Haunted Again!

Where does time go? I cannot believe it is way back last Halloween when I left you on a cliffhanger by writing “ little did I know, dear readers, that I was leaving one haunted home only to walk straight into another.” (Those who missed it check out the entry for October 31st  last year.)

So, I guess time is well overdue for you to hear the tale of my second haunted abode.

Mike and I were engaged and looking for a home. As he worked away a good deal he said he would leave it all to me and that if I found something suitable, then go ahead and set the wheels in motion. So I spent hours going through property particulars. This one day I came across a house I liked the look and sound of so I phoned the agent who arranged a viewing that very day.

It was a glorious August afternoon. I took my Mother along with me and we soon found the place. True, it was much farther from the shops than I would have liked, you had to snake in and out of several streets to reach it. However, it seemed perfect to me, pretty front garden, large hall, good sized rooms. But it was the back room that swung it for me. Beautiful French doors onto the most delightful garden. The garden was filled with Roses of all colours and varieties, shrubs and some small trees. It did not need large trees because there was woodland right behind . In the large hedge at the bottom of the garden was set a wooden gate and you only had to open that to step out into a narrow lane and then across to the woodland. Being a nature lover I was bowled over by this.

So, I loved woodland aspect, the rooms were of good size, the price suited our pockets. I told the Agent we would have it. I was worried that when Mike returned and saw it, he would not agree. But he liked it also as it had a very large workroom to the side. The purchase went through smoothly and Mike moved in early November. That was when we decided to bring our marriage forward from the following year and go ahead and get married as soon as possible.

We could not afford a honeymoon, so after the service and celebrations we retired to our new home together. We were very busy the first few weeks, decorating, hanging curtains, Mike building a range of wardrobes in our main bedroom which was huge compared to what we have now. We chose to live in the rear room because of the French Doors and it was lovely to look out many times a day to see rabbits, foxes and all variety of birds visiting. I was so delighted to be able to see wildlife up so close.

There was one drawback and I could not say anything to Mike, because I felt silly. I could no bear to go outside the back door after dark. This was difficult because Mike worked away a great deal and I had to do things like put rubbish in the dustbin, let the dog in and out etc. I had an absolute dread of opening the back door after night had fallen. I put it down to the fact I had always liked horror films and knowing how forbidding woods can be in the dark, it was some primeval instinct. However, it got so bad I hung thick curtains at the kitchen windows and door so that I could not see “the dark”. At sunset, thick curtains were pulled over the French doors. On the odd occasion I had to go outside, my heart would thump in my chest, my hands would sweat, I felt sheer terror, there was no other word for it. To make it worse, the dog would suddenly look up and stare at something for ages. I could see nothing, but sometimes he would growl and this made me more uneasy. Then it got to be the hall. I had to cross the hall to go upstairs to bed and I hated doing it. It is not easy for a woman to be alone when her partner is working away and, as I had just fallen pregnant, I tried to put it all down to that. But I used to race up those stairs, dash into the bedroom and shut the door tight. I could not wait for sleep to come.

In the end I did say to Mike that I was not so sure of the house now, how uneasy I felt when he was away. He put it down to my being alone and also to the fact that pregnancy can affect women in strange ways. He laughed it all off.

One bright sunny afternoon I went into the garage to take something from the freezer for our evening meal. I happened to look up at the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and saw some cobwebs on it, so I reached up to brush them aside. The next thing I knew I was thrown violently across the room, tingling from head to foot, an electric shock out of nowhere but at the same time I heard a man’s voice distinctly say “Get out”. I got back into the house and phoned my Mother who came around immediately. She was so worried about the shock I had received and the pregnancy. Luckily, Mike came home early that night and I told him what had happened. He immediately went into the garage and checked out everything. There was nothing wrong with any of the wiring, nothing wrong with the light. He touched it and nothing happened. It went on and off as normal when he tried the switch. He could not understand how I had received an electrical shock. None of us could understand it.

That weekend I sat Mike down and told him I was seriously worried. Something was “not right”. However, he could not understand. Mike had never had anything strange happen to him. He tried to calm my fears. But, he was soon to have his mind changed. That very Saturday evening we were sitting watching t.v. when there was an tremendous noise from the kitchen. It sounded like all the windows had blown in. As we had a cat as well, we thought he had knocked something over. We hurried into the kitchen. Now, the kitchen was a galley type, long and narrow. Work surfaces at the normal height but for storage there was a rang of cupboards above them, so high I had to stand on steps to reach them. This is where we kept all the stuff we did not use on a daily basis and in the end one, the one nearest the back door, we kept all our wine glasses and tumblers. The front of these cupboards were sliding glass doors, thick and opaque. Imagine our surprise, not to say horror, to see all our wine glasses and tumblers smashed to smithereens on the floor but on looking up…..found that the cupboard door was still firmly closed!

To be continued...........