ToT 2009: Get Haunted by Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater, author of Lament, Shiver, and Ballad
http://www.maggiestiefvater.com

Okay. So. Ghosts. When Saundra asked me if I had any ghost experiences to blog about, my first thought was . . . “which one do I choose?”

See, my dad loves old houses, and we moved a lot when I was younger. To a lot of very old houses. And we not only looked at a bunch of houses with ominous reputations, we lived in a lot with ominous reputations. The oldest one was built in 1730 and had floorboards spaced so widely that dust and dirt fell through to the first floor when you were walking upstairs. I started out a serious skeptic, but I have to say, my resolve wore down over the years with repeated incidents. By the time I got to the house that I’m about to tell you about, I was a cautious believer.

This newest house was not the oldest house we’d ever lived in — it was built in the 30s and was a rundown but gorgeous brick mansion in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those houses so big and out of place that it not only had a name, but everyone in the area around it knew it by that name, and listed you as from there. Like it was a city all its own. It certainly had a promising story to it, if by promising you meant plagued by a history of heartache and despair. Every family that had ever lived there had gone broke or died or gone crazy, or all of the above, in multiple orders. One of the owners had even killed himself in the barn on the property. Shot in the head, a local informed us with some relish.

Anyway, it wasn’t too long after we moved in that things started happening. Not often. Just — you could hear footsteps sometimes, on the stories above you, when everyone was down in the living room. My sister complained about the doorknob to the bathroom turning when she was in the shower, like someone was trying to come in. Hairs stood on end, especially at dusk, especially on the third floor of the house (where my bedroom was), and especially standing in front of the massive two story barn.

My parents were the first to get a definite haunting, though I didn’t hear the whole story until later. I heard them whispering about it one morning, my mother looking unhappy, but only heard bits and pieces. I said, “is this about the ghost?” Dad said, “it was nothing.” After I’d gone to college, he told me what had happened: they’d been in bed and he woke to find the room utterly freezing and stunningly dark; we had nightlights everywhere, but they weren’t in evidence. He woke my mother, and as they lay there in the frigid darkness, the room began to stink. My father — an utterly practical man, an emergency room doctor — said it was the foulest scent you could imagine; rotting eggs and burning hair. And all the while the room got colder and colder, and he said the feeling got heavier and heavier. He and my mother lay there for a long time, until eventually the smell faded away and the room warmed again.

I will never, ever forget what he told me. He said: “Something evil came and went through that room.”

That was the first. Mine were smaller; more insidious. Doors creeping open on the third floor, the feeling of being watched, especially when the shadows got long at dusk. Dusk was worse than night; more oppressive. Though the ghost did visit at night. It just took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t a dream. Often I would half-awake with the feeling that my bed was shaking. I thought it was a recurring dream, the bed trembling as if it was trying to walk across the floor, until I moved out after I got married and never had it again. Years later, I stayed at my parents’ house and for the first time in years woke again to find my bed shaking.

But that was nothing next to seeing him.

I would spend my evenings pressed into my desk in the corner of my third story room, hunched over the keyboard, typing awful novels and dreaming of the bestseller list. All around my walls I had leaned framed prints waiting to be hung; they flashed in the light like mirrors. This night — it was barely night, it was more like dusk — I once again had the feeling of being watched, my back to my bedroom door. It was such a powerful, intense, sure feeling that I was actually terrified to turn and look. I knew something was there. I just knew it. I would not look.

And then I saw movement, and there he was.

Reflected in the tilted glass of one of the prints by my desk, I saw the silhouette of a man in a suit, standing in my doorway. Nothing but inky darkness in the shape of a man.

Sometimes, when weird things happen, you can convince yourself they did not happen. This wasn’t one of those times. He was there. I remember shutting my computer off, very slowly and methodically, putting away my notes, arranging my pens in the mug on the desk. And by the time I was done, he was gone. And I bolted downstairs.

I was sure it was the man who’d killed himself. One thing about his story didn’t ring true to me, though. See, we’d been told he shot himself in the barn, where we kept our two horses. We had a routine with the horses. My sister and I would go out every morning to let the horses out and give them hay; if we had to open a new bale of hay, we looped the baling twine over a rafter or the fence or a nail for later use. And every evening, we’d bring the horses back in and feed them. And every evening, I’d doubt that story about the man killing himself. So I started to do some research, and sure enough, we found a newspaper article detailing his death. He’d died in the barn all right, but not by a gun. He’d hung himself.

But it was no surprise to me or my sister. Because every dusk when we came out to the barn, the stray baling twine, no matter where you hung it, would be twisted and knotted into a noose.

Do you have a ghost story or a truly weird experience to share? Or just stop by and say Trick or Treat, and you could win a huge Halloween treat!