When Donelle saw Ted unpacking the car upon our return from the cottage, she called over to him, and told him she wanted that tree pruned. He did not understand her request until I called everyone into the backyard. We all stared at the walnut tree in shocked silence. I watched Ted as he slowly shook his head in disbelief. How could the tree have grown so much in such a short period of time? It was beyond our comprehension.
7
SOS
Soon after our summer holiday, my sleep was disturbed one night by Kammie calling me to come to her room.
“Mommy!” she cried. “Come and see what my bonker lamp is doing!”
The children’s grandfather had recently given them new bedroom lamps similar to one they loved to play with at his house when they visited. They were not switched on like an ordinary lamp but were turned on and off with the touch of a hand. Because Rosa made a “bonk” sound whenever she touched her lamp to turn up the light or turn it off, the children now referred to their gifts as “bonker” lamps. The first touch turned the light on, and the next two caused the light to grow increasingly bright. On the fourth touch, the light would turn off.
I gasped as I sleepily entered my daughter’s room and saw the lamp on the small dresser beside her bed. All three of the children’s new lamps were left on low at bed time as night-lights. Instead of glowing with its usual low light, the lamp in Kammie’s room was quickly blinking from low to medium to high illumination, then turning off. At a slower speed it again began to go from low to medium to high, in a steady pattern.
Kammie thought it was hilarious and howled with laughter. “It’s doing it all by itself!” she roared.
I called for Ted to come and see. He walked into the bedroom and stared at the blinking light.
“There must be a power surge,” he suggested.
“But the other two lights aren’t blinking,” I replied, trying to sound calm.
The three of us continued to watch as an unseen hand seemed to tap the lamp over and over again, turning it on, then turning it brighter and brighter still, and then off, only to begin again. It went on for quite a long time. Ted suggested that it might be caused by lightning, but the sky was perfectly clear. The children had had their new lamps for a few months, and none of them had behaved like that, including Kammie’s.
“Fast, fast, fast, slow, slow, slow, fast, fast, fast...” Kammie kept saying, as she called out the light pattern we were witnessing. The only way to stop the light was to finally unplug it.
The next day we plugged the lamp back in, and it functioned normally. It did so for the most part, but occasionally it would turn itself on and then grow brighter and brighter and then off, over and over again.
Kammie never tired of this entertainment and would call us into her room each time it happened. “Fast, fast, fast, slow, slow, slow, fast, fast, fast...” she would call out along with the pattern of the light. We tried switching lamps. When placed in any other bedroom, Kammie’s lamp never malfunctioned, nor did any other lamp placed in her room. But when we switched them back at her request, within a day or two her lamp began to “bonk” out the now familiar pattern on its own.
Although Kammie found the lamp amusing, there was an occurrence in her room during that same period that she did not like. Throughout her childhood she had been collecting glass globe ornaments that appeared to contain falling “snow” after they were given a slight shaking. Several of the globes were musical. If the tab beneath them was cranked, they would play a melody.
The large collection of globes was kept on two very high shelves in her bedroom. Neither Kammie nor Matt could reach the ornaments. Even Ted could not reach them without standing on a chair. Yet, on several occasions that summer, two particular globes would simultaneously begin to play their melody. Certainly they had never done so before, although Kammie had owned those globes for years. One had a nativity scene and played “Away in a Manger.” The other contained a grouping of angels. Its song was “Lara’s Theme.” Those melodies would play only in the middle of the night, waking Kammie. Then her calls to me would wake the rest of us.
The tinny sound of the musical globes in the stillness of the night was incredibly eerie. The music only played for a few moments if the globes were cranked by hand, but on those occasions when they turned on by themselves, it was almost impossible to get them to stop. I could understand why Kammie found that so unsettling; I too was frightened by it. At her request, I removed the entire collection out of her room and placed the globes in an unused cupboard downstairs. Once moved from her room, they remained silent.
We then displayed her china dolls on the shelves. These too eventually had be to moved into storage. Kammie, with Matt as her witness, insisted that the head and limbs of the beautiful doll dressed in pink had moved as if someone were playing with it. I hoped they had only imagined that. Still, the fear in Kammie’s eyes was quite real, and I did remove all the dolls, because she was afraid to have them in her room.
Shortly before the end of the summer we took a weekend trip out of town. The night we returned, everyone settled into bed for a sound sleep. Ted and I were covered with only a light sheet, as it was a fairly warm night. I awoke after someone poked my right big toe through the bed covering. I lay still for a moment, groggy with sleep, before I felt it again. Ted was lying with his back towards me, so I knew it had not been him. I was not startled; I just assumed it was one of the children wanting me for something.
When I again felt my toe being poked, I sat up slightly to see which child was trying to get my attention. As I could see no one there, I sat up fully, and as I did so, I felt one last child-like poke against my toe. When I got up to check on the children, they were all fast asleep in their rooms. I lay awake for a long time after I returned to bed. Shortly after I had managed to doze off, the smoke detector in the hallway right outside our room began screeching, and I rested no more that night.
