September 24, 2006 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak
When I was in junior high school, my best friend lived in this amazing Victorian house. It was arranged symmetrically around a central chimney, so each room had its corresponding room on the other side of the house, and there were two staircases, two porches, two of each bedroom. The attic was the only room that spanned both sides of the house, in dusty high-ceilinged shadow.
In addition, in the centre of the house there were odd connecting doors between mirror-image rooms, so sometimes you thought you were walking into the hallway and would find yourself in another bedroom, similar to the one you had left.
The outside of the house was decorated with gingerbread that looked something like a rising sun, something like a grinning pumpkin face. It was set on the top of a hill. And the house had hardwood floors and elaborate banisters, and creaked in storms and in heat.
It was supposed to be haunted. My friend’s brother had seen a woman in white, screaming silently. My friend and I would tell stories and play with the Ouija board until we were terrified, but I never saw anything.
Except one time I felt something. We were playing hide and seek and I had stuffed myself into one of the closets, the one that had the stairs to the attic at the back of it. I was huddled between coats with my back to the attic door, listening for my friend’s footsteps outside, and something soft brushed against my knee. I heard a low “mmph” sound, like that made by a child. And I was out of that closet so fast I could barely catch my breath. Scared, and secretly very thrilled and pleased.
That’s the only half-ghostly experience I’ve ever had, and it could well have been something to do with the house’s atmosphere and my expectations and hopes. Aside from odd irrational fears, nothing similar has happened to me since.
When I wrote Spirit Willing, I had to decide whether I was going to include any real spirits in my book about a fake medium. Typically, I think I sort of sidestepped the issue. (Though people who have read it might disagree.) There might be a spirit or two–or, more likely, it might be memory, fear, insight, love.
Go on. Tell me your ghost stories.
Phillipa says:
Julie - I’m a real sceptic I’m afraid and one of my fave aspects of SWFW was the insight into the way er …’fake’ psychics work. I think psychology is an extremely powerful tool.
Julie says:
I agree, Pip. It was important to me to see how Rosie could manipulate her audiences into believing she had supernatural powers, when in fact she had nothing of the kind.
And I’m a skeptic too.
But you notice when people are around a camp fire, they don’t tell stories about “that time I didn’t see a ghost because ghosts don’t exist”. We’re drawn to ghost stories, and I’m as interested in why that is, as in the ghost stories themselves.
Anna Lucia says:
One of the things I love about SWFW is that it’s left up to the reader to interpret activities… although I lean towards the skeptical side of the debate on pyschic phenomena, I’m firmly on the romantic side of the love debate, so I find myself believing Rosie was indeed contacted… and loving believing it.
Ghost stories? Typically, mine’s a little unusual. I was living in a house in a West Cumbria town. Dropping off to sleep one night, I suddenly felt as if a young girl was leaning over me in bed. I could see her floaty hair and big, anxious ideas. She leaned closer, and I got the sense she was about to say something… when she hissed, “Fear…” at me.
And I laughed. She was so patently doing something she felt she ought to, while at the same time radiating uncertainty, loneliness and a kind of sulkiness, that there was nothing scary about her at all. I told her to stop being silly and go to sleep, and if she wanted a friend, I was willing.
She was very nonplussed.
Of course, it could just have been a dream.
Jessica Raymond says:
One day I was round at my mum’s house and was sitting on the sofa, from which you could see through the door and into the kitchen. Mum was in there making tea (out of view) and I was reading a paper or something. She asked me something and I didn’t hear it (probably how many sugars I wanted — she can never remember), so I looked up and asked what she had said.
For a millisecond, I saw a man standing in the kitchen doorway. Literally, a flash, and then nothing. I said, “Oh my God!” and Mum popped into view to ask what was wrong. I told her I’d just seen a man standing in her kitchen. “Whaaaat?” she cried!
