A True Ghost Story - Part 1
One day a few years ago, I sat down at my laptop to work on a ghost short story titled, The Thing At the Window.
It was the perfect morning. Everyone had left the house – husband, son and daughter. I was deliciously alone.
I reread what I had done the day before, making small edits along the way. I included some notes I had made from the notebook I keep in my bag.
I was happy.
The sun was shining.
Hours of blissful writing lay ahead of me.
I had come to a particularly creepy place in the story and I felt a coldness settle in the space between my shoulder blades. I often feel like this when I’m writing scary stuff.
I don’t mind though. If I’m creeped out by what I’m writing, hopefully my readers will be too.
But then I heard a loud creak from upstairs. It was like a gunshot.
Let me tell you that the floorboards in my son’s room are loose and creak when he’s moving around up there.
But he was not at home. Nobody was at home, remember?
‘Nah, don’t be silly,’ I said to myself. ‘It’s just the tiles expanding in the sun.
Yes, that’s the logical answer.’
I went back to work.
A minute later, another creak, then another!
I walked out of my writing room into the hallway. I looked up the stairs.
Nine years before, a friend did a fengshui reading on our house. Fengshui is the art of arranging your living space in the best possible manner, considering everything, mundane and celestial.
We bought various crystals which she placed in all the rooms and rearranged some of the furniture. At the same time I mentioned that my son, who was eleven at the time, thought there was a ghost in his bedroom. He had been complaining about this for years. Whenever I said goodnight to him, part of the ritual was to check the wardrobe doors to make sure they were securely shut. But often in the morning they would be open again. I would also find his light switched on in the middle of the night.
I asked my friend to look into that matter as well.
She told me to wait downstairs and went up alone.
Half an hour later she came back down.
‘There was a ghost in his room,’ she said.
My stomach gave a lurch.
‘She was a lady,’ my friend went on. ‘She cared for Ren a great deal. I told her to go. That she wasn’t needed anymore. She’s gone now.’
I was horrified and creeped out!
Imagine a ghost lady hovering over you while you’re sleeping. As well as being utterly creepy, it was kind of tragic.
Strangely enough, after my friend cleared the house of this ghost, the wardrobe doors in my son’s room never opened by themselves again, nor the overhead light come on all by itself.
As for the fengshui. After years of disappointment, that same year my first novel was accepted for publication.
Well, I hadn’t thought about that ghost lady in my son’s room until this particular day while I was standing on the stairs ready to investigate all the creaking noises. If it had been dark, I would have fled the house for sure. But it was sunny and bright!
Then I remembered something else.
‘Of course,’ I said to myself. ‘Didn’t the carpenter say he was coming sometime over the next few days to mend the gables on my roof? That’s it then. He’s up there now walking around on the tiles.’
Relieved, I walked the rest of the way up the stairs. I would take a look out my bedroom window. I’d be able to see his truck from there and that would clear up all this mystery and I could get back to work.
The first room off the hallway is my son’s room. His door is closed. It is always closed. I tell him to close it because I can’t stand looking at the mess. I walked past it.
The next room is my daughter’s. I passed that too.
At the end of the hall is my bedroom.
Just as I was about to enter it I happened to glance over my shoulder.
That’s when I froze.
My son’s door was now standing wide open when only a moment ago it had been shut!
Something was in the house!
My next post will be ~ A True Ghost Story – Part 2
Don’t forget to enter the Riddle Competition to win a signed copy of Little Paradise.
I shout without a mouth
Blaring north and south
My noise is there for hire
Strung along a wire.
What is this?
Gabi x