I was reluctant to mention the strange incidents to anyone outside our family because I knew how difficult they were to believe. Ted lived in the same house yet even he insisted that there had to be a logical explanation for everything that had happened. Other than during the incidents with her globes and doll, Kammie did not really seem to be bothered. I doubted if Rosa gave it very much thought at all, aside from those occasions when she had seen a girl waving to her from her bedroom window. And although I thought Matt had the most reason to fear being in the house, he seemed to love living there the most, at least during the day.
I was feeling so exhausted from lack of sleep though, that I could barely think straight. I did not know what to do or where I could turn for help. We had worked so hard to restore the house, and it looked beautiful, but I did not think I could stand to stay in it much longer. Yet the children became upset if I even suggested moving.
Finally, during a long-distance telephone conversation with a friend, I confessed everything that had been happening in our home. I had known Sylvia Norton for most of my life, and I felt comfortable confiding in her. She listened quietly while I listed all the events that had taken place. By the time I had finished telling her about the latest incident from the night before, when someone or something had poked my toe and then set off the smoke detector, I was close to tears.
The desperation in my voice convinced my friend that I was serious about those “ghostly” events. She responded by asking the obvious question of why we did not simply leave. I explained to her how attached to the house the children seemed to be and how Ted did not want to sell it either. His work kept him so busy that moving our household was the last thing he wanted to think about. Sylvia then asked if we had crosses hanging anywhere in the house. We did not. She suggested that I purchase some religious items and place them in the rooms that seemed to have the most unusual activity.
After our telephone conversation, I went shopping. I bought a cross to put on the wall in Matt’s bedroom. Although our family did not attend church on a regular weekly basis, the children had been
taught about God and Jesus from an early age bedtime prayers were a part of their bedtime routine. I knew that Matt would understand the significance of the cross, and I hoped having it there would make him feel safer in his room at night.
When he came into the kitchen after school that day, Matt gave me a big hug.
“Hi,” I said. “That’s a nice greeting.”
“Thank you, Mom,” he said.
“For what?” I asked, not realizing he had already been to his room.
“Thank you for putting that cross up in my bedroom. I really like it,” he answered.
It surprised me that he had noticed it so quickly and that he was so grateful for it. I explained to him why I had put it there.
“Are you going to put one in Kammie’s and Rosa’s room too?” he asked.
When I showed him the framed prints I had purchased for the girls’ rooms of a guardian angel helping two lost children across a bridge, Matt seemed relieved.
“Can you put them up now, Mommy?” he asked anxiously, and I agreed to do so.
The children seemed so happy with those items that we soon added similar artwork. Above Rosa’s bed, we hung a painting of a blonde, curly haired guardian angel wearing a long pink dress. She liked it so much she insisted upon kissing it goodnight before going to sleep each evening. In Matt’s room, we put up a picture of a little shepherd boy watching baby Jesus sleeping in the manger. Above Kammie’s bed, we hung a picture of another blonde, curly haired guardian angel.
Following Sylvia’s suggestion, I soon had the children’s rooms adorned with religious items that I hoped would create a more peaceful atmosphere. I did not expect that all the strange occurrences would stop because of a few items, but I hoped they would be helpful in some way. But, to my relief, everything seemed to settle down completely. No one saw anyone or anything that frightened them, no smoke detector blared its alarm in the middle of the night, and the footsteps on the stairs seemed to disappear altogether. Our house became an ordinary home and everyone, including me, began sleeping through the nights undisturbed.
I called Sylvia back to tell her of this development and to thank her for her suggestion.
“I’ve been thinking about everything you told me, and I was going to give you a call tonight,” she said. “Does that lamp still blink out that pattern?”
“No, we’ve put it away and replaced it with a new one that operates with a switch,” I told her.
“You said the pattern it flashed out was fast, fast, fast, slow, slow, slow, fast, fast, fast, right?” she asked.
I affirmed the pattern of the lamp’s activity for her, but wondered, given all the bizarre events I had told her about, why she was so interested in it.
“I looked up Morse code on the Internet...” she began. Upon hearing these words, I immediately felt uneasy. It had not even occurred to me that the pattern of the blinking light could be a coded message of some kind.
“What does the pattern mean?” I interrupted.
“Ready for this? Fast, fast, fast would be ‘S.’ Slow, slow, slow would be ‘O.’ And, then fast, fast, fast again for another ‘S.’ SOS is the message,” she told me.
“God,” I said nervously. “How are we supposed to help?”
That conversation soon receded from my mind, however, when everything remained calm within the house. I only hoped it would stay that way.
With all that had taken place over the summer, I had forgotten to send out the photographs taken at Matt’s birthday party. When I received the developed photos back in the mail, I sat down to glance through them. I could not help but smile at the cute, happy faces of my own children and the other party guests enjoying the funny antics of Klinky the Klown, whom we had hired to entertain everyone. One particular photograph, though, made me pause. I asked Ted to have a look at it.
