Ghost Hunting...
Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2006 9:15 am
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It started when she was a baby, about ten months old. I was rocking her to sleep one night and her little blue eyes fixated on the blank wall above my head. I asked her what she was looking at and she said "baby." She kept repeating"baby... baby..." And smiling. Soon after that, I began to hear her whispering to herself when I passed her room. If I went in she would immediately stop talking.

Then one night, about six months later, she was laying in bed with me and she looked up at the ceiling and said "There is a little boy up there..."

She began talking about a little boy more and more often. And to top it all off, my friend Suzie lived upstairs and her daughter was talking about a little boy too! She said that she would catch her daughter talking to the 'little boy' from time to time.

***I should mention that we lived in a reconverted mill that had been built in 1812, so it sort of makes sense that the kids were seeing little kid ghosties, since factories employed children back then!

After that, we moved to another apartment, next door to Mich. One night, after I put Hannah to sleep, I heard her giggling. I yelled at her, and told her to get to sleep. She said "I can't Momma, the ghost is tickling my feet..." This became her favorite excuse for not going to bed. She was two at the time.

I thought she was telling tales, until one night when Mich and I were sitting on the roof talking with Hannah.

The subject turned to ghosts, and Mich told me a story about an experience she had in her apartment. Her boyfriend was laying down taking a nap, and Mich grabbed his foot as she walked past, waking him up.

He jumped and yelled "Why did you do that?"

And Mich came out of the kitchen, where she had been making dinner for the past half hour.

That was the first of many encounters Mich had with the ghost, and many involved feet.

(Also, she worked in the shop downstairs from us, and sometimes she would see shapes zoom by on the video camera they had.) After she related her story, I remembered Hannah's bedtime excuse. I told Mich about it and we decided to ask her what the ghost's name was.

She said "Louis" right away. We don't know anyone named Louis, so its highly unlikely that she would know that name, and seeing as she was only two, it was kind of surprising.

The biggest surprise though, was Mich's reaction to that name... See that was the name of the old landlord!

I wonder if he had a foot fetish?

Mich hasn't heard or felt hide nor hair of Louis since we moved out. Most of the places we've lived have had a presence... Mich thinks its just Louis, tagging along wherever we go...

In the first apartment James and I had together, I had a little moment of my own. I was in the living room one night with the door shut, watching a movie after Hannah had gone to bed. James was at work, and the couple we shared our apartment with weren't home.

I heard the kitchen door open and what I assumed was JT came in, stomping across the kitchen in his boots. He clomped right up to the living room door, and I could hear him breathing on the other side. (Jt was a heavy walker and a heavy breather)

I called out to him, and asked if he wanted to come in and watch tv with me.

Silence.

Weird...

A few minutes later, JT and Leah came home...

There hadn't been anyone at the door at all.

The next place we lived, Hannah had an imaginary friend. Named Tiko. I went in one night to check on her, and she was still awake and talking to herself.

"Hannah, who are you talking to?"

"I made a new imaginary friend, Momma."

(Now, she has one named Peaches, who has been around for about two years. So this is nothng new)

"Oh really, what's his name?"

"His name is Tiko and he is two years old."

"Tiko huh?" I thought that was kind of a weird name. "What does Tiko look like?" Peaches has purple skin and pink hair, so I was expecting something along those lines.

"He has black hair and his skin is a little darker than mine."

Hmm...

"Is he from around here?"

"He is going to sleep in my bed tonight."

"Well, that's nice."

That place was THICK with spirits. It was out in the woods, and late, late at night you could sometimes hear drums, or so our friends told us... I was skeptical, until 3 o'clock one morning, I woke up and heard beating drums...

Very faintly. I thought at first it was my heart, but then it stopped... And started again. I woke up James and he heard it too...

Another night we heard a huge CRASH!!! Like the china hutch had fallen over. It sounded like glass had smashed everywhere... We jumped up and ran out of our room, and everything was peaceful and quiet... Nothing had fallen.

I used to hate being alone there... I always felt like I was being watched. It was such an unsettling place, that house.

When we moved up to Maine last summer, we were staying in a HUGE house. It had sixteen rooms, and ten foot high ceilings, all spread over three floors. It was an old manor house, call North Hall.

In that house, there was a cold spot on the stairs. Which was really weird, because there was a giant radiator right against the staircase, and heat rises... But even in the middle of the summer, there was a cold spot.

Twice Hannah saw ghosts on those stairs. She also says she saw the head of an old man in the bathroom sink. I never saw anything there. But I heard things. Every night that James was at work late, I would lay in bed and listen to the attic creak. It creaked in a very specific way. It sounded as if someone was walking back and forth in the room above me, right over my bed. Back and forth, back and forth. And it would always stop right when he got home.

But I never SAW anything... The closest I came to seeing anything, James was again at work. The kids were asleep upstairs. The living room door was shut tight, and I could see little shadows running back and forth, blocking out the light that came under the door as it ran past. I thought it was the dog, but she was laying on the floor beside my feet.

Back and forth, and I was getting kind of scared, and then James came home and it went away.

Creepy, huh?

Artwork © Jessica Galbreth