“I’ll just keep writing about it in the hope that I can get a better handle on things if I can keep track of what is actually happening.”
—DONNA RANDALL FILLIE
Mom and Dad are away, visiting Eunice and Harry tonight. I was watching a movie and enjoying being alone for a few hours. While sitting on the couch, I felt the room grow really cold. Not just a regular type of cold, but a bone chilling, piercing, hug yourself, kind of cold. The heat was on and the furnace was running, but, God, it was so cold! It felt like something was drawing the blood out of my body. It was like dead cold—like every bit of heat in my body was being sucked out of me. When I held my hand a few inches away from my cheek, I could feel the cold radiating from my body. It was all quite bizarre. At one point, the doorknob to the downstairs bedroom started jiggling. Presently, the whole door began shaking. Man, I got scared! I walked up to the door, but I didn’t have the guts to open it. Brandy, our dog—usually inquisitive, if not downright nosey—didn’t even come into the room to check it out, so I went to get her. Her presence was a source of comfort and reassurance. I had to drag her across the wooden floor. She actually made marks with her toenails as she resisted being moved toward the door. Her hair stood straight up on her back, and she fought hard to get away from me. It was very clear that she did not want to go near that room. As I released her collar, an ice-cold breeze blew by me, strong enough to move my hair and ripple my clothes. Mom and Dad arrived home soon after that. I related the story, still feeling the chill. Dad checked the room. Everything was quiet and nothing had been disturbed. I guess I don’t really want to spend that sort of quiet evening alone anymore! A lot of weird stuff has always gone on here, but it was never anything we could see. All I know is that now things have begun moving that aren’t supposed to. We’ve had hairbrushes slide across counters and hang in midair. Not long ago a candlestick slid across the stereo and also hung in midair. On one occasion a wreath came off the wall and instead of falling directly to the floor, it landed way out in the middle of the room—something we couldn’t duplicate when we tried to replicate the motion.
Dad was lying on his bed upstairs listening to a baseball game on the radio. The floor all around his bed started to “snap” loudly. It was a sharp sound, like the crack of a bull whip. Then the mattress lifted up just a bit—as if someone was under his bed that was too large for the space. He hurried off the bed and looked underneath, but of course nothing was there. It was funny in a way, because he was so disgruntled by it all.
Dad worried constantly about money. He worried about the financial result of people finding out about the things going on in the house. He had a great sense of humor so he didn’t take most of the things too seriously—certainly not as threatening. I often compared notes with my mother about the things we witnessed in the house. We would ask each other, “Did you hear that? Did you see such and such?” We sat and philosophized, “What could it be?” Our lives were filled with so many strange things.
So many odd things happen around this house. It is often amusing. Last night the upstairs toilet kept flushing itself. Over and over it flushed. Dad kept getting up to check, but he could find nothing wrong with the mechanism. Everything seemed perfectly fine. I guess just let “them” have their fun, whoever—whatever—they are.
This is really a puzzle. I was sitting on the couch talking with Mom. I was wearing my silver chain as usual. I often put my finger under it and slide my finger back and forth. It’s one of those unconscious habits that I’m often not even aware of. After a few minutes, I went to put my finger back to my chain and the chain was gone. I felt down the front of my sweater, then got up and checked the couch cushions and the floor. It was nowhere to be found.
After searching the area, I walked across the room and started up the stairs. On the fourth step, I saw my chain just lying there! It was clasped and the front of the chain was dangling over the front edge of the step, gently swaying back and forth. That chain definitely would not fit over my head without being unclasped. I had not felt a thing as it had been removed—unclasped and removed! Great, now they’re pilfering jewelry!!
Diane washed her hair in the kitchen sink this morning. She set her jade ring on the windowsill and when she reached for it, it was gone. She got really upset and had Dad check the pipes to make sure it didn’t go down the drain. She just came downstairs and told us that she found the ring in her jewelry box and all of the other jewelry had been pushed aside to make room for it in the center. Her ring was pressed down into the velvet so hard it left a clear impression. It gave me the creeps because Mom had a similar experience a while back. Mom and Dad had gone away with their friends for the weekend. When they returned, Mom discovered that she had lost a ring that meant a lot to her. She called the motel where they had stayed and was told it had not been found. She knew that she had worn it, because she seldom took it off. The next day she returned to work and told her friends what had happened. They suggested that she empty out her jewelry box and check, believing that she must have forgotten to take it with her. Although she felt certain that could not have been the case, she emptied the box and checked it on several occasions; the ring was gone. Five months later, my grandmother’s brother died and my parents were on their way to the funeral. Although they were already in the car, my mother decided that she wanted to wear a pin on her dress so she came back into the house and opened her jewelry box. All of her jewelry was pushed aside, and her missing ring was resting there in the center, pushed so hard into the velvet that it left a distinctive mark. My sister and I were flabbergasted! After that happened, we sometimes talked about it and wondered if it had been the work of grandmother.