The picture showed Klinky the Klown doing a magic trick with Matt assisting him. Several children could be seen seated on the sofa and floor around those two, all laughing at the funny act. But unlike the other photographs, taken from the same angle, only seconds before and after, in this one there appeared to be two bright bubbles of light hovering over the seated children. One was approximately the size of an adult’s head. The other was smaller in size, much like the head of a child. Ted and I examined the photograph carefully, trying to determine what could have caused the orbs of light to appear. As no explanation was evident, we eventually shuffled the picture back in with the rest. I wondered, though, about a camera’s ability to capture on film what the human eye could not see.
With that in mind, I went out and purchased a new roll of film. The next time I found myself alone in the house, I walked around the rooms with my camera in hand, taking pictures.
“If you’re here, could I take your picture?” I called out as I entered Matt’s room, but felt foolish doing so. It had not occured to me to ask permission in any other room. There had not been any unusual activity for some time, and I had no reason to think a presence might be nearby. Still, I thought it might be a good opportunity to see if anything out of the ordinary could be captured on the last shot left on the roll of film.
I took the film to a local one-hour developing lab and waited anxiously to see the photographs. All the pictures were ordinary shots of empty rooms except the one I had taken in Matt’s bedroom. In the centre of the photograph, on the north wall, several feet above his bed, I could see a semi-transparent face staring straight at the camera.
When I arrived home, I hurried to locate a magnifying glass. I then lit the photograph with a bright light and examined it again through the lens of the glass. The face was now much more obvious. I studied the eyes, eyebrows, and nose, trying to determine if the face was male or female. Although it was hard to determine, I thought it was a woman. When I remembered the “church lady” Matt had seen in his room, I also thought that the face appeared to be framed by a headdress.
When Ted arrived home from work and we had a moment alone, I showed him the picture and asked him if he noticed anything unusual about it. He immediately pointed to the face.
“What the hell is that?” he asked, taking the photo over to the better light near the window.
“Does it look like a face to you?” I asked him. He nodded and handed the picture back to me in silence.
The idea of that image being so close to our little boy’s bed unnerved us both.
We continued to study the photograph closely for a few more minutes, trying to determine if the image of a face might have been caused by a flaw in the negative or a problem during the film’s processing. Then I scanned the photograph into our computer to see if I could enlarge the image, but the impression was so faint that it was not possible to see it clearly at all. As we had no way to enhance the image, we could not really be positive of what the camera had captured.
Even though Ted and I had convinced ourselves that the image in the photograph was too faint to be identifiable, at dinner that evening we again casually raised the subject of Matt moving to a different bedroom. As in the past, he pleaded with us to let him remain in his current room. Because nothing had recently frightened Matt and he obviously wanted to stay there, Ted and I later privately agreed not to bring that up with him again.
Autumn passed into a very cold and snowy winter. Everything inside the house remained quiet and seemingly ordinary; even the heat in Matt’s room had been restored. It had been so long since anyone had been awakened in the night that it was easy to forget how difficult those experiences had been. I remarked to Ted that it seemed incredible that something so simple as putting up a cross and pictures of angels in the children’s rooms had solved all the “haunting” activity we had endured. He said he was happy if the pictures made us all feel better, but I could tell he did not take the effectiveness of those items as seriously as the rest of us. I did not bother to ask him why he thought the activities had stopped as suddenly as they had begun; I was so relieved that everything was peaceful again that I just wanted to forget
they had ever happened.
Later that month, we visited a local museum with the children. We were wandering through the building looking at the artifacts when we rounded a corner and almost walked right into a mannequin. It was part of an early medical exhibit, on loan from the museum of a nearby town for a short period of time. There were many photographs of various local nursing staffs from the late 1800s onwards lining the walls, dressed exactly in the traditional white dress and cap. The mannequin, however, was dressed like the figure of the woman I had seen in our bedroom doorway, and judging from the startled look on Matt’s face, like the woman he had seen sitting on his bed. He studied the display intently and then looked over at me. I smiled at him and nodded to indicate that I knew he recognized what he saw, which brought some relief to his face.
The flowing cape and headdress resembled a nun’s habit more than a recent nursing uniform, but the information plaque beside the display explained that nurses had worn that uniform many years before the more contemporary dress shown in the photographs. The only difference between the petite mannequin before me and my memory of the apparition I had seen was in their size. The spirit, although similarly dressed, had been very much larger, especially in height.
8
OUT OF THIN AIR
While leafing through a Victorian interior design magazine one day, I happened upon an advertisement for a studio that specialized in reproduction vintage portraits. They transferred the faces from a favourite picture to an actual antique portrait and, by using computer technology, transformed it into a turn-of-the-century photograph. A large antique wedding portrait of Ted and me would serve as the finishing touch in our master bedroom, so I chose a picture from when we were first married and selected one of their vintage photos for the transfer.
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