The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story (12 page)

I showed the photos to Tony later that afternoon, and we discussed what the photos might actually be showing or telling us. Each of us interpreted them slightly differently. Where I saw the swirled shadow of a girl in a dress, a large-teddy bear, cloudy lights, and a fast cat running up the stairs, Tony saw the large-headed figure with arms and legs, a fast cat running up the stairs, and a hand with a finger pointing upward. He also insisted the dark blue areas on the photos were ink marks from poor developing procedures. I made copies of the photographs and sent them with a letter to Barbara, hoping she might have insight on what was in the photos and why they were so different in each.

With these images burned into my mind, I became paranoid while in the house alone. I wasn’t quite sure if we were still dealing with a good little spirit. For many days to come, I was much more on guard and aware of my surroundings, watching everything out of the corner of my eye. After witnessing no activity for a week, I once again questioned if we’d imagined everything (something I would continue to do for months to come). Eventually, the lack of activity allowed me to become more comfortable and at ease again.

One morning, I put Taylor down for his nap in our bedroom and went downstairs to do some chores. I turned the baby monitor on and set it in the window. The green light was illuminated to signal that the unit was working. I checked it frequently, and after some time—expecting sounds of Taylor stirring but hearing none—I walked over to the monitor and found it sitting upside down on the windowsill. No one else had been in the house that day and although I really didn’t expect an answer, I asked, “Sallie, did you do that?” There was no reply.

The rest of the afternoon, I noticed several times that the wooden ball on the ceiling fan in the living room would swing around in a circle. Each time I saw it move, I said hello to Sallie and made small talk with her to make her feel welcomed.

That evening while Tony was at work, George came over and we talked about the ongoing experiences. The disturbing photos made us wonder if Sallie might be unhappy with the hand-me-down dolls. To make it up to her, we decided to go shopping for a new one. We decided on a baby doll rather than a Barbie doll, and a boy doll if possible. We hoped that if she had a “baby” of her own, we could redirect her possessive tendencies away from Taylor.

I had made a habit of carrying the camera with me during the day and snapped many photos in the hope of capturing anomalies. In one set of photos, a smoky looking figure stood or floated near the ceiling at the top of the stairs. It appeared to be a male figure dressed in a dark suit or uniform. The shirt was white and he was clearly wearing a brimmed hat. He also seemed to be holding a sword or bayonet. For the most part, however, the multitude of photos I had been taking didn’t capture what I was looking for.

The next day, George and I bought a new doll and some wrapping paper (I feel a gift should always be wrapped). I gathered a number of things to create Sallie’s own space and a place for her things. I dug out a Cabbage Patch Doll™ that was special to me, and a fancy old dress. I found a hat, beads, barrettes, a baby bottle, a rattle, and a few other things and placed them all in a large burgundy file box I had bought that morning. I did this in part so that she had a place to contain her treasures, and partly to hide the things from people who might otherwise find them out of place in our son’s room.

When Tony came home from work, he was a little put off by what I had done. He seemed to think this ghost thing was getting a little out of hand. He thought it was nuts to buy for a ghost and asked sarcastically, “Do you really think she’s going to unwrap them?”

“You never know, she might,” I told him. I didn’t pay much attention to his remarks and continued what I was doing. I took off all the twist ties securing the doll in its box to make it easier for Sallie and replaced it neatly before wrapping it. On the gift card I wrote, “To Sallie. We all love you and hope you like your new baby doll. Love, Uncle George, Daddy, Mommy, and Taylor.”

I took the gift and the burgundy box up to the nursery.

As I entered the room, I quickly noticed that the baby dolls I’d left sitting side by side were now in different positions—the little doll now sat in the lap of the big doll. I remember thinking how cute this was. I sat in Sallie’s corner and called her into the room. I went through the box, and showed her the things I was giving her to play with. I explained that the cabbage patch doll had been my special doll and I was giving it to her, “my special little girl.” I had quickly grown accustomed to talking to her as if she was right in the room with me.

ten

Just Odd: August 1993

Life in our home continued quietly for several days; there was nothing odd at all. In fact, it was so quiet, we wondered if our little spirit girl had gone for good. My thoughts recalled all the events that led to our believing we had a ghost and wondered if there was room for an interpretation we had missed. Did we and others read too much into the experiences? Had the psychic played on our naïveté? Had the anomalies in the photos resulted from human error, indirectly leading us to the theory that we had a ghost?

On Thursday, August 5th, there were signs of activity. Peeking into the nursery on a trip to the bathroom, I noticed that the dress I had placed in the cardboard box in Sallie’s corner was partially pulled out through the hole that served as the handle. My first thought was that one of the cats had stuck a playful paw inside and had gotten a claw caught on the dress as he pulled his paw from the box. However, with a ghost in the house, I was sure there were other possibilities, too.

