Spirits On The Hill

When I was eleven my family and I moved from my birthplace of Redding, CA, to a small town in Western Oregon. My parents found a big parcel of land - about twenty acres on a hill overlooking wineries and mountain ranges - and immediately started to build their dream home as they put it. It took about eight months to build and once it was completed, we were so happy to move in. The attic door was in the ceiling of my bedroom... One of those doors that you had to open from the bottom and push up, and I remember thinking "oh, this is nice... Maybe they'll (mom and dad) let me put a staircase up there and it can become a library or something."

Everything was completely normal for the first five years we lived there; my brother and I were enrolled in local schools, we made friends and even eventually settled into a way of life. The house on the hill seemed like the perfect spot to grow up because we had a tree house in an old oak towards the bottom of the property line; we owned sheep and cats and lived on a fairly private road away from the public eye. My mom worked from home and my dad had a successful fencing company in town. So, like I said, everything was perfect for a while.

I was never a bad kid - I always obeyed my parents, didn't fight much with my brother, and got fairly good grades in school. Overall, I didn't ever feel like I was a real teenager, because I never acted out or behaved the way other kids in my classes did. Mom always said that I was born middle-aged and got more mature every year. Well, despite this, I remember that for the span of half a year, don't remember exactly what grade I was in, I would cry at night and tell my parents I couldn't sleep because I felt like someone was watching me, or that there was something in the attic making noise. My parents would scold me, shut my door, shut their door, or turn on their bathroom fan so they didn't have to hear me call out to them. They thought I was being irrational. Eventually, I snapped out of this phase, but not before the whole shift of my life changed.

After that incident, I started to notice things around the house - pillows would be moved, my name would be called out a lot, and not by my family, even while I was with them, and my room was constantly cold, no matter what I did. One night after we had all gone to bed, I suddenly bolted straight up in bed because I distinctly heard voices close by my bed. They were speaking rapidly and, it seemed, in a different language. What I could make out were the sounds of a man, woman and child. I knew for a fact that my parents and brother shut their doors at night, so I got up and checked and sure enough, they were all soundly asleep. By now I was completely freaked out beyond words, so I ran back to my room and hid under my covers. I even told them "please go away, leave me alone", but they didn't, but just kept talking to me... Or aloud... Or whatever they were doing. Somehow I managed to fall asleep and in the morning, it had stopped. I didn't tell my parents for a while, because I knew what they would say and think, and I couldn't deal with that rejection. I know what I heard.

Nights were now extremely touchy for me, because I would go to sleep and hear things in the attic, and I KNOW it wasn't mice sounds, because it sounded like footsteps. My room would become cold seemingly while I lay in bed, and shadows moved out of the corner of my eye. I felt trapped. If I was the last one awake, I would make sure that my bedroom light was on before shutting off the rest of the lights in the house, and then I would RUN to my bedroom, hop into bed, and then burrow down deep. My parents, I knew, were worried, even if they didn't say anything at the time. I even convinced myself for a while there that I was schizophrenic, but I didn't have any other symptoms except this irrational fear of my home. Even during the day, I would feel a presence and not know how to deal with it.

By the time I saw the full body apparition, things had calmed down somewhat, and I had a nightly routine. I was getting milk for the cats during the day, and as I took the milk to the cats, put the carton back in the fridge and was in the process of shutting the fridge door, I happened to see a figure out of the corner of my eye standing in the doorway to my parents' room. He had his hands in his pockets, was dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt, and had close-cropped black hair. I was so preoccupied with the cats that I just thought it was my dad. I went into the room, said "hey dad, are you in here?" And right at that moment, my dad passed on the landing upstairs. I started to hyperventilate and I kept thinking not again, not again... Both my mom and him were working upstairs, and my brother was at golf practice, so I was the only one on the first level. Well, I'll tell you what I bolted upstairs that instant and spent the rest of the day around my parents.

My neighbours eventually found a diary in their barn that described Indian attacks exactly where our house was, at the top of the hill. Does that describe the things I've seen and heard there? Maybe, maybe not. As I was getting closer to my high-school graduation in 2006, the activity escalated again. It was now a daily thing to hear something, or feel something, either while someone was home with me, or when I was home alone. I think the only time my brother really believed me about the ghosts was when he got up in the middle of the night, looked through my bedroom (because I always keep the door open), saw the porch swing in front of the house swaying, turned on the bathroom light and the swing stopped completely. He told me about this later, and I'm glad he didn't tell me about it at the time, otherwise I would've freaked.

When I would come home to visit my parents during the first couple of years at OSU, I would still follow my nightly routine, but now it felt stupid. I still had experiences there, and I still felt targeted. I do believe that energy can attach itself to a particular person and for me, it was completely scary. One time when my parents were away on a trip and my brother was by himself at the house, I offered to come up and check on him one afternoon/evening. He left that night to go to a basketball game, so I was alone. I was reading a book on the couch and just vegging when I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I immediately felt creeped out beyond words. It literally felt like this bundle of negative energy was flying at me. After a while, I couldn't stand it anymore and I left to go to my neighbour's house until my brother returned. Luckily, my neighbour was this sweet lady who had always felt like a grandma. She calmed me down and I was able to go back home.

My parents eventually put that house up for sale and one of the last nights I was there, I just casually said "look, we're moving tomorrow and we're never coming back. The people who bought this house have kids, so bond with them instead." At that moment, I swear I heard a kitchen cabinet slam. The weird part was, my dad later told me that he had heard the same thing that night and now, for some reason, he believed me after all those years. My mom didn't change her stance, but I now had an ally. He said that as they were moving, too many weird things happened for him to question me about it.

Even though I now live in an apartment with my boyfriend and dog, I still feel like something is here with me... Especially when I'm here alone. I constantly feel uncomfortable and edgy. And my sweet dog Winnie reacts to things here. We have the attic door (an actual door) in our bedroom, so that room is always cold. We keep it shut, but now and then I'll look at the bedroom door and swear I see a shadow pass under. I haven't told Todd, but I know he doesn't believe me, either. I guess it'll just always be a part of my life. My parents are building a house right now, so maybe the ghosts will move in with them.