When I was twelve years old my family and I moved into an old house in the town of Conception Bay, Newfoundland (I won't give the exact address as we no longer live there). It was to be our home for the next ten years and for the most part, we were very happy there. However, very soon after we moved in it became clear that the old inhabitants were not all gone.
The house had been the home of a particular family for generations; we were the first 'outsiders' to ever own it. Over the years the house had served as a general store (the foundations of which were still on our lawn), a nursing home and had even been moved a kilometer! Needless to say, it had lots of character. A friend of mine was related to the original owners and the week we moved in she asked me casually..."so, has anything happened?" I didn't know what she meant by that but soon would.
Immediately upon moving in we all felt as though we were not alone in the house, though we did not tell one another this until years later. I would not describe the feeling as fear, just caution. I always felt that if I looked behind me or opened my eyes in bed at night someone would be looking back at me.
About a month after we moved in I saw the first ghost. My older sister and I were the only people in the house, she on the top floor and me downstairs. I was walking into the living room with a snack in my hands when I glanced upstairs. The sunlight from the hall window was shining down and I saw the silhouette of what I believed to be my sister, holding the railing and looking down at me. But as soon as I looked up, she ran away.
I rolled my eyes at her childish behavior and put my food in the living room, then went upstairs. I found her in her bedroom watching TV, which was odd because that was pretty far from where I'd thought I saw her - she would have had to run to get there and then pretend to be relaxing on her bed...she was 17 years old so this was not likely. Nonetheless, I asked "what was the point of that?" She met me with a blank stare. When I told her what I saw the color drained from her face and she told me it was not her.
After that we all became more aware of the others in the house. I would often talk out loud to them. I didn't feel that they were malicious, but made it clear that I didn't want to see them anymore. But in the years that followed many little incidents took place. While I was home alone one summer day a large painting fell from the living room wall, it had been very secure and could not have just fallen on its own. My friends would often sleep over and ask me who was walking around upstairs. I would just say it was the house creaking, but I knew better. And my mother and I would frequently see small balls of light floating by, especially in the kitchen and family room. The dog would also seem to see these, or other things that we did not (she would wake suddenly and stare at seemingly nothing).
But the most major 'events' occurred in our last year living at the house. One night I was asleep when I woke up to my mother's blood curdling screams. My sister and I (my parents had divorced by then, so only three of us were in the house) went running to our mother's room, not knowing what we'd find. Mom was sitting up in bed, looking petrified. When we asked her what had happened she just said it was a bad dream.
She later told us, after we had left the house, what really happened. She had suddenly woken up and knew someone was in her room. She immediately saw an old woman sitting in a chair a few feet from her bed. At first she thought it was the ghost of her own mother, but as her eyes focused she did not know the face. The woman stared at her unflinchingly and then disappeared. That was when mom screamed. This would happen at least once more in the months to follow.
The final event is one I am beyond thankful for. Within that last year my mother suffered from several small strokes. One of them came when she was in the kitchen. She lost feeling in her legs and sunk to her knees. She continued to lose feeling and was about to fall on her face onto the floor when she felt someone grab her by the shoulders and lay her on her side. She swears this was our cohabitants, taking care of her.
I hope that everyone believes what I have written here because believe me, it is all true. I didn't realize how much spiritual activity took place in our house until we moved out. I immediately felt the change in atmosphere in our new home, for the first time in ten years I actually felt alone!
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