Spirit Chronicles: Part 3

She really liked it here…

All my life, I’ve dreamed of living in an old Victorian home. There was always some kind of invisible pull to the history, architecture, and stories that revolved around a structure hundreds of years old. Driving by one of these grand dames, as I’ve been known to call them, left me peppered with questions: Who lived there? What were their lives like?

Once I finally got a chance to own one of these beauties, I jumped at it. The home we purchased came fully-loaded, stocked with all sorts of antiques, from knick-knacks to beds to other assorted furniture and paintings. After being there for a few months, I developed all new questions to occupy my mind, like…

What was the builder thinking when he made the servant stairs so steep? Why the hell are these ceilings so low? And don’t even get me started on the seating choices. I mean, did these people not eat? Teeny-tiny chairs with narrow seats that only fit the backside of people who disappear when standing sideways.

After living there for awhile, I was forced to face some hard truths…dog nails are brutal on pumpkin pine floors, and sitting in the dining room chairs would always feel like sitting in a kindergarten seat at a parent-teacher conference.

Still, I was living the dream! We had a huge wrap-around porch, a separate screened porch, even a workshop next to the garage. On the main floor was the master bedroom, two bathrooms, plus a sunroom, living room and parlor. Upstairs were four additional bedrooms and three baths.

No bathtub in the entire house though, which I found odd.

So we moved in (sort of…we still had one foot in NJ) and I began to make the house our own. I think the first encounter I had with something ‘weird’ was more of a creepy feeling rather than anything tangible. There was a bedroom on the second floor—in truth, the prettiest room in the house—that always felt off. The canopy bed in the room came with the house and was a gorgeous cherry wood, but very, very old. The canopy, bed spread, pillows, and curtains were all a blue floral print, so we called this the Blue Room (sometimes creativity is overrated!). We slept in that room for the first three months or so, until we could purchase and set up a bed in the master bedroom. I loved that room in the light of day. But at night….

Da da da daaaaa! (That’s supposed to be creepy music, if you didn’t get that.🎹😯)

So, remember in Spirit Chronicles Part Two where I told you about the little kid who whispered in my ear, looking for his bike? That was the room where he whispered to me. It was also the room where, after feeling a migraine coming, I laid down for awhile, fell asleep, and woke up three times repeating everything that had happened each time I woke up. It was just as if I were in some kind of time loop, like the movie Groundhog Day. Every time I “woke up” I would go to the door, trip over a bicycle, and nearly tumble down the steps. On the fourth time I ‘woke up’, it was daylight and only an hour after I’d fallen asleep. I sat up in bed (after slapping my face a few times cause it was just too weird) and that’s when I heard the little boy whispering in my ear.

‘I can’t find my bike.’

Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, it was all I could do not to scream.

I did search the garage and the attic for his bike, but never found it. He whispered to me again, one more time, before he finally made a ghostly appearance. This time was months later, when we were finally downstairs in the master bedroom. The ‘safe’ room.

In a pig’s eye, the safe room!

This time I was alone in the house. It was late and I was just getting into bed. Suddenly, I felt the hairs on my neck standing up and think I muttered “Oh crap” but in more colorful terms. Then, I heard the whisper.

‘She really liked it here.’

Don’t ask me how, but I knew he was talking about the old lady we bought the house from. She loved the place, was in the process of turning it into a B&B with her husband, when he died suddenly. Her family was in Florida and didn’t want her so far away so she put the house up for sale.

There were soooo many encounters over the few years we owned the place that I could write a book about it (haha). But below, I’ve listed a few of the highlights, with the circumstances surrounding it.

1) Circa 2017. I was home alone, battling what I would later find out was double pneumonia. I was coughing so hard, I literally coughed up blood. Gross. Anyway, during one particularly nasty bout of coughing, I saw a small figure peek out from behind the fireplace chimney several times. I knew right away, could feel right away, that my little friend was more concerned than curious. I sat up a little straighter and said softly (croaked if I’m being honest), “It’s ok, little man. I’m ok.” Once I said the words, the shadow boy peeked out once more and then disappeared for the rest of the night.

2) Appliances in the house were always wonky. Radio’s turned on and off, televisions seemed to turn channels by themselves (cartoon network was, apparently, their favorite channel), and then there was the incidence with the carbon monoxide detectors. The house was wired strangely—not unexpected for a house built in 1899—but the former owners also had some new wiring done. The gazillion smoke detectors in the home were all wired together, so if one sounded, they all did. The CO detectors were the plug in kind, with several placed on each floor.

One day, one of the CO detector upstairs started to go off. After checking around and moving a few others nearby (with no alarm sounding) we decided it was a battery issue and removed it from the wall. Once we did, one of the downstairs ones went off. Again, after checking, we chalked it up to dying batteries and replaced them on both units. Strange coincidence but it could happen. At the same time, on the same day.

Yeah.

We changed out the batteries and in a few minutes, both the up and downstairs ones began going off. Now, I know what you are saying…maybe there was carbon monoxide present. Trust me, that wasn’t it. For one, it was summertime. The only thing running hot was the electric meter as it powered the air conditioning and the baseboard radiators (that seemed to turn on by themselves, regardless of the season. Super.)

But wait! There’s more to the story. So, one of the kids goes upstairs to take the battery out and reposition it (seemed to work on the downstairs one.) She does and plugs it back into the wall. Half a second later, it flies out of the wall and hits the wall on the opposite side. Needless to say, we didn’t use those units anymore.

3) I chose this last one because it happened to a family member (who shall remain nameless) who is such a skeptic he didn’t believe any of the tales coming from visitors. These are some typical responses we would get to spooky experiences in the home:

‘It’s dead silent on the block but I keep hearing people talking.’

It’s probably the neighbors.

‘I swear, I just saw someone walk into the parlor. And we are the only ones here.’

Just your eyes playing tricks on you.

‘The TV went on again by itself. Again.’

Kooky wiring in this big house.

He finally became a believer when he had his own encounter with an unseen force while cleaning the Blue Room. He was alone in the house, vacuuming the window sills upstairs before putting in the air conditioning units. He finished with one window, turned off the vacuum, and walked to the next sill.

The vacuum turned on.

Thinking that he must have not ‘pushed the button right’, he turned it off again. Waiting a moment, he proceeded to the second window.

And the vacuum turned on again. And just like that, he became a believer.

There you have it. A small sample of the nutty stuff that went on in that house. There are a dozen more stories, each weirder than the next, and maybe I will tell you about them sometime.

Right now, I feel a need to check the radiators and CO detectors in this house.

Next time, we will continue investigating haunted buildings on Exploring the Unknown: One if by Land, Part Two.

Later, gators.