Hooded Lady

I don't remember when exactly this happened. I must have been about 6 or 7. My older brother and I were home alone and watching TV in the dark. I got an uncomfortable feeling and kept seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. It was to the left where the entrance to our formal sitting room used to be. After a while I started making out a shape in the darkness. It had no colour; the air was just somehow thicker there. The figure was hooded, though it was so indistinct I have no idea how I knew. I could also tell that it was female. It kept walking around, stopping every now and then to look at my brother and me. I didn't feel scared but I was oddly paralysed.

When the figure didn't go away, I finally said to my brother "there's a hooded lady in the sitting room". Of course he didn't believe me and promptly made a joke out of it. When he turned on the lights, the spell was broken.

I never understood why, but my account of the hooded lady made my parents very uneasy. Years later my mom finally told me why. They left my brother and me at home that night to go visit my aunt. She had cancer and has been hospitalized for a while. The night I saw the hooded lady was the night my aunt died.