|
Halloween Poll
In honor of Halloween, I offer this POLL: Have you ever been in a place that was 'known' or reputed to be haunted? For purposes of this poll, you don't need actually to believe it was haunted, but you should tell the story as if you do.
My answer: Close friends live in house built in the 1920s. Their bedroom has a ghostly presence; the usual bumps, squeaks and scraping sounds. Several times, the picture hanging over their bed has shifted suddenly in the middle of the night --- it wants to be crooked.
One night, my friend Kathleen was reading in bed. Suddenly, the cord to the venetian blinds began swinging rhythmically, like a pendulum. There was not a breath of moving air in the room, but it swang back and forth for a full minute, in perfect rhythm, and then stopped dead vertical. It hasn't happened again since.
Shortly after they moved in, Lydia, their three year old daughter, began waking up in the night and wandering the house in a half-awake state. If anyone in the house is awake, she'll loom in doorway to the occupied room, watching silently, standing in any nearby darkness. But if anyone in the room turns and actually makes eye contact with her, she'll burst into tears. I've seen this happen myself --- at a dinner party, Lydia had been put to bed and two hours later we were having nightcaps in the living room. I thought I saw a figure in the shadows of the staircase, so I peered into the gloom. I saw the blank look on her face before she wailed --- not a frightened cry, but a cry of loneliness, perhaps. When she wakes in the morning, she doesn't remember anything after being put to bed.
|
Threaded Mode