The Ghost Chronicles (20 page)

“Yes, I think so. Maureen, thanks for your help.” The sound of relief evident in her voice, she said, “Look, don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine. Have fun on your trip.”

With that she hung up the phone.

That ended our association with the stone house. But I had my doubts about the dark entity. We had crossed paths before, and I had the sneaking suspicion we would meet again.

T
he
Woman’s World
article about the stone house investigation had barely hit the stands when a woman from Rhode Island contacted me on the Ghost Line.

Her name was Paula and she and her boyfriend had just bought a second home in Connecticut. It was their dream house. They’d fallen in love with it. All had seemed fine until they started the renovations. That’s when things began to happen.

Orbs began showing up on film.

Paula had the sensation that she was being watched, and perhaps the most dreadful of all was a series of unexplained accidents that plagued visitors to the house. She dreaded going there alone. She also said that her boyfriend, David, wasn’t himself at times, that
he seemed different when he was at the house. While she spoke, I couldn’t help but notice the fear in the quivering of her voice. She pleaded for immediate assistance to discover the source of the incidents. But unfortunately, getting our group together with such short notice is difficult at best. Everyone has their own lives and agendas. Understanding her need for urgency, I offered her a temporary solution to protect her and the house, hoping it would be more than temporary.

“Paula, is there a Catholic church nearby?”

“Yes, Ron. Why do you ask?”

“There are a couple of things you can do. Take a small container to the church, and fill it with holy water from the font. Take the holy water, and bless all of the doors and windows along with the four corners of the inside of the house.”

“What should I say when I’m blessing the house?” she asked.

Although I’ve blessed homes and attended more than one exorcism with a Franciscan monk, I had to keep in mind that not everyone shared my knowledge. I suddenly had an idea. “No problem, Paula. I’ll send you a copy of the St. Michael prayer. It’s extremely powerful. In fact, Maureen and I use the prayer regularly for protection. You can also command the spirits to leave you alone. This works in a lot of cases.” I paused. “But you cannot be afraid. If you show fear, that means you’re not sure, which negates the whole purpose.”

“I’ll try anything at this point,” she said. “When do you think you guys can make it?”

“Unfortunately we’re not going to be able to make it for a couple of weeks.”

“Okay. Although I wish it was sooner, I understand.”

Before we knew it, two weeks had flown by and we found ourselves standing in the living room of the sprawling, circa-1730 colonial.

I scanned the room, looking for a place to set up base camp, but it was difficult to concentrate with the buzz of everyone talking in the room; Karen and Leo were in their own little world chatting away, oblivious to the group’s needs. Paula was already speaking about her experiences to anyone who would listen, and I had no clue where my son was.

Maureen approached me. “Ron, I’m feeling the energy already.”

I snapped at her, “Can’t you wait? Do you always have to rush me?”

Her eyes sparked with anger. “You’re such an ass at times.”

“What did I do now?” I grumbled.

Without saying another word she did an about-face and stormed away.

Here we go again
, I thought. It was like being married—we were fine one minute, and the next minute we wanted to wring each other’s necks.

With Paula still yakking away, I spied Ron Jr. coming out of the den. “Ron, grab a camcorder and record this, will you? I’ll take care of base camp.”

Without missing a beat, and realizing she was now being filmed, Paula started the story from the top. “It all started when we began the renovations. At first we began to see shadows and had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. When visitors have taken pictures, orbs have shown up. In one of the pictures, an orb the size of a beach ball can be seen under the kitchen table,” she said, looking directly into the lens of the camcorder. “Things began to disappear and objects moved of their own accord.” As if for acknowledgement, she looked past us into the kitchen where her boyfriend sat, then back at the camera. “In fact, when we first bought this place, we only came out here on weekends. One night
while we sat on the couch in front of the fire, we agreed that it was time to purchase an antique fireplace screen, in keeping with the traditional décor. Now, keep in mind that we always lock this place up when we’re gone. When David and I returned the following weekend, an antique screen, like the one we were talking about, had appeared out of nowhere.” She hesitated, then yelled to David in the kitchen, “Honey, why don’t you tell them about what happened to you?”

“You’re doing fine; why don’t you keep going?”

“No, you can explain it better than I can.”

Still holding a cup of coffee, he entered the living room, although he seemed reluctant to speak, he began. “We’re doing a lot of work ourselves, but we have some contractors to help us with the bigger projects. They’ve called me several times to ask me about the woman who watched them from the window, and if it was all right to still do the work with her there. At first I panicked, thinking someone had broken in. But when I asked the contractors to go in and take a look, they found no one there. There have been a series of so-called coincidental accidents that have happened to not only family members and friends, but the contractors as well, to the point that the contractors have quit, refusing to return. In fact, one night we had a housewarming party. Moments after leaving the house, a friend’s car was T-boned by another vehicle. He spent the next several months in the hospital recovering from his injuries.”

Finally finished with setting up base camp, I walked into the living room to join the team. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”

The chatter receded; the only sound to be heard was the gathering of equipment in preparation for the sweep.

Karen, our EVP specialist, holding the Panasonic D690 digital recorder in the palm of her hand, pressed the record button, and
in a hushed voice, she said, “Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing.” Seemingly confused, she attempted her test a second time. “What the hell? Ron, you’re not going to believe this, but the batteries have been drained. And they’re brand new.”

