Reflections: Living in a haunted house – Part 4

Not everyone believes in haunted house, especially if you have ever visited a halloween hanuted house. The tendency to think it it somehow a joke from someone you know makes you skeptical. I did not believe in ghosts or houses that were supposingly haunted by them. I used laugh at my friends who swore up and down they saw a ghost. That was until we rented a big old victorian house shortly after my husband and I got married.

The house was beautfull with rich oak trim and a winding staircase leading up to the second floor. It had leaded glass windows in the dining where a fireplace was tucked neatly in the corner. This was my favorite room, sunny during the day and cozy at night with a roaring fire to dine by.

My first inclination that something was amiss was the door in the parlor. Sometimes it opened with a turn of the knob and sometimes it felt as if someone was on the other side holding it shut. My husband said it was becasue the wood swells wiht the humidity i the house. What humidity? It was April not July when we moved in. i have to admit to going out of my way to try that door every day. The door did not fail me in my couriosity; sometimes it refused to open when I turned the door knob.

Perhaps my husband was right, the house was built in 1897 so anything was possible. Old wood in a very old house seemed to be his only answer. It was shortly after his rendition of old houses with old wood I saw her.

Standing in my dining room, hands resting on my hundred year old oak table, stood a ghost! I was in the living room sitting on the sofa, the table lamp on next to me, feet propped up polishing my fingernails. I had a straight view into the dining room. Directly in front of me, no more than ten feet away stood a real live ghost, or should I say very dead person.

Have you ever experienced a time when you thought you saw something? You immediately blink and look again but it was gone. I blinked and I blinked, but she was still there. A young woman probably early twenties, dressed in a long sleeved blouse with cuffs, a skirt that touched the floor. Staring at me from my dining room was a GHOST! When I jumped up she disappeared, evaporated or whatever ghosts do when they leave. She was definitely gone.

I ran around like a crazy woman turning on lights. First upstairs checking on my children, then back down stairs checking on her. Muttering to myself “Ghost, I just saw a ghost”! Oh, she was gone now, but she had been there, I know what I saw.