This is a story my uncle related to me one summer when it became clear that certain members of our family seemed to have a sense for things paranormal. It is well-known that my late grandmother on my mother's side often had prophetic dreams and had encountered ghosts, not only at home in Ohio, but around the world on her vacations abroad, as well. She was certainly a very spiritual woman.
When I was seventeen, I was telling my uncle about the strange occurrences in my family's home in Columbus, Ohio. But this is his story. He believed (unlike many people) every word of it and told me he, too, had felt privy to things usually unseen. His story takes place in a very old farm house out in the countryside near West Lafayette, Indiana. My uncle bought the house in the late 1980s when the house was already well over 100 years old. It was supposedly built around, or slightly after, the Civil War. It was remodeled inside, but still retained many original designs and decorations. It was fairly large (as houses tended to be back then) and was big enough for his family of five.
The first thing that alerted him to something strange in the house was the door to the attic, which is at the top of the stairs going up from the first to second floor. On a few occasions, as he would walk up these stairs, he would watch the door knob start turning slowly as if someone was about to open it from the other side. The door knob would turn all the way, but the mechanism would not click and the door never did open. My uncle would always open the door himself (albeit begrudgingly and with baited breath) and find nothing on the other side.
But that's not even the weirdest thing about the place. Maybe this next bit has less to do with the house and more to do with our family. Then again, maybe something about the grounds was "charged" so to speak, with supernatural energy--we just don't have the necessary tools or language to adequately deal with the possibilities, yet.
At any rate, my uncle and aunt were in the midst of a divorce. Like most, it wasn't a pretty one. At this point, my male cousins were about 12 and 10 and my female cousin was only about 2. One night, my uncle awoke to a child crying in his room. He looked over, and there, standing in the open doorway to his room was his oldest son, "Q..." The door opened into my uncle's room and Q was standing with his back against the door facing my uncle, but his head was dropped so that his chin was on his chest. My uncle called out his name, but received no response from him. Q then slid down the door to the floor so that he was mostly squatting on the floor with his back against the door and head drooped and crying faintly.
My uncle got out of bed and approached his son trying to comfort him. As he neared the door, he reached down with his left hand to tussle the boy's head and see if he was alright. As my uncle's hand came to Q's head, his hand went right through it and his body simply dissipated into nothing. Without even pausing at the incredible thing that had just happened, my uncle, sensing this was OBVIOUSLY strange, bolted down the hallway to Q's room thinking it was a premonition of death or sickness. He flung open the door to Q's room only to find him sleeping soundly in his bed. My uncle checked on him and everything seemed normal.
My cousin never had any health problems or anything before or since. My uncle suspects it was a manifestation of his son's anguish over the divorce. Perhaps it was "all in his head," but being an internationally esteemed professor at a university, my uncle is highly cerebral and logical and not prone to flights of fancy. Then again, what else could account for such a mysterious engagement? This is not necessarily a ghost story, but it seems to be evidence of some emotional link between family members.
What say ye, kids?
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