We Should Have Known the House Was Haunted

By Patricia Briggs

During the year between high school and college, my parents decided to relocate our household. Little did we know, or perhaps I should say, little did we want to admit, that the house everyone had agreed upon was haunted.

It would be several years before we finally acknowledged what had been happening around us. Looking back, the clues were there even before we purchased the house. We simply hadn't put them together.

The first time we saw the house, it was supposedly empty, with a For Sale sign prominently displayed by the road. My father and I drove up the circular driveway and parked so we could walk around the property and look at the house from the outside. Both of us had the distinct impression that someone was inside, but whoever it was refused to answer the door.

Later that same day, we made an appointment to see the house and eventually sat down with the realtor and sellers to discuss purchasing it. My father was so convinced that someone had been there earlier that he asked the sellers why they hadn't answered the door. They insisted that no one had been in the house.

That should have been our first clue.

My parents were anxious to relocate because they had both accepted new jobs in the area. They wanted to move into the house as quickly as possible, even if that meant renting it until the purchase was finalized. However, the sellers absolutely refused. They explained that previous prospective buyers had rented the house, only to change their minds about purchasing it and move out.

Looking back, that should have been our second clue.

When we finally moved in, we discovered that the sellers had left behind a piano. We found this particularly strange because one of the sellers was a music teacher. It was an older upright piano in excellent condition, and despite the odd circumstances, I was delighted. My father had given away my old player piano rather than move it because it was so heavy. As far as I was concerned, finding another piano waiting for me was a wonderful surprise.

Of course, that should have been our third clue.

Once we settled into the house, little things began happening. Nothing that any one of us considered important enough to mention to the others. We each found ways to explain away our experiences and went about our lives as though nothing unusual was happening.

That changed when my mother decided to visit a psychic for a reading.

During the session, the psychic told my mother that she was living in a haunted house. Naturally, my mother wanted to know what she should do about it. The psychic instructed her to say a prayer in every room and place a crucifix there. Since my mother was Catholic, this was something she was quite comfortable doing. However, the psychic offered one warning: Don't miss a room, or the energy will concentrate in that area.

Suddenly, it was time for a family meeting.

For the first time, we began sharing the strange things we had been experiencing. I told everyone about the loud banging that woke me almost every night. The noise seemed to come from my closet, which shared a wall with my brother's bedroom. I had gotten out of bed on several occasions, marched into his room, and accused him of lifting and dropping his weights in the middle of the night. Naturally, he denied it, although I was convinced he was responsible.

My grandmother had an entirely different experience. She told us that her bed would rock at night, much like a cradle. She also described sitting in the living room one day and seeing a woman playing the piano in the entry hall. What made the experience particularly unusual was that she could see right through the woman.

We also learned that people had been trying to telephone us during the day, but although they insisted they had called repeatedly, our telephone never rang.

My father, however, had what I considered the most interesting story.

One day, he saw a woman come through the front door and begin walking up the staircase. Assuming she had come to see my mother, he called out to let her know that my mother wasn't home.

The woman turned toward him, smiled in acknowledgment, and then disappeared.

What bothered my father wasn't that he had seen a ghost. It was that the ghost had seen him! She had acknowledged his presence and responded to him. For some reason, that realization was more unsettling to him than the apparition itself.

My mother, on the other hand, had no experiences to contribute, and this upset her considerably. Of all of us, she was the one who desperately wanted to have a paranormal experience of her own!

Nevertheless, she followed the psychic's instructions, saying prayers throughout the house and placing crosses in the rooms.

As far as I know, my mother's efforts brought the activity in the house to an end. Everyone went back to their normal routines, and the unusual happenings seemed to stop.

Well, almost…

During one of my visits home from college, I was sitting at the piano playing a song when the rosary my mother had placed on top of it suddenly lifted into the air and flew approximately thirty feet into the living room, where it came to rest.

What did I do?

I walked into the living room, picked up the rosary, returned it to its place on the piano, and walked out.

I never played that piano again.

Happy Halloween!