Posted By McGuire, Jennifer
Once upon a time,a really lovely family accidentally moved into a haunted house.
No one knew for sure how long this house had been haunted or why it was haunted or how to make it just slightly less haunted. But haunted it was.
There were little hints in the beginning, little gusts of air that blew for apparently no reason. A flickering of the hallway light during different times of the day.
The poor, beleaguered mother wasn't concerned at first. She had wanted this house quite badly even though everyone who was anyone knew it was well beyond her means. So her dreams and thoughts were of curtains, matching towels, a garden (because she knew how to garden, despite what everyone will tell you. She just chooses not to). The children, finally free of the tyranny of shared bedrooms, were a little slow on the uptake as well - seduced by a big backyard, a shorter walk to school, the possibility of a new basketball net.
Until one night, not long before midnight, it started. The long creaking on the stairwell when no one was there. Footsteps, constant footsteps, at all hours of the night.
"It's just the stupid dog," the fair mother told herself. "Lily, go lie down, for Pete's sake!" And then forced herself to go back to sleep (looking incredibly adorable in her new pyjamas and really young too. Great skin). But one can only fool oneself for so long, naturally. Too many signs and not enough animals to blame. Flicking lights on and off at all hours of day and night. Turning the channels of the television in plain view of everyone mid-day as well as turning it on at full volume while the lovely family slept. Footsteps down the stairs, up the stairs, in the basement, on the third floor.
Well, this mother thought it all good fun in the beginning. An excellent dinner party story, if she were the type to ever throw dinner parties, because everyone, even smart scientific-like people, love ghost stories. So she would weave interesting stories about murder, suicide, really any sort of tragic death conjure up the spirits for her guests as though she were some sort of Shaman.
Speculate what kept spirits on and laugh as the speculations got wilder and wilder. But then, the middle of the night would come along. The guests gone back to their spirit-free homes. And something, some cold, unpleasant breeze, would flick off her bedside lamp just as she was getting to the juiciest part of her book. Served her right for showing off, really.
The children noticed, obviously. Her second eldest son in particular, seeing as how his room seemed to be the most densely haunted in the house. They stopped sleeping in their beds, the entire family now on her bed.
She tried to coax them back into their rooms, tried to convince them that this wasn't something that would hurt them. In fact, it could very well be a little boy ghost, could it not? Like them, just dead. And we mustn't exclude now, must we? Apparently, this was not considered a viable option.
The mother discovered to her dismay that child ghosts are, in fact, considered by and large the scariest and most threatening of ghosts. "Don't you remember "The Shining'?" her eldest son asked her, looking sleep-ravaged and wild-eyed despite being just 12. "Don't you remember those creepy twins?"
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/Articl ... x?e=937492
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