A sizeable, white wisp that was shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss, appeared in the corner of the living room today. The top of it slowly became elongated and then started curling upward toward the ceiling. As the top became longer and thinner, the bottom seemed to decrease in size and volume, and then it disappeared into the ceiling as if it had been sucked up.
It seems that the goings on around here are becoming more and more visible. It’s kind of a feeling that “they” have gotten a little more forward or aggressive in “their” dealings with us. We haven’t done anything about it, because at this point, we don’t know what to do. No one has been hurt, and it doesn’t seem like “they” do not intend any particular harm to us or our things. It has always been this way, but I believe that the older I get, the more I seem to notice it. I guess I’ll just keep writing about it in the hope that I can get a better handle on things if I can keep track of what is actually happening.
A patch of light appeared on the bedroom wall last night. It was really bright and shaped like a rectangle. The shades were drawn and no light was entering from the window. When we passed our hands over it, there wasn’t a shadow. We checked everywhere for a light source, but we found none. There was no patch of light or stream of light leading up to it like there would have been from a spotlight or a projector. We watched it for a good twenty minutes before it just faded away and disappeared. These things we see typically don’t just stop abruptly; they usually fade away over some short period of time.
I was just sitting in a chair in the corner of the living room and happened to glance up into the staircase. My bedroom window is in direct line with the door and the reflection of light passes out into the stairwell. During a period of several minutes, a small childlike figure kept passing back and forth. The figure had elongated ears and no particular clothing. It was indistinct in the darkness so I couldn’t make out a nose or eyes. There are not any trees on that side of the house, and the windows are all closed now. No one is home but me, and I certainly am not about to go see who it is. As long as it stays there, I’ll stay here.
[I often wonder about who or what could be here. All my life I’ve heard a wide variety of theories from my relatives. There are periods during which things “calm down.” Just when we relax and forget for a while what can be going on, something happens again. I suppose it’s that feeling of knowing it WILL be back that keeps all of us constantly on edge even when it is not “active.” It’s a kind of ongoing uncertainty, the looking over your shoulder as you walk through a dark alley feeling. Every time we go through this, there’s a break, then it happens again. Mom and Dad have talked for a while about selling this house and moving. I have questions. Does this happen other places a lot? Are they attracted to this place or to the family for some particular reason? Will “they” follow us if we leave?]
Last night we all laid awake listening to a very loud snapping noise. It sounded like the crack of a bull whip, again. The whole house seemed to be filled with it. It came from every corner of every room. There was no rhythm to it, just the random, if constant, snap, snap, snap. We checked the whole house and could not find a source. It finally stopped just before daylight, and we all caught a few minutes of sleep.
Mom and Dad were cleaning the cellar today. Mom was sweeping the corner of the big room and Dad was behind her in another corner. Someone addressed Mom: “Here now! What are you doing?” Startled, Mom turned around to see who was there. It was a woman’s voice that had been quite clear and distinct. No one was there other than her and Dad, and Dad hadn’t heard a thing. She answered the invisible voice. She said that it was just a common reaction to answer, even though she knew perfectly well that she and Dad were the only ones down there. There was nothing more.
I washed the dishes last night and they were all fine when I put them in the dish drainer. The silverware was on the bottom. When I dried them, three forks, one knife, and two spoons were bent almost in half. I had been standing right there and didn’t hear or see anything unusual, and yet there they were—severely bent. The rest of the things in the silverware section were fine.
[I don’t understand what’s going on here. Many of things that happened in the past are starting to bother me. Perhaps it’s because I am getting older. I’m not really scared because it has always been this way, but I’m starting to wonder what else has happened that I have not been aware of. A “presence” has developed that can be felt—sensed—constantly. I now find it impossible to look the other way. I’m going to just keep writing because I hope that someday by analyzing these events, maybe a pattern will appear that will point toward some answers: to someone who died here, or to someone we knew that can’t let go. Any explanation is better than none. Dad doesn’t want anyone else involved in this because he is afraid of what people will say, and that it might lower the property value. We don’t want a circus going on around here. He believes that everyone will think we’re crazy.]