I have been interested and involved in the occult for many years. In the beginning, I read many books on the subject and after I felt confident in what I was learning I began putting some of it into practice. As a part of this path I was introduced to the concept of intuition and specifically the use of Tarot cards to access it when I was fifteen years old. I began studying and using the cards on a regular basis for guidance in my own life. After I built up enough experience I began to branch out and read for friends and family and, in some cases, complete strangers. In my early twenties I got an invitation through a close friend of mine to read at the home of someone he knew. The house was in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, fifteen minutes north of downtown Pittsburgh. Sewickley is known for its old homes. Many of them are very large and have ties to well-known names in the early history of southwestern Pennsylvania. My friend accompanied me to the reading.
When we arrived at the house that night we were shown up to the attic. The girl I was reading for explained that she thought it the perfect place for a Tarot card reading. Indeed, it was very dark and old and, with the candles that she had set up to add atmosphere, the ambiance was mysterious. Additionally, the attic was large and had many rooms. The one that had been chosen for our purposes appeared to have been a guest room of sorts at one time, but because there was no electricity in the attic it was no longer used for this purpose.
After the reading was over we sat and talked for a few minutes before our host excused herself to take a phone call downstairs. Left alone, my friend and I both took up candles and decided to take a tour of the attic. We walked from room to room until we arrived at one which housed board games, dolls, and other odds and ends. As we walked in it felt to me as if we were walking in on two people fighting. The tension in the room was thick and uncomfortable. To this day I don't know that my friend felt this, but it was overwhelming for me. I was ill-at-ease when we walked into the room, and I said immediately, "There's a lot of negative energy in here. Let's go into one of the other rooms." As soon as I said that, as if someone had licked their fingers and snuffed out the candle, the flame in front of me disappeared and blue smoke twirled up from the extinguished wick. My friend's candle remained lit. After a moment, I looked at him. "I think that's a sign," I said, whoever or whatever was in there with us wanted us to leave.
We returned to the room where I had performed the reading and started to talk about what happened. Of course, the house is very old. It is possible that a draft could have blown the candle out. Yet the flame hadn't wavered at all. It wasn't like someone blowing out a birthday candle. Rather, it truly reminded me of someone snuffing the candle out with their fingers.
When our host returned we told her what happened and she had no trouble believing it. According to her, the house was nearly two hundred years old. The original owner had been a very stern man with specific rules concerning his household staff. One of these rules was that they were not to leave the property for any reason. They were there to serve him and that was all. As a result, depression was high amongst the serving staff who resided in what was now the attic, though it was particularly high in at least one case. Our host explained that, though she couldn't verify the story, there was talk of a young girl who had become so depressed working for the family that she went to her room one day and hung herself. No one knew which room the girl had expired in, but it certainly put me on edge.
There were no windows in the room we had been standing in and I was the one who had both felt the negative energy and whose candle, inexplicably, went out. I realized I might have been reading more into it than I should have, but it was a very interesting turn of events. Had I been on edge already because of the atmosphere of the house? Was I just imagining things? Or had the ghost of this young girl, or some other spirit, silenced me by snuffing out my candle?
I've been back to the house only a few times since, and in that time I've never been back up to the attic. I decided long ago that if there is someone else up there, it's best to let her exist in that dark place without interfering. But I do wonder at times if that was her trying to reach out from the beyond, and if I simply misunderstood her meaning. Maybe she was only looking for a friend, another warm soul, and perhaps she was attempting to show her presence that night. The answers to those questions I will obviously never truly know, but I will always remember her, whoever she is.
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