Back again! This is not my story but one of my brothers' experiences. It has to be one of the strangest stories that stuck in my mind for years. I'm not revealing my brother's real name so we'll just call him G and my other brother E (both older than me so I wasn't even thought of when this happened).
It was the summer of 1965, every summer G and E would hitch from the North of Ireland (Ulster) to the Free State (The Republic of Ireland) to go and see aunts and relations that were residing in the South. This was before the Northern Irish Troubles started and, well, things were "peaceful" then.
Getting back to the story before I get into politics. G and E were hitching their way down to the South and would stop at different houses, ask for directions to so and so, maybe get a glass of Lemonade or maybe a sandwich. So, it was G's turn to ask for direction when they came to this long, windy driveway. E stayed at the bottom, sitting on the old stonewall while G walked up the driveway. Like I said, it was a warmish summer day, maybe a few clouds skirting the pale blue Irish sky, when he came to a farmhouse.
The farmhouse was your typical Irish farmhouse; painted white with faded blue windows sills, a thatched roof, a barn attached to the rear of the farmhouse (which, I should say was single storey) but the strangest thing was there were cats. Cats all different shapes and sizes and colours, all meowing. He couldn't believe it as he walked across the cobblestone courtyard. They were in their millions, rubbing themselves against him, purring, meowing as he pushed through the crowd (what else do you call a group of cats?) then he went up to the front door and knocked on it. No answer. He tried again, this time louder still no answer once more and still no bleedin' answer. The cats were all getting in closer by this stage, hanging off the roof, coming out of the barn, crossing the courtyard towards G. He walked to the big bay window and looked in and got the biggest damned frighten of his life. There, sitting in a circle were 13 cats all looking down in a hole. Then they all looked up at him and grinned (LOL like a Cheshire Cat). G screamed, kicked a few cats out of the way and ran screaming for E to come and have a look at this but E was already halfway down the road, screaming himself.
Afterwards, he came home and my late Granny (now, she got great ghost stories which I'm going to post up soon) called him into the kitchen. Somehow she got the wind of what happened and listened to his story. When he finished, she told him that that house was infamous. It was known as the Vanishing House of Windy Willows and it only appears every fifty years. How's that for a ghost story?
Postscript: He went back with a few mates a few weeks later and there were no sign of the house. So did I. I got the direction from him when I was there in 94 and went in search of this place. I couldn't find it... I would have go back in 2015, fifty years to the day, and see if the house re appears... Never know, eh?
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