Looking For Attention

When I was younger I lived on Portland in Dorset (England), Portland is a pretty supernatural place and many things have happened there.

This story is about one of the spirits I met whilst living there. When I was about 14 we got a horse and kept him at a stables on the Island, these stables were near some old abandoned windmills (In the UK buildings over a certain age can't be taken down because of their historical importance). The windmills are believed to be medieval and are surrounded by fields, but are not too far from the village. Anyway we got our horse in the summer so at first there was no reason for me to be at the stables in the dark but come winter it was usually dark around 4.30pm so by the time I got there after I had finished after school clubs it was dark.

I was filling up a hay net and suddenly I felt as though someone was watching me. My mum is particularly susceptible to paranormal things and I seem to have inherited this, I could tell by the feeling I got that this was a teenage boy about 13 years old. I couldn't see him, I just feel him and it felt like he was staring at me intently. Although he didn't scare me as such I quickly left, went back to my stable, finished what I needed to do and headed down the track to wait for my mum to pick me up.

The following days his presence was there whenever I filled up my hay nets, but every day he would get closer. By the weekend I could still feel his presence even in the day. I started to see him out of the corner of my eye, he was tall and thin with dark hair, he had a white shift shirt and brown trousers with no shoes. All the time he was becoming more and more visible to me. I started to get worried, and as I said, he didn't feel malevolent he was becoming intrusive, which was something I was not used to.

I hadn't yet mentioned anything to my mum as I didn't like discussing supernatural things so much as when I was younger I found them unsettling. Anyway one evening when I was getting in the car my mum asked if anyone else was at the stables that evening, I explained that I was the last one left, she went on to ask if that was true. I looked at her a bit sheepishly as if I had been accused of be untruthful (which I guess was the case) I explained that I was the only person there but that I felt as if something else was on the yard with me.

My mum went on to say that she knew about the boy and explained her experience with him, she believed he was from about the 1500's and that he had visited the yard before but no one had ever noticed him. She went on to explain that because I could sense him his presence became stronger and stronger. A couple of nights before she had looked after my horse for me, she said she had felt him follow her down to her car, she knew he was behind her but wasn't bothered. However, when she sat in her car and switched the engine she looked out of the window, he was leaning over looking directly at her through the car window. It made her jump and she left straight away.

She went on to say that she had noticed him follow me down the track to the car but he had stopped half way. I got really scared then but my mum told me to tell him that I was glad he was excited to have someone notice him but that I found it a bit scary. The next time I saw him I said what my mum had told me to say and since then I only ever felt him watch me from a distance.