Had Sallie tried to get the dress out? I looked at the box and debated whether I should have removed the box’s top to allow Sallie easier access, but decided to leave it on for a few more days. I was anxious to see whether she would get what she was after. That night, I encouraged more activity by placing her gift-wrapped box onto the burgundy box. I told her it was a special gift just for her and that she could open it anytime.

Over the next few days, I looked into the nursery more often than usual, expecting Sallie would be just as excited about the special gift as I was. Two days later, it had remained untouched. I began to think that Tony was right—Sallie wasn’t going to unwrap it.

Later that afternoon, while I changed the baby’s diaper at the changing table in the nursery, I took the opportunity to survey the room. Nothing was out of order. I took Taylor to our bedroom and set him on the bed so I could get dressed myself. Ten minutes or so later, I needed something from the bathroom and left Taylor in the middle of the bed, as he was still too young to roll over. I peered into the nursery as usual and was shocked at what I saw. The brand new baby doll was out of the box and laying in the center of the Taylor’s crib.

The package and wrappings, however, had been undisturbed; as far as I could see the gift remained unopened in her corner where I had left it. Amazed by the situation and knowing it deserved a reaction, I looked into the crib and said, “Oh, Sallie, you have a beautiful baby doll!” I went on to tell her we should take a picture and hurried to get the camera. I took two pictures, hoping that she would show up in them, but she didn’t.

A few minutes later, I remember standing in the nursery’s doorway with Taylor in my arms for several minutes, looking back and forth between the still-wrapped gift on the floor and the new doll in the crib. I couldn’t help but re-think the moments before finding the doll in the crib; I had to process every possibility to assure myself that no one else could have been responsible for what I seemed to have experienced.

Someone would have had to sneak into the house, get up the stairs and into the nursery, remove the doll from the box, lay it in the crib, reseal the gift wrapping, return the wrapped box to its original place and leave the house, all within about ten minutes and without being noticed. I was sure this was not possible.

I took the gift box downstairs, called George, explained what had happened and asked him to come over. I needed another person to see that the tape on the paper had not been disturbed and to witness the contents of the box. Surely the doll was still in the box; I couldn’t fathom how the doll would have gotten out of the box without signs of tampering. When he arrived, I carefully opened the box in front of him. As I did, the only thing that seemed odd was that one of the end flaps of the box had been dog-eared and the flaps had not been closed in the same order as I had done when I took the twist ties off.

I was dumbfounded and stared quietly at the box. It was completely empty except for the cardboard support that once held the doll. I’m sure that George wondered if I was pulling a fast one on him, but I was preoccupied with trying to understand how a spirit could move a physical item through a physical barrier. The box had certainly been opened in some manner, as the flaps showed signs of being opened and closed again. One could only assume that the gift wrapping would have been opened too, but this was not the case. The wrapping paper looked untouched, the tape undisturbed. I tried to carefully take the tape off, but the paper it was attached to tore as expected.

The following day, a stack of freshly washed baby bottles and nipples that had been sitting on the kitchen counter went toppling to the floor as I stood in the dining room a few feet away. I spun around expecting to see one of the cats in a guilty pose or in a panicked exodus from the room, but there was no one.

Sallie had made her presence known the day before, and I wondered if this might have been her way of getting my attention. If so, why the bottles? “Sallie, if you want a bottle for your baby doll, there is one in your box. Come on, I’ll show you.” When I got to the nursery, I found not only the toy bottle that I had put in there a few days earlier, but also one of the Playtex ones that had been sitting on the counter ten minutes before.

The following Monday, we had plans to finish wallpapering the kitchen and had enlisted the help of Tony’s mother. I was rather surprised that she agreed to come by, because being in our house made her uneasy. She had made it clear on several occasions that Tony and I should have gotten rid of Sallie already; she had even threatened that while we were gone someday, she would bring a priest over to do an exorcism. For months, I had taken Sallie’s side. She was just a little girl playing games and really wasn’t being mean or trying to hurt anyone. I pointed out that Sallie needed to fit in and that until she did so, it was going to be a trying experience for all of us.

When Tony’s mom got to the house, George was holding Taylor on the couch. Without even putting her purse down, she went over and took Taylor from him, “You people don’t know how to hold a baby.” She wasn’t being mean—it was just her way, and it gave her an excuse to hold her grandchild.

Soon Taylor fell asleep in her arms, as he always did. She placed him in the downstairs cradle, which stood in the dining room just past the end of the sofa and its end table. On the table stood a box of Kleenex, the portable telephone, and an oil lamp. (With mischievous and unpredictable cats, I had always felt safer with oil lamps rather than open-flame candles during a power outage.)