She asked me what he looked like and I said he was a soldier, although all I really remember about him was that he wore dark clothes and looked very tired and sodden. The most vivid thing that stuck in my mind were his legs. He wore long dark boots that were covered in mud and something was hanging alongside them — either the long tail of a coat, or maybe a strap for something.
When I told Mum this she looked a bit pale and told me the fields on which her housing development had been built had once played host to a battle. It was possibly I already knew this, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
It was weird, to say the least!
Michelle says:
Oooh, I’m getting all shivery just thinking about ghosts. A few days after my mother-in-law passed away, we were driving in the van and my 18-month-old son suddenly looked out the window and beamed. He started waving, “Hi, Grammy!” But there was no one there. At least, no one we could see. I do believe he could see her, though, because a toddler of that age just isn’t old enough for pretend play. It was pretty cool.
Toni Lea Andrews says:
Odd–I just blogged today about hom I’m NOT clairvoiyant. I am the 1/3 owner of a haunted house. Even renters not “in the know” have seen the ghost of my maternal grandmother, who died before I was born. Also, they smell her cologne - she wore Lily of the Valley. I, on the other hand, have been in the house alone on many, many occasions and the old broad will just NOT introduce herself. And all I smell is the cat box.
Danielle says:
When I was a teenager, I worked at a motel that my sister’s in-laws owned. Back in the 1930’s a woman was murdered in one of the rooms by her husband and the husband then killed himself in the parking lot of the motel. People, guests, used to come into the office after staying in that particular room saying that they’d seen strange things in there and I used to laugh, thinking they were crazy. Well, one day I was in that room cleaning and I finished up in the bathroom and went out to the sleeping area when I heard water running in the bathroom. I went back in and the sink was running so I turned it off and went back out into the sleeping area. I was gathering up the dirty bedding and I heard water in the bathroom again so I crept in there and the sink was on again. I know I turned it off the first time so I kind of panicked and as I reached over to turn off the sink, the TV came on in the sleeping area. that was the last time I cleaned that room. I refused to go back in there.
Julie says:
I am loving these stories! More, more more!!
Margaret McDonagh says:
Many, many, many years ago, when I was young, I lived on the south coast of England and a new indoor swimming pool had been built on a derelict site. It was rumoured that someone had died when the old buildings were torn down and this person was ’seen’ from time to time since then.
One evening after swimming club, only a few of us remained in the pool. There were no spectators in the seats. All the doors were closed. We were chatting at the shallow end when suddenly, up at the other end of the pool, the long handled pole used by life-savers at the time, which was securely hooked on to its bracket, suddenly began vibrating. We all stopped and looked. There was no one there, no drafts, nothing. The vibrations increased until the pole literally jumped off its bracket and clattered resoundingly on the tiled floor.
Talk about spooky!!!!!! We all got out of there very swiftly, I can tell you. No one was ever able to explain what had happened.
Love,
Mags
Donna says:
WOW, this is SO cool!
I have a memory of seeing a small, old lady in black at the top of my mum’s staircase. But I was little so I don’t know if it was a real person I don’t remember or something else.
But my sister, my best friend and I all agree there is something about those stairs. I could never go up or down in the dark, I’d have to turn a light on. You just get this odd, ominous feeling especially at the top. I’ve long been convinced something happened on those stairs. The house is probably 70-80 years old but I haven’t been able to find anything out.
Jenna & Marc Richard says:
I have so many I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but here’s one of the most recent ones from the house we live in now….
We had a dog who we had put into his crate while we were painting a room in our house so he wouldn’t get into the paint, etc. Marc and I had gone into the kitchen to make dinner and I saw the dog standing in the doorway of the room on the other side of the house, so I asked Marc ‘why did you let the dog out’ (thinking the walls were still wet) and he said ‘I didn’t’. Now lots of weird stuff happens in our very old/haunted house, but I thought I could have been seeing things until Marc said ‘wait, did you just see that dog in the doorway!?’… we both ran in the room to find our dog still locked up in his crate looking at us like we were nuts….guess we were both seeing things ; )