“Did you bless them?” Maureen asked.

Karen gave a sharp nod, then said, “No.” Digging into her kit, she pulled out another set of triple A batteries and quickly replaced the drained ones.

Maureen reached into her pocket and pulled out a clear plastic bottle embossed with a gold cross. “Why don’t you let me bless them?”

Leo, camera clutched tightly in his hands, stood patiently behind Karen. “Maureen, would you mind blessing mine too?”

“No problem.” Maureen moistened her finger with the holy water and quickly blessed the equipment. “We’re all set.”

Karen checked the level of her batteries, satisfied they were fully charged, and said, “Ron, I’m ready when you are.”

“Paula, can you show us the rest of the house?” I said.

“Sure, follow me,” Paula said, as she led us down a hallway toward the back of the house and up a set of stairs to the second floor.

* * *

Ron motioned for me to walk in front of him. Although the presence of a woman had reached out to me when we first arrived, the closer we got to the second floor, the stronger her influence became. Once we reached the top of the stairs, I said, “Ron, I can feel a woman here.” I motioned to Leo. “Take a picture. Quickly.”

While Leo clicked his 35mm camera, loaded with infrared film, I lifted my pendulum, closed my eyes, and began to reach out to the spirit.

“Are there any spirits with us now?” Ron asked.

The pendulum responded: yes.

“Are you a woman?” Ron continued.

Once again the pendulum responded with a yes.

With each question asked, I sensed the energy swirling about us, growing in strength, feeding off us to manifest. Our emotions intertwined, I felt her anger wash over me as if it were my own. In my mind’s eye, I saw a quick glimpse of a woman struggling to maintain her grasp as her dead baby was being torn from her arms. With a lump forming in my throat, I said, “Ron, this woman lost her baby in childbirth.” I gasped, “She’s so angry.” I glanced up at Paula. “First her baby, now her land.”

“Oh, that explains why at night we hear a woman crying in anguish.” Paula pointed to the next room over. “That’s our bedroom, right there.”

Ron, giving Paula a sign of acknowledgement, added, “Yeah, that makes sense. Why don’t we go check the bedroom out?”

Continuing down the hallway, we entered the first bedroom on the right.

The spirit I had just felt had begun to distance herself. Although I still felt her presence lingering, it was nothing more than a faint thrumming of low-level current on my skin. Like the echoing of a train whistle in the distance, it faded into the background.

I had taken no more than two steps into the room when an icy hand gripping my leg stopped me in my tracks. “Ah, let go!” I screamed. “What the hell?”

Startled, Ron yelled, “What, what?”

I stepped away from the bed, backing up to the wall. “Something from under there grabbed my leg.”

“Get out. Really?” He said as he dropped to the floor, lifted the bed sheet, and peered under the bed. “Maureen, there’s nothing here.”

“I’m telling you what happened. Here,” I said, raising the pant leg of my faded jeans, “look at my calf. I’m not sure if we’ll see any marks, but it feels like it’s bruising already.”

Together we walked to the bathroom, and turned on the light to get a better look.

“Wow, I guess you did feel something,” Ron said, looking at the red handprint on my leg.

As we returned to the group, I tried to put what I’d just felt into words. An impression of the incident popped into my head, and instinctively I knew. “I think it was an elderly woman who had fallen off her walker and was reaching out for help.”

I couldn’t help but notice Ron’s look of disbelief, but then Paula spoke up. “Well, actually, in the fifties, this building was a nursing home.”

I smiled at Ron, “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Ron said.

I wasn’t surprised at Ron’s next suggestion. “Why don’t we try to communicate?”

“What are we going to do?” Paula asked.

“We are going to make contact with the spirit and see if we can calm things down a bit.”

“I’m up for that,” Paula said. “So what do we do now?”

“Let’s all sit on the floor and hold hands. This way the energy flows freely from person to person.” Ron knelt down on the rug. Unable to sit Indian style, he adjusted his legs so that they were straight out in front of him, and then nodded for everyone to follow his lead.

Within moments we were all holding hands. The EMF meter, still on, lay eerily quiet in the center of the circle. Closing our eyes, we focused our intent.

“Are there any spirits here who would like to communicate? If so, show yourself now.” Ron raised his voice to be heard above the sudden blaring of the EMF meter. “Thank you,” Ron replied to the spirit.

Ron continued, “If anyone in this circle receives a message, just speak up.”

A sharp pain sliced through my chest. Unable to breathe in deeply, I took short, quick breaths. “There’s negative energy here. He doesn’t like Bridget, he wants her gone.”

“Who the heck’s Bridget?” Ron asked.

“Oh my God, Bridget’s my daughter,” Paula said, her voice shaky. “That must be why, why—she can’t sleep in this room.”

Ron, picking up where he left off, continued. “They are only making changes in this house to make it comfortable. We ask that you not hurt this family, rather that you protect them.”

The EMF slowed down, eventually stopping. The entity was gone.

We closed the circle, dusted off our butts, and continued our investigation of the building.

Walking two flights down through a narrow stairwell, we stepped off the last step into pitch-black darkness. “Where are we now?” Ron asked.