The Ghost Chronicles: Tales from The Burrow

After being awakened by a loud bump in the night, I lay there, waiting for sleep to return, and wondering exactly when it was that I stopped getting up to check out strange noises.

April 29, 2009

I'm really tired today, so let's see if I can accurately describe last nights scene. 

Elsie woke up around 2:00 am and came running to my room insisting that a "bee" floated through the air, landed on her finger, and bit her.  A dream, right? Or more logically, I've seen a few spiders hanging around the ceiling lately. Perhaps one landed on her and took a chomp.

I took her back to her bed, tucked her in, and started to go back to bed.  She totally. freaked. I snuggled in next to her, and she was trembling from head to toe. "Please don't leave me Mommy. I'm so scared."

So I dragged my tired bum to the spare bed, careful to remove all toys and books, and crawled in. Elsie's wide eyes on me the whole time to make sure I didn't leave. I figured I should probably stay awake to make sure, if she was bitten by a spider, that she didn't have some weird reaction.  

Finally, she started to doze. By this time I'm wide awake, any sign of sleep a fleeting memory.  I closed my eyes anyway to try to at least rest.  

Next thing I know there was a crash, like falling books, right next to my head. And it felt like it was under the bed. Elsie and I were both wide awake.  Maybe I missed one.  Or two. Three?  I checked all around me, but didn't see anything.  

The minutes go by. Elsie starts to doze again. It happens again.  On the other side of the bed. The only books there, neatly stacked.

Sigh. Here we go again.

About an hour later, I relax enough to fall asleep, only to enter into bizarre dreams. Finally, feeling like something is pressing down on me, I force myself awake. The air seems decidedly heavy.  Bad dream after effects, right?  That's what I'll go with for now.

Spook and I had a chat today. That monkey business has to stop.

April 22, 2009

It was still dark when I woke this morning.  I stepped out into the hall, same as every morning. 

Only this morning, the shutter on the window in the hall slowly swung open. Now, this I could attribute to my footsteps shaking the floor (even though I try to walk very softly so I don't wake anyone else).  What got my attention was that the curtain next to the window was hazy. Almost like I was looking through just a little bit of thin smoke.  

A chill ran down my spine, and every hair on my body stood on end.  Should I be used to this by now?

April 20, 2009

I came in this morning after taking Raike to school at about 7:30.  The house was dusky, not quite light. As I walked in the front door, I saw a figure standing at the top of the stairs and casting a shadow across the mirror that hangs on the wall there. When I looked up to say good morning to my husband, the space was empty and the mirror quickly brightened.

April 7, 2009

The house was quite quiet while my father was here.  Seems that we have an hospitable spook who doesn't want to scare our guests.  

This morning, however, as I was walking up to the third floor, I heard someone playing in Elsie's toys.  For a split second, I thought I had forgotten to take her to school.  Then I checked under the beds, because I'll never quite get used to this sort of thing being "normal."

edited to add:

I very distinctly just heard someone call me from downstairs.  Perhaps I should answer?

symptoms?

I never wear shoes in the house.  Living in a Victorian-constant-renovation-in-progress-house we got in the habit, so we didn't track in lead dust from outside.  You know, so the kids could actually keep the brain cells they were born with.

Anyway, I've been noticing for the last few months that if feels like I'm stepping on dribbles of water on my rugs.  Like droplets.  As the tirade against my children is forming in my head, I feel for the wet spot with my hand.  But there is nothing there.  So I've started questioning whether I might be developing a neurological disorder.

It happened again this morning as I was walking down the hall to the front door.  I stopped, felt the dry rug, and then made a note to myself to scold the child that left their jacket on the floor.  After I collected the mail and was walking back down the hall, I saw a torn paper towel lying right next to the jacket.  NOT there a minute ago.

And then it dawned on me.  I may not have a neurological disorder after all.

March 23, 2009

Just quickly checking in.

The house has been particularly noisy today.  Lots of thumps, bumps, and footsteps on the second floor.  I still quickly check to make sure all the doors and windows are sealed up tight, just in case the visitor is composed of matter rather than ectoplasm. 

I've been a bit bent around the axle lately, so maybe I've thrown the balance of the house out of whack.

Hopefully things will calm down before my father arrives Friday for a visit.  He certainly doesn't know about our roommate.

All the same, it will be interesting to see if he mentions anything "out of the ordinary."

back fill

After the police incident, I started really noticing things I hadn't before.  Knocks.  Bumps. Whispers. And especially shadows.

Two separate times in the night, I heard Raike calling me from his room on the floor beneath mine.  "Mom.     Mom.     Mom."   I would jump up and run down the stairs, thinking he may be ill, only to find him sound asleep in his bed.

