Tuesday, March 20, 2012

"Meeting" a ghost


It was late, it was raining and I had at least a thirty-five minute drive ahead of me to get home. When my friend Diane offered that I could spend the night in her house, I eagerly accepted.
Diane lived with her mother in a spacious country house. The obviously old furniture in the guestroom was not quite what I had expected in the otherwise modern home.
"It's my grandmother's furniture," Diane explained. "When grandma passed away, my mom decided to keep her stuff for the spare room. The mattress is new though and the sheets are fresh, so you should be quite comfortable."
A few minutes after I had turned out the light I heard the door opening and softly closing. I was about to ask Diane if she had forgotten something when I heard her moving through the room, every so carefully as to not to disturb me.
I heard her by the vanity table, opening and closing drawers.
Not wanting to make Diane feel bad for waking me up, I pretended to be asleep.
But I smiled as I heard her rummaging, apparently she could not find what she was looking for.
Suddenly I felt her sitting down on the bed. I stiffened as my body tilted towards the extra weight. Enough was enough. Diane and I were good friends, but we were not THAT close. So I reached up and switched on the light. There was nobody there.
Had I dreamed this? Had I fallen asleep while Diane was in my room and had she left unnoticed?
"Did you find what you were looking for last night?" I asked her over breakfast the next morning.
"Hu?" Diane said, not understanding.
"Last night," I explained, "you were in my room, going through the drawers of the vanity table. I heard you but I did not want to say anything. I didn't want you to think you woke me up."
"Girl I was not in your room," she said with a shake of her head. "I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow."
When I told her what had happened, Diane and her mother exchanged meaningful glances. According to their story, last night was not the first time that room had a phantom 'visitor'.
"And you put ME in THAT room!" I cried.
"What other room was I going to put you in?" Diane asked. "I'm fairly certain you wouldn't want to sleep with me. I snore."
"What about the blue room?" I said. "You could have put me in there."
"Oh oh no," she shook her head, "you definitely do not want to sleep in the blue room. That room is really creepy. There is a supernatural presence there and the room is always ice cold, winter and summer."
After breakfast we went to the blue room together and I did not even have to go inside to feel that there was something tantalizing in there.
As Diane told me, she and her friends had performed a spell in that room when they were kids, and after that the house was never the same again.
Needless to say that I never spent the night at Diane's again.