My family and I have been in our house going on two years as I write. We found it after many months of a disheartening search, but when we did, it was all that we had been hoping for. It had only become available due to the misfortune of the previous owner; a young, well-known, and much loved school teacher. After her widower, and mother had taken what they wanted of her personal belongings we thankfully inherited the rest. There was a lot remained, household furnishings, kitchen implements and a tremendous amount of Christmas decorations that made her love of the season strikingly obvious.
With so much of her belongings remaining, I thought it understandable that a presence could be felt there, and if there was anything more than just that feeling, to me at least, knowing her nature, that was fine as well. After all she had not passed away in the house, however in the interim between her passing, and our acquisition of the house, there had been an incident with a renter, who had suffered a fatal overdose there. That did however give me pause.
From even before we moved in, there were oddities. We had employed a painter to freshen up the interior, she said she heard “voices” and “someone walking the hallway”. Our daughter, about to turn three-year-old at the time we moved in, said she had seen “a little white dog” in the basement, but as I thought to myself, she’s only three, so who knows. The previous owner did at some point have a small dog, evident from the small leashes, petite doggy sweaters, and small paw-prints in the concrete work around the house. Whether it was white or not, I couldn’t say. Our daughter had also seen what she called “horse-legs” through the gap left at the bottom of the blinds on our back patio door. I suppose that could have been a deer, but whatever she saw, it definitely scared her, and honestly that did very much disturbed me as well.
Then my eight year old, had seen a dark figure behind the house, in the same area as the “horse-legs”. This was in the middle of the day, she said she thought it was me, and when I ask what it was doing, she said it “bent down, like picking something up”. I could see talking about it was starting to bother her, so I didn’t press the issue. I myself, I hadn’t had any issues, other than some very vivid, disturbing imagery dreams, but after the dark figure my oldest seen, I decided something had to be done.
I smudged the house and salted the doorways and windows, and after that, there was a much lighter feel about the place. Whether this was more from a psychological I didn’t know, and honestly didn’t care.
So all was well, other than an episode of sleep paralysis Natalie had experienced, something which she had now and then her entire life, although this one, she said was different, and much more intense and terrifying.
Then a week or so before the end of November, late one night, 2 AM or so, Natalie and our daughter Jemma were in the bedroom asleep. I was up, and had been in there for some reason or another, and as I was stepping from the hallway from the bedrooms into the living room, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Instinctively I whipped my head around to see the door to the basement swing open. It wasn’t a violent push or anything, it was just as though someone was opening it to walk through. I stood there perplexed for several minutes just looking at nothing. Had a pressure change from my movement be the cause? I did consider this, although it had never happened before to my knowledge. I decided, whatever the cause to keep it to myself.
Then a week or so later, one night as I was at work, Natalie decided to put up the tree and do the holiday decorations. She gets it all done and texts me all excited telling me about all the decorations she had found boxed up in the basement that had belonged to the previous owner. There had been several ornaments and some ribbons that just match the stuff she already had. She sent me a picture and of course, she had done a great good as she usually does with the projects she undertakes.
At any rate, the next evening after I had got home and slept that day, when I got up she was showing me some of the other decorations she had found but decided not to use. Then she said, “I line what you did with that bow”. I didn’t know what she was talking about, and said as much. She said, “I like the way you tied up those cords with that bow”, point to the window seal behind the Christmas tree. She had placed a couple of little model houses from her Christmas village on the window seal, and sure enough the power cords from two of them were tied neatly together with a bow made of a piece of the ribbons she had found in the basement. I told her I didn’t do that. A look of bewilderment came over her face. She said “Yes you did”. I said, “I swear I haven’t touch a Christmas anything”, which was the truth, being I had came home from work that morning and went straight to bed, and besides, decorations has never been my strong suit. After a few minutes of her saying I had done it, and my steadfast denial, she said, “that’s starting to weird me out”. I didn’t want her feeling freaked about it so I said perhaps Jemma had done it. I didn’t really believe that, and I don’t think she did either, but it was enough of possibility to let it go.
Later that day, I examined the bow, and it was obviously not the work of a 4 year-old, and I it was confirmed as much when I had asked Jemma about it, and she “I don’t know Daddy, maybe Mommy did it”. There had been no one else in the house, so it remains a mystery, although to me, I took it as a sign of approval from the previous owner.
Appalachian Paranormal Experiences 