down the hall and could see the relief on the boys’ faces as they turned to look at me.
“Don’t worry guys,” I said. “I’ll take care of this.”
I grabbed the laundry room door and firmly shut it. The door shut tightly and I knew that it hadn’t just jiggled open because of a loose latch. I felt a terrible anger directed at me. I was infringing on someone’s space but I didn’t care. I spoke very softly so the boys could not hear it. “Listen to me, whoever you are. I don’t care how long you have been here or what your problem is, but you let those boys alone. Got it?” The door flipped open again and slammed. He got it.
Years later I would hear from someone who as a child had played in the house in the 1980’s. He said that he and his friends never liked to go in the house and go to the bathroom because they had to go down the hallway. I asked him what was wrong with going down the hallway.
The young man shuddered. “I know this sounds crazy, but we thought there was this angry guy hanging out around the door to the blue room {the laundry room}. You just felt that he hated you and was mad at you for going past his area.” He shuddered again. “I just know that we all felt that way. We’d run down the road to someone else’s house to use the bathroom rather than to come in here and have to pass that fellow.”
The boys were completely right. We’d have other conformations, as well. A dear friend who is sensitive came for a visit. I had not mentioned the ghosts to him or anyone else yet. He started down the hall and got nearly to the laundry room doorway when he suddenly turned and ran back. “There’s someone in the hall,” he said. “I mean someone dead.” He looked at the boys playing. “You need to watch the boys. This guy doesn’t like anyone but he especially hates kids.”

*There are many other stories to tell from this most haunted house. Next time I will tell you about the history of the building and other ghostly tales from the house.