Levi

I give this spirit a name because we maintain it's Levi. A few things had happened. The basement door opened... The smell of a man's cologne... The sight of a man out of the corner of your eye... Lights flickering...

One day I turned my head and watched a man in a tweed jacket walk into the spare bedroom. Moments later, I smelled cologne. Levi was a man that had worked for my step-grandparents until he passed away. We think it's him because as my step-father was explaining what my mom and I were seeing, his mother said, "I bet it's Levi..." It was like she knew in her heart it had to be him.

Levi had always been very peaceful -he'd just stand at the junction of the basement door and the hallway, and he'd watch you cook dinner, or do dishes. He had never given off a threatening vibe, so we didn't mind. If we'd sense him, we'd say, "Hi Levi..." He'd stay a little longer, then disappear.

One day, my mom and I were in the basement, and one of the lights started flickering. Hmm, maybe the bulb is loose. It wasn't. And there had never been a history of bad wiring. Some of the others flickered once in a while, but it was mostly just the one. My step-grandmother had been telling us a little about him, and one of the things said was that he loved Christmas. It was his absolute favorite holiday.

Ironically, on that day, we made a connection. The light that almost always flickered was the one above the Christmas decorations. One day, my mom and I both sensed that Levi wasn't quite happy. We went about our business. I was in the kitchen, and my mom was in the basement, ironing her clothes for work. I heard her talking, so I knew she was acknowledging Levi. A few minutes later I heard a ping, and then glass hit.

She came flying up out of the basement, frazzled. The light over the decorations had started flickering, so she said hello to him. The light went dim, almost completely out. Then came back on, slowly, up to full force, then brighter. She told him to stop, he was scaring her a little. It dimmed again, then got bright, then dimmed, and she again told him to stop. More forcefully this time. As she did, the light bulb went completely bright, and the bulb bust.

That was at the point she took off up the stairs. She told me what happened and then said, "Levi, I've never minded you being here, but you can't be mean. Don't you ever do that again. You scared me..." We were both hit with a whiff of cologne, then it dissipated.

A few days later, we hadn't seen anything out of him, so I figured my mom made him mad and he left. Who knew? But I was down in the basement doing laundry, and saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was like... a cloud of dust almost, and it drifted straight across, coming towards me. I saw it, and started for the stairs. It went through the sunlight coming in through the basement window, and as it did, the cloud rearranged itself and formed a face. I turned my head from it as it moved faster, and ended up walking right through it. I ran up the stairs and glanced back, and the cloud was dissipating... But didn't drift to the floor... It kind of just... Disappeared.

We haven't seen anything out of Levi for quite a while now. But every once in a blue moon you'll catch him out of the corner of your eye.