Several years ago my roommate (Claire) and I rented a small three bedroom, one bath old frame house in Austin, Texas. If memory serves correctly the house was built in 1936. It was one story with living room, dining room and kitchen basically on the left side, and my bedroom, the bathroom, and her bedroom on the right side with my son's bedroom across the back. I loved the little house. It was painted blue with white trim and had Chinaberry tree off a small front porch in a great old neighborhood.
Not long after moving in my son was at his father's house and Claire and I were in the living room watching Unsolved Mysteries. The story had something to do with a haunted house although I don't remember exactly what it was about. As we were watching, Claire said something along the lines of how scary it would be to live in a house with a ghost, and she had no sooner finished speaking when the door to my bedroom started to swing shut. It stopped about a foot from closing. She looked at me with huge eyes and I looked at her. I was standing close to the door when it happened so I just reached over and opened it back up. I moved it back and forth a few times, looked back at Claire and shrugged.
Now this was an old house built on pier and beam and the floors were no longer level. Could the door have swung nearly closed on its own? Of course. The curious thing about the incident was the timing and the fact that in the four years I lived in the house the door never moved again without a live person moving it.
Another night when my son was at his father's, my boyfriend and I were sitting on my bed talking when we heard what sounded like a big marble roll off Claire's dresser. It rolled across her bedroom and under her door, down the short hall between our rooms and under my door. The interior doors all had a good three inch clearance except the bathroom door so I got up and looked on my floor and there was nothing. Nothing at all. We very clearly heard the "marble" roll, drop, roll and stop about two feet into my room. I opened my door to the little hall. No marble. Claire wasn't home so I opened her door and looked on her bedroom floor. No marble. I couldn't find a marble anywhere. Not under my bed. Not outside the bathroom. Not under her bed. Thinking maybe what we heard actually was between the dining room and living room I looked there. No marble. I never could explain that. My boyfriend and I clearly heard something but there was nothing. Nothing at all.
In an aside, a few months after this happened we were talking to friend of his and I was recounting this experience. When I said we heard a marble fall and roll my boyfriend looked incredulously at me and said, "Marble? That was a bowling ball!" I don't know if it had really sounded like a bowling ball to him, or if in the weeks since it happened he had exaggerated what he'd actually heard. In any case, I heard a marble.
All in all though there really wasn't anything scary or particularly paranormal about the house. Maybe a few other little things happened but I could easily come up with reasonable explanations as to what was going on.
However, the experience I had that explains the title of this story was a very different kind of happening. It was New Year's day and I was bored. It was probably about 12:00 to 1:00 pm, middle of the day. I worked at a live music venue back then and was used to late nights but my boyfriend wasn't. He was taking a nap on the couch, Claire was out and again my son was with his father so I needed something to do. I had always wanted to explore the crawl space under the house and decided this was the perfect time.
There was a door in the siding at the back of the house that you accessed from the back yard. When you entered it there was enough room that you were able to easily stand up. The house was built on top of a small hill so as you moved from under the back of the house towards the front of the house the space grew shorter and shorter. In fact there was a small berm, for lack of a better term, that had been cut into in order to form a storage area just inside the door. I had a flashlight with me and I climbed over the berm and began exploring.
I started along the left hand side at the back and under my son's room. As I moved up the side of the house I came across various "treasures". Some old papers, well not too old really, just from the sixties. I found some hand made doll clothes. I remember finding several small old bottles. Nothing too spectacular. As I moved closer and closer to the front of the house I was forced to squat or sit with my legs out in front of me as I rooted around in the dirt. I came across an old coffee can. It was rusty and had no bottom or top. It was very distinctive though in the way that parts of it were completely rusted out. I don't remember what the brand was or if you could even still read any writing on it. I would push the can out of my way to my right but I kept running into it. All I was really doing was moving it into my path. After moving it for what seemed like the umpteenth time I grew frustrated threw it over my left shoulder to the front right corner of the house. I heard it hit the dirt and roll a bit. I didn't give it a second thought. I had also come across an old one by four board in the dirt that I was using to hold my found objects.
As I continued along and moved farther away from the board, I would have to really stretch out my left arm to reach it. I remember finding one of the glass bottles and without thinking I stretched out, set the bottle down and straightened back up but something didn't seem right. I realized I didn't have to stretch quite so far that time. I moved my flashlight beam to the one by four and the end closest to me was now lifted off the dirt and sitting on top of the old rusted coffee can that I had thrown to the far corner of the house. I immediately froze. I stared at the coffee can and the board and my treasures. I sat immobilized for a time as the shock of what I was seeing settled in. My first thought was that whatever, or whoever, propped the one by four up on the coffee can was trying to be helpful. It was easier for me to reach now. My second thought, however, was that it was trying to creep me out. If that was the case then it succeeded.
Not knowing what to do or how to act I thanked it and calmly, or as calmly as I was able to, made by way back to the berm and out the door into the back yard. I ran up to the side door and tore through the house to wake my boyfriend up. I got another flashlight and took him under the house to the one by four and the coffee can. I showed him everything and neither one of us could ever come up with a non-paranormal reason for what had occurred.
I moved away from the house when my landlord put it on the market. I was never uncomfortable inside the house and if I would have had the money I probably would have bought it. However, I felt very differently about the crawl space. I never did go back under the house and I left all my "treasures" sitting right on top of that one by four right on top of that coffee can. I wouldn't be surprised if they are still sitting right where I left them.
Jane
Loading comments....
