Once Again....

Time passes quickly and life changes at an unimaginable rate. We often unknowingly come full circle with no intention of doing so. Today someone reminded me of a story I told them once.... and I remembered how I had once felt the need to share those stories... So I intend to continue. It will be slow, but there is so much and I have experienced so many things. It's time to tell those tales again. So give me a moment, maybe a few... and I promise to continue.........

Oh, the sounds.........

Continued........


It was strange the way it started....sounds that made no sense began to invade my adolescent life. I knew I wasn't crazy, but had to remember that I knew it. I heard noises where there could be none. Home alone the creaks and slams were disturbing. We lived in a trailer, a mobile home, and it was very small. I heard doors slam when clearly none had, I heard floorboards creak when there weren't any. The wind would moan around the 'house' as if trying to get inside, yet it was still and calm outside. My memories of that time of my life are vivid and colorful. The lady, the apparition, maybe she was in control of this.

Our little piece of the world set into a small valley where a stream ran across the very front edge of our yard and a steep bank rose protectively behind us. The grass in my memory is a brilliant green and the stream a sparkling blue. It was a beautiful place and at my young age I didn't even know that it wasn't a 'house'. It had been such an adventure moving there, and I was excited to be bumped quickly into the grown up sort of duties I inherited that year. Taking care of my little sister, making dinner when I needed to...it was all so exciting that I didn't have a chance to miss the father that wasn't there any longer or the mother who now worked so much we hardly saw her. My childhood was dissappearing at a remarkable speed and I was too naive to realize what was being left behind and the struggle that it took my wonderful mom to hold it all together. I was that shameful age when innocence is disappearing and ignorance is lingering. I think somehow the figure in the corner had known how vulnerable I was all along.. Perhaps it was more than a silly game that had brought her into my life. With her had come a view into a place had not been able to imagine, and yet it would haunt me for the rest of my life.

One morning, my flannel nightgown tangling about my ankles as I tried to get my sister ready for school, I learned a quick lesson about not listening to what the world tried to tell me. Our little dog needed to go out on the chain, and I was trying to get myself ready for another day. Mom was at the other end of the trailer, hurriedly trying to get ready for work. I was trying to do everything so that she could take care of herself, it kept her calmer to have less to deal with, it was amazing how young I was when I realized that. I digress. The trash can was on the kitchen floor against the wall between the counter and the table, directly below the window that faced out to the road. I was tossing something out when I knocked over the trash, and as I picked it up the power outlet that was only inches above the rim of the trashcan began to hiss and spark. Blue flames shot out at me and my tangled nightgown singed and caught fire. With a yelp of terror I quickly blotted out the little fire...tossed a bowl of dish water into the trash just to be sure it wasn't about to burst into flames, and turned to tell my sister to hurry up or we'd miss the bus. She was laughing at me, having missed the flames and only seen me throwing away water. Coming from the bedroom adjusting her hairdo my mom asked what the commotion was about and laughed at me when I explained. She didn't believe me. The brown singed front of my nightgown didn't seem to phase her, and my terror only proved in her eyes I was still a little girl. She was pressured to leave the house and had no idea what emotions were swarming around inside of me, what terror lurked just beneath the surface of my being. She had no idea that I, her eldest daughter, was being haunted.

Crying, I ran to my room, pulling off my nightgown and throwing it onto the bed. The singed area burst into flames that flicked menacingly at me and then instantly disappeared. A wind rushed about my head and tears clouded my eyes. Somewhere someone was trying to tell me something, this much was clear. If 'something' was trying to frighten me it was very successful. Even so, I was too young to understand. I wonder now if it wasn't the apparition itself putting me in my place or perhaps some other force at work warning me of what was yet to come.

