Until about three years ago, my family and I lived on an old plantation in Virginia. It was huge, 250 acres, and there were still buildings standing from 100 years previous, when the plantation had been active. Our landlord lived in the old 'Big house' that was huge. My family and I lived in a house further down the lane that had been added to the property when it had become a small town.
Even though the house was old, I myself never saw anything in it. The grounds, however, is a different story. The first occurrence happened one night after dinner.
My sister and I were instructed to dump the scraps outside and then do the dinner dishes, same as every evening. Usually, we dumped the scraps outside before the sun finished setting. That night, we were running behind and only got outside to dump the scraps after the sun had set and everything was black as pitch. Living in the major country prevented there from being any light other than the light spilling from the porch. My sister and I took the bowl to the weeds across the yard and started scraping everything out of it. We were halfway done when we started hearing voices. It sounded like two men and a woman talking in low, angry voices. We were too far away from the house to be hearing anything from inside, so we were freaked. We hurriedly dumped the rest, the voices becoming increasingly louder and more angrier. We turned back to the house then, starting at a brisk walk. For some reason though, we broke into a run and sprinted for the porch. Halfway across the yard, we both looked behind us and there in the weeds we had been standing not three feet from, was a pair of blood red, glowing eyes. We both screamed and ran faster into the house. When we got inside, my mom wanted to know what the problem was and when we told her, she waved it off, saying it was just a trick of the light.
A short while later, I was outside by myself, facing the house as I watched my sisters play on the porch. I was in the yard grabbing our shoes from beside the trampoline, and when I stood and looked to the right of the house, way behind it to the cow pasture, I saw a figure. It was of a soldier in Civil War gear. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking out across the pasture with an air of pride, like he was looking over his troops. It didn't scare me at the time. I didn't really pay attention to it. When I realized what I had just seen, I looked at up at the spot where he was, but he was gone.
Not long after that, two of my cousins were staying with us and they were down in the woods by our house picking blackberries. They said that they heard something and looked up the trail, expecting my sisters, or me anything except what they saw. What they saw was amazing. It was two slaves and a slave driver on a horse. All of them were wearing white, and they said it was like the three were in a bubble. Inside the bubble, everything looked different. The ground under their feet was worn bare where in reality, it was overgrown with grass. They said the slave driver and two slaves continued down the trail, across the creek, and then disappeared. Needless to say, my cousins booked it to the house and didn't go back by themselves.
Another time, we were walking down the quarter mile lane, home from the bus stop. At this time I should mention that the former owner of the plantation had died in his home and it was rumoured that he was buried on the property somewhere, probably in his beloved Boxwood Gardens, a grove of boxwood trees in the middle of an open field. Anyway, One of my sisters looked into the field to the left and gasped, "Oh my god. What is that?" We all looked in time to see a tall man with black hair and a black beard, dressed in a pair off overalls or something like that, duck into the gardens. We got brave and walked through the field to investigate, but he was nowhere to be found, and there were no footprints in the dirt around the gardens, like there would have been if anyone had been there. The man became a regular sight as we walked home. Also, my sister saw a woman with blonde hair and a long, white nightgown walk across the yard of the big house and walk into the field, but as she opened the gate, she vanished.
The last occurrence happened when one of my cousins graduated and a bunch of my family came down to stay with us for his graduation. My cousins (different than the ones before) and their parents were sleeping in my sisters room and my oldest cousin said that she felt someone watching her. She said she looked up at the window across from the bed, and saw a slave sitting in the open window. She said his face was all shadow, but he was wearing a dirty white woollen shirt and dark trousers and his feet were bare. He was sitting with one knee drawn up and the other resting on the floor, just staring at her. She said she was too scared to talk, so she just squeezed her eyes shut and put the covers over her head. When she told me what happened in the morning, both her sister and her father said they had seen the same thing.
I think whatever occupied the house and the grounds didn't mind us, but were happy when we left, because the day we were moving out, my dad was standing on the porch facing the U-Haul, and he felt someone push him in the middle of the back. Not a big push, but enough to startle him.
I don't know what really happened in that house, but apparently, our landlord's house was haunted as well, although I never saw anything. Please let me know what you think.
Loading comments....