In late August, just before all this started, we had to have our incredibly naughty and much adored Australian Shepherd put to sleep. Raike and Lily have each, unbeknownst to each other, come to tell me that they have seen him walking down the halls at night.  So I thought, great, our ghost is Port.  I can totally live with that.  And how like him to roam around the house making mischief unencumbered with a body.

Then the girls started seeing a face.  Every night.  Sometimes two or three times.  In separate bedrooms.  "There's a face floating over my bed" they would cry, terrified, as they sprinted into my room.  Not a lot of sleep going on around here for a while, I tell you.

Just as we were settling into this new routine, another symptom appeared.  Bed shaking.  It happened to Lily first.  Petrified, she came and told me that something woke her up shaking her legs.  Of course, I chalked it up to a bad dream, tucked her back into her bed, and laid with her until she fell back to sleep.  Thirty minutes later, she's back in my room with "the face."

I was next with the shaking bed syndrome.  I thought it was another earthquake, and sat bolt upright in bed.  That's when I heard a ruckus in the hall outside my bedroom.  I jumped up to check all the children.  Sound asleep. The house was absolutely still.  Eerily so.

A few weeks later, Elsie got the shaking bed.  And the face.  I decided to sleep in her room for the rest of the night, in the spare twin bed.  Just as I was drifting to sleep, it felt as if someone had a hand on each side of my mattress, bouncing it as hard as they could.  I opened my eyes to see a face floating above me.  A man.  With a mustache.  At this point, my fear had turned to anger, and I told him that that was enough for one night and I was going back to sleep.

Following the advise of some very wise friends, I decided to have a chat with our spook.  I explained that the girls were frightened, and I wasn't too thrilled about being awakened so many times in the night.  We were all tired from lack of sleep.  I told him he was welcome, and that I thought we could all live together happily, as long as we could come to an understanding.

Things quieted down after that.  Not that he isn't here.  He still "floats" in the girls rooms, but not right over their beds.  They aren't terrified anymore.  Now, it's mostly tattling if he gets too close. 

I try to remember to chat out loud during the daytime.  I think perhaps he's lonely and needs some attention. Who's to say that just because someone is dead they don't need a little social interaction?  

The instances seem to kick up when I've been ignoring him.  I've been a bit preoccupied lately, and sure enough, Raike woke up a few days ago furious (at Lily) for pounding on his door in the middle of the night.  Lily was ill with a fever of 103 when it happened, so I'm thinking it wasn't her.

Something just now fell in the front hall.  Maybe he knows I'm talking about him.

february 2, 2009: Groundhog Day

I sat down in bed tonight to start a post to back-fill information on all the bumps, floating faces, and shaking beds that we have had in the months since that police officer first suggested to me that we had a ghost.  But I keep seeing the shadows moving out of the corner of my eye. Think I'll wait til daylight to give you the particulars. Better still, I'm going to turn the light on.

burrow house chapter I

(taken from Burrow House post, September 25, 2008)

A funny thing happened at my house today.  And by funny I mean creepy, bizarre, and weird.

So, I'm sitting in our family room on the 2nd floor.  Alone.  Actually working on a project.  Blissfully.  And I hear a series of crashes.  Each sounds like it's coming from a different place in the house.  Now, the dog is outside.  No sign of the cat.  So I jump up to investigate.  As I run past my daughter's room, the door slams.  I stop.  I stand there.  And then in my brilliance, I kick the door open.  Hard.  It flies open, but instead of smashing into the table that rests behind the door, it kind of hits something much softer.  Crap.  NOT how I want to spend my alone time.

At this point, I run to let my ferocious (yeah right) hound in the house, dialing the police as I sprint into the kitchen. Do you know what they told me?  GET THE HELL OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!  So after I let the dog in, I double locked the back door, walked past the stairs that any self respecting robber would have to use to come get the silver, I headed out the front door.

About 3 minutes later, 5 police cars swarm my house.  Eight officers scour every inch of every room. (damn, why do these things always happen when my house is in shambles!?!)

Know what they found?  Nothing.  Nada. Zip.  Every window locked and sealed with storm windows.  Every door locked.  No possible way someone could have gotten out of the house without leaving a clue.  No sign of anything that would explain the smashing I heard.  And get this. The only thing that seems to be missing is a tiny picture of my son as a baby that was in a little frame on the refridgerator.

Now I feel like the loony lady in the neighborhood.  You know, the one with the unkempt house and a wild imagination.  What do I say to the force of police standing in my front hall, wondering why they jumped up and left their lunches?  "Uuuuhhhh...Sorry guys."

But the thing is, I know what I heard.  And I know a door just slammed in my face.  WTF!!!

As the officers are leaving, one of them says to me, "Do you believe in paranormal activity?"

Holy crap!  The police just told me I have a ghost.  Do you think that's code for "Coo-coo lady, keep your hand on your gun." ?  A ghost?  That's just nuts people.  Really?