It was at about that same point in time that my dreams became very vivid, overwhelming even. I had days when dreams and reality mixed with such precision that I couldn't begin to tell them apart. I was laughed at when I said something in school that was so far from reality that it seemed I was crazy insane to my friends. There was the day I ran up to a girl that I hardly had spoken to before and started rambling on at her like we were best friends. Before I was done talking I found myself asking to see the pictures we had taken at a concert. A concert that had never taken place... I was laughed at, and cried that night, praying that 'she' wasn't watching me. Deep in my soul I knew that someone, something, was controlling my dreams, invading me when I was helpless... and my terror grew....

In My Bedroom...

continued.... Chapter two

I was but thirteen or fourteen years old and my mother had very specific rules. One of which was bed time. So I had been asleep for several hours when something woke me. I looked to my clock, bleeping colored hands glowing from my dresser top, confused because I never woke up at night. It was midnight. I started to roll over and search for the comfort of a good nights sleep when I saw her. At first I hid beneath the covers, blinked my eyes and peeked out again as if the bedding some how protected me. Slowly I let the covers down.

There, in what was usually the darkest corner of my room, hovering just below the ceiling was where I first locked eyes with her. She was so beautiful, floating there in a fog of soft translucent haze, her gentle eyes probing mine as if expecting to find fear or horror reflected there. I was not afraid. If anything my reaction was exactly the opposite that you would think it to be. I was suddenly calm, curious, and somehow reassured by her presence. Her hair and gauzy looking clothing moved in a gentle breeze I could not feel. She was almost victorian in her appearance and I had the impression she was very very 'old', altho' I was certain her age was no more than twenty or so.

I don't really understand, even now, how come I wasn't scared half to death. Yes, the ouija board experience had had a profound affect on me and had only been the night before. Yet I wonder if I had met her without that experience just how I would have reacted. After all, not every young teen wakes up in the middle of the night to find an apparition, a ghost, watching over her. I did think she was watching over me. The feeling was strangely reassuring, safe and almost gently calming. I smiled at her and her eyes seemed to sparkle back at me. Now, of the rare few who I have told this to I have been asked if I thought she was an angel. Never, not once, did that thought even fleetingly cross my mind. Not being all that religious it wasn't something I would think to begin with. It also just didn't even seem, in retrospect, appropriate. She wasn't an angel and she wasn't evil. She was a friendly spirit who hovered there watching over me with gentle eyes. Or so I thought.

Many nights followed that I would awaken to find her there. Sometimes I only saw her fleetingly, the image vanishing into a disipating fog, and my own dark bedroom corner coming slowly into focus. Other times I lay awake, waiting for her, only to see a shimmer of reflection which never took shape. Each of the times that I saw her clearly were those when I woke near midnight to find her there, watching me. After a time I began to feel invaded, as if not knowing if she would be there or not was somehow an invasion of my privacy.

Eventually I started speaking to her. Cautiously I asked who she was and stupid childish things, are you ok?, do you want to tell me something?, and such. Confusion reflected in her eyes and the more I said the faster the image would fade. Then I started demanding to know what she wanted, as if expecting a reply! I had become too accustomed to seeing her, too confident of her friendliness. Too complacent in my belief of her good intentions. I guess I was working on crossing a line, because things began to change. I wanted to know what she wanted, why she wouldn't leave, and soon began to demand she leave me alone. I wasn't sleeping through the night any more, and had been startled out of my sleep too often.

I was young and foolish and at first didn't even notice the change in her. I didn't see at first the way her clothes were becoming ragged, her hair seemingly matted instead of flowing. I had grown used to her and so frustrated by her existence that I didn't see what should have scared me. Until the night I looked into her eyes and realized they were dark hollows instead of warm orbs. She scared me and again I hid. Finding solace in the pillow over my head, the covers pulled up to block my view. I would wake and avoid looking in the corner, squeezing my eyes shut and praying for the security and comfort of sleep. That line had been crossed and soon terror would replace comfort. Soon her true intentions would become evident.

..............to be continued..................

The beginning....Contact with another dimension.

Chapter one...

