Spooked

VE over at VE's Fantastical Nonsense was posting about ghosts today. It reminded me of one of the many of our family's own ghost stories. It goes as follows:

It was bed time and as I tucked in One of Four I had an uneasy feeling. There was was a corner in the room where at ceiling above her bed that just seemed.....darker than the rest of the room. I had the strong urge to get her out of the room and not allow her to sleep in there that night. There was a dark uneasiness about the corner and instinctively I wanted to grab her away from it.

I've heard peoples stories. I'm a rational individual. I get a giggle when people tell me about their UFO sightings, ghosts and ghouls. I convinced myself that I was being silly and left her to spend the night with the darkness in the corner. I then tucked myself in and drifted off to sleep without giving it another thought.

About 4am I heard footsteps to the bathroom. Being a light sleeper because one of the other children in the house is a sleepwalker often found using drawers or chairs as the toilet, I awaited their return to bed before settling again to make sure all was alright. A few minutes after One of Four had returned to bed I found her back up standing at my bedside.

"Mom?" she asked with a slightly alarmed voice.
"Huh?"
"Something rubbed my face."
"What?" I asked
"Something rubbed against my cheek" she replied.
"Honey, you were dreaming."
"Nooooo! I was awake. I went to the bathroom and when I got back into bed something came up to me and rubbed my cheek. I didn't see anyone so I came in here." she said excitedly.

She slept with us the rest of the night.

A few days after that she described seeing a disembodied head floating in the darkened furnace room of the basement. The head had a white ponytail. It was indeed translucent with bright blue eyes. She wasn't afraid of it and wanted to show me.

"Ummm.....let's just hang out upstairs for a while. I've got sooo much to do! It's 4pm and I have to get supper started." I suggested
"But mom....I want to show you the head!" Oh boy! I was spooked. Had the rubbing the face think had not just happened I would have in a second.
"Naaah! I think I need to stay up here right now. Don't worry about the head. You just have a fabulous imagination honey. It was just a reflection from the window. The neighbour must have walked by then." I said this knowing we had no white haired neighbour and there was nothing to reflect anything where she saw said spook.

A couple of days later I was standing in the hallway in front of her bedroom. I felt the hairs on my arms stand at attention. I instinctively looked up. There from one end of the hall racing to the other I saw the same darkness. I heard nothing. As it passed overhead I felt an urgency. Whatever it was was in a great hurry to get to it's destination. I felt a sense of annoyance at being rushed coming from overhead. It was 4pm and it was late! I knew these were things that I wasn't feeling myself but where radiating from above. The darkness never returned. (knock on wood;-)

A few days later when pondering the whole thing I got to thinking that the old lady across the street had passed away about a month prior to all of this. She had had cancer and her son had cared for her and his father as they both lived their last days and died in that house. We never spoke. Her son was a bully in middle school in my class and had changed very little in all of these years. I don't think he recognised me when they moved into our neighbourhood and I didn't help him remember. They were a very anti-social family and kept pretty much to themselves.

I would find his white haired mother with bright blue eyes and a ponytail often standing in her yard staring across at us when we played in the front yard with the kids. I'd offer a wave never to get one in return. She never wavered in her stare and stood watching us for the entire time we would remain outside. She had no grand children of her own to my knowledge.

I don't know. Maybe she just had wanted grand children of her own. If it was her.