Tony’s mom and I went into the kitchen to start working. After ten minutes, she stepped away to check on the baby. He was still fast asleep, so she returned to hang another piece of wallpaper, and then checked on him again. Finding that he was still sound asleep, she turned and took about three steps towards the kitchen. Suddenly she heard a horribly painful cry come from Taylor, as if someone had pinched or poked him. I heard it from the kitchen and tried to remove the glue from my hands so I could investigate. Peering into the room, I noticed there were no cats dashing out of the room. In fact, there was no one in the room at all, because Tony had gone upstairs a few minutes prior.

I knew my mother-in-law would not have done anything to cause the baby to wake up screaming, but instinctively felt that Sallie might have. I wanted to scold her and warn her from doing it again, but I also knew my mother-in-law was already unsettled about our spirit. If she were to see me interacting with it, it would have been like throwing salt on an open wound. I decided to address the problem, and Sallie, later.

Apparently Tony’s mom had come around to my point of view; she rushed over to pick up the screaming baby. While cradling him in her arms, she harshly scolded Sallie. “Sallie, if you hurt this baby again, I’m going to spank your butt!”

Still standing in the kitchen, my first impulse was to laugh. I had never thought I would witness my mother-in-law talking to a ghost, let alone raising her voice to one so sternly. I felt a surge of pride that she had interacted with our spirit. Then I had a strong feeling that Sallie didn’t like this old woman scolding her. I had already sensed a surge of jealousy from Sallie each time Tony’s mom picked up the baby. I guess in an odd way, I had become tied to Sallie’s emotions as well as her thoughts. I almost told Tony’s mom, “Oh, great! Now you’ve just pissed her off.”

Hearing the baby, Tony came downstairs, and we explained the situation. Taylor was still quite upset, so Tony took him and stretched out at the far end of our sectional sofa (closest to the front windows and away from the dining room). The baby was much calmer, and thinking he would be safe with Tony holding him, my mother-in-law and I returned to work in the kitchen.

We hadn’t stepped out of the living room for more than two minutes when we heard Tony holler, “Debra, you better have a talk with her!” I again stopped what I was doing and headed for the living room to ask why, but when I rounded the corner of the kitchen doorway, I caught sight of the glass globe from the oil lamp lying on the floor in the dining room.

Tony was just getting up off the couch, baby still on his chest, when I walked into the room. He described what he had just seen. “It lifted straight off of the oil lamp base like a slow motion rocket and then floated about three feet above the floor and across the room as if it was being carried. When I hollered your name, it suddenly dropped to the floor. I think she’s scared of you, Deb.” I remember the look on his face. It was a cross between shock and amazement.

I ruled out any other possible scenarios, realizing that there was no way Tony would have had the time or ability to accomplish putting the glass globe on the floor across the room without his mother or me seeing him and without waking the baby laying on his chest. So, I quickly took on the “mommy” role and scolded Sallie for her behavior. “What you did was wrong and you need to go to your room to think about it for a few minutes.” Of course, I had no idea if she really went.

I knew my mother-in-law didn’t like Sallie or say nice things about her, and that was one of the reasons Sallie didn’t like her. For weeks I had warned her and reminded her about waking the baby, so she knew it was bad and I would get mad if she did. Likely, Sallie felt that if my mother-in-law was responsible for waking the baby, she would get into trouble.

When that didn’t work and Tony’s mom scolded her, she got more irritated and became actively defiant. Imagine a little girl picking up the oil lamp’s glass globe, as if to say, “Na na nana na na, I can do this and you can’t stop me.” Of course, this was the action that got her into trouble. Inside, I giggled at the scenario.

Wake-up Call: August 14th, 1993

On Friday, August 13th, Tony had worked his usual midnight shift which ended at 7:00 a.m. On his way home he picked up George, who had since moved to another rental property. Without a car, he often needed a ride to work. Since he didn’t need to be to work until 9:00 a.m. they turned on the television until they had to leave. Tony lay down at one end of the sofa and George on the other.

About 8:45 a.m., George was awakened by a sudden thump and a heaviness on his chest. Thinking one of the cats had jumped on him, he reached, without opening his eyes, to pick up the cat and toss it to the floor. To his surprise, he didn’t grasp the neck of a cat. Instead he opened his eyes to see, sitting on his chest and staring at him almost eye level, the stiff and motionless form of the (now infamous) bean bag teddy bear.

Still holding the bear by its neck, he woke Tony and practically shoved the bear into his face. Scared and almost unable to speak, he muttered, “Look, look.” Tony, still in a sleepy stupor and grumbly from being awakened for what seemed no good reason, said, “So what? It’s a bear,” and laughed.