I think it all began when I was a young pre-teen....
A friend and I had a ouija board, and used it numerous times....I wasn't a believer. I honestly thought we guided it to give us the answers we sought. Foolish teenage questions, does so and so like me?, did so and so notice me?, did, does, if, will I, all the silly childish stuff that I thought the game was designed for.

But somewhere in the very recesses of my subconscious a seed had been planted, a door cracked to open, a feeling that something was happening. It did!

I remember like it was this morning, the smell of the room, feel of the cool board as we laid it between us on the bed, my friends unflattering perfume, the faint ray of sun creeping over the horizon but hanging desperately to a crack in my blinds...the cool crisp feel of fresh bedding beneath my folded legs and bare feet. It's as if I am still there...the scent of freshly lit candle and extinguished match hanging lazily in the air....the feeling of certain destiny hanging there too.

Before reaching for the 'eye' I remember instead reaching deep into my own soul. There I dredged up some intangible thread of knowledge, need, destiny. I knew, in my very bones, that this was how it is done. Suddenly, yet slowly and reverently, I found myself willing things into being, watering the seed.
I opened myself to some intangible fog, willing it to know I would accept what I found there, would allow access through me to all that needed me, and almost seemed to pray for proof that indeed what was seeping into my soul was real. I didn't need to discuss with my girlfriend the fact that this was serious stuff to me, that this time all juvenile games were not to be played, she had fallen into a quiet acceptance of the fact that this time was different.

As my fingers made grazing light contact with the 'eye' I felt a warmth instantly emanate from and to my fingertips, like a circuit had been closed and I had connected with it. Here is where my memory has always been foggy, distant impressions more than distinct actions. I don't remember speaking, except I can remember the sound of my voice. I don't remember the 'eye' moving, or making an attempt to interpret or read a response, yet I have certain knowledge that thoughts were cast and responses given. I don't remember ever opening my eyes or communicating with my girlfriend, yet I can see her sitting quietly, her hands in her lap, her eyes cast down towards them. No words come to mind, but I know so much was said that I can't and never have been able to put into words.

Something startled me, a noise I can't recall, and I opened my eyes.

My girlfriend was leaning against the wall, hands still folded in her lap, fast asleep. The sun was no longer struggling to reach between the blinds, it was pitch dark outside...and three hours had passed in a breath. In a fog I tried to organize my thoughts and memories, catch up with what I knew had been a moment, but had been three hours. I woke up my girlfriend, who looked at me puzzled as she glanced at the clock, but remained uncharacteristically quiet. She stretched, gave the window and the night out side of it a quizzical frown. Reaching for the knob on the closed bedroom door she barely mumbled goodnight as she left, shutting the door behind her. In the distance I heard the front door thump shut and knew in a minute and a half she'd be safely home. We never, not once, discussed what had happened that evening. I did try once to describe the next event to her, but she laughed it off as if I were joking and I never brought it up again.

The ouija board was placed in its box and slid under my bed, never to be played with again...? I've wondered from time to time what ever became of it, because I eyed it there, as if it were speaking to me, on occasion now and then for a couple of months, and nothing else. Oh, I know it didn't disappear, I'm sure my mother threw it out when we moved or passed it along to someone elses kids....but I don't know. I remember seeing the neat flat box covered in dust, as if the dust were guarding the secrets within. In my heart of hearts I know that no one else ever used it, that it's last event was mine.

Eventually, twenty years later, my own children would ask to buy a ouija board. They received a flat and decisive 'no'. They had to have sensed something, because my children, like most, always gave me a hard time about 'no's. This time they didn't.

Back to the subject.........it was the next night, close to midnight, that she first appeared to me....

-to be continued-

Realization!

After all the years of keeping secrets, all the many many many times I wanted to share but couldn't, at last - realization! Blog!!!!
I know I can share here, send all of my experiences, the experiences others have relayed to me, my thoughts, fears, and fascination with it all, out into cyberspace. Cyberspace...the untangible somewhere that holds so many secrets, and now, at last, holds mine too.