Lisha Cassibo has been writing for the Uxbridge Cosmos for two years, both as a freelancer and as a columnist. She has also written for several parenting magazines both here in Canada and for English publications in Switzerland. She graduated from Carleton University with an honours degree in Journalism and English Literature. She lives with her family in Sunderland.
Spooks 'n sparkles
By the time you read this, Hallowe'en will be over and done with, and no one will be happier than me. Since it's post-event, I can openly say that I hate Hallowe'en. I'm not into blood, guts and gore. I don 't do horror movies. That said, I love ghost stories. Doesn't matter what time of day it is, you can tell me a really good ghost story and I can be wrecked for hours, scared out of my wits. Just the other morning at work a couple of colleagues and I wasted about a half an hour swapping the scary stories we knew and had heard. I wasn't quite right for the rest of the day. I love reading about haunted houses and prisons and churches and castles. I love going on tours of old buildings and hearing about the spooky stuff that's gone on there (the Tower of London gave me such chills on one visit that I had to leave and sit outside for awhile to calm my racing heart).
Any discussion of these sorts of tales invariably leads to the question “Do you believe in ghosts?” Some will reply with a vehement “No way! That's just rubbish!” Others may say they need to see it to believe it. Others, like myself, can confidently say that they were once skeptics, but are now believers. Oh yes. It's happened to me.
The house I live in is 126 years old. Not long after we moved in, I walked into the upstairs bathroom to discover that one panel of the white frilly curtains that hung in the window had been turned to face the wrong way. My husband wouldn't have noticed that the bathroom even had curtains, let alone have messed about with them. And the girls were too small to reach. I was a little disturbed, but let it go. Until my kids started talking about The Sparkles. The eldest one would often talk about The Sparkles in her room at night. We tried talking about the lights from the street lamps outside, the reflection of the lights from the hallway, even the moving lights that were reflections from the cars going past outside. Nope, that wasn't it, she'd say.
I gave up, and dismissed The Sparkles. Until one evening, when I was singing her her bedtime song, she sat up mid-Golden Slumbers and said “Bye Bye!” I asked her who she was saying bye-bye too, and she replied “The Sparkles.” I hesitantly asked “Where are they going?”, to which she answered “Maja's room.” I balked, and had more than a little trouble finishing the rest of the song. After that, other curtain panels, mostly upstairs, starting turning themselves around. Quite a pain to fix, but at least they got washed regularly! I also became more and more aware that, while I was downstairs, especially in the kitchen, and by myself, I would often become overwhelmed with the sense that I was most assuredly not alone. My husband also said he experienced this sensation on more than one occasion.
My mom, who was a ghost skeptic of the biggest sort, told me before she died that, not long after my youngest was born, she was watching the girls while I was taking a nap, and saw a woman in the hallway. According to her, this woman had dark hair, a light coloured blouse, and a long, dark skirt. My girls were blonde, and more into leggings than long skirts. And my mom finally believed my stories. I, too, caught a glimpse of this figure one day as I was vacuuming. My children and a friend were all upstairs playing. I was downstairs. Obviously not by myself.
A friend came to visit from overseas for a week that first summer in the house, and I made the mistake of telling her about the fun things that had been occurring in our new abode. She was completely freaked out, to the point where we had to sleep together at night, she wouldn't sleep in the guest bed, as she insisted that the door to the room kept popping open even after she had securely shut it.
I don't know what made me do it, but I calmly walked into the living room one morning while she was showering, and announced to the “empty room” that I didn't mind whoever it was that was there with us being there, but I had some rules. Stop scaring my friends, and don't ever let me see you, or I would never be right in the head again. Things calmed down after that. After the renovations to the house were completed, our “paranormal activity” seemed to stop altogether. Now I don't know if whatever it was/they were has left us, or if they just quietly watch our day to day lives and keep their curtain-turning spectral hands to themselves.
Yesterday was Hallowe'en. Today is All Saints Day. Tomorrow is All Souls Day. That's a whole bunch of days all in a row dedicated to creepy stuff that some of us are into, others are not, and the rest just don't know. Is it all a trick, or a treat? That's a heckuva trick that was pulled with my curtains…
