The Little Girl

When I was around five-years-old, we moved to a Victorian home in our town's historic west end. After living in a tiny mobile home with my mother and father, this was like a castle in my eyes. With the arrival of my sister, we had needed a bigger place. Dad couldn't get over the good deal he'd gotten on this one.

From the very first night, I felt that we were not the only ones there. Out of the corner of my eye, I would see shadows that would fade just as I would turn to focus on them. Then there was the constant sensation of being watched by unseen eyes.....................

We had been living in the house about six months when I saw her. I opened up my closet one morning to get my clothes, and instinctively my eyes went to the far corner. There, sitting as though she had been waiting for something, was a little girl who appeared to be around my age. The first thing I noticed was how grey her skin was. It wasn't scary, she just looked ill. She was dressed like my Holly Hobby doll, with a long sleeved old fashioned calico dress on. I felt sorry for her. She looked like she desperately needed comfort. I began taking the dolls out of the box I kept them in. I handed one to her, and we began to play.

From that moment on it seems, she was always around, she mainly kept to my bedroom, but I would often see her in other parts of the house as well. When my family would sit down to dinner, or my sister and I were dressing up for Halloween, or blowing out candles on my birthday cake......I would look across the way and see her. I wanted to reach out so she could join in the fun, but it seemed no one else could see her. My parents chalked it up to my "imaginary friend".

The older I got, the more ghosts I saw. There seemed to be no end to the entities that existed within the confines of the old rambling house. I remember seeing an old woman in the kitchen. My mother was a clean freak, and I think this particular ghost was pleased by that. I would see her while Mom was bustling around, getting ready for a holiday dinner, and the old woman would smile. Years later, when my mother finally admitted that she had strange experiences as well, she said, that often when she was in the kitchen, she would smell old fashioned lilac perfume.

Not every spirit there was benign, though. I always felt the presence of something evil and I believe the little girl did too. The times I saw her in the main part of the house, she would always glance fearfully toward the basement door. I was literally unable to go down in that basement by myself. The fear would paralyze me.

I learned to keep my experiences to myself, as any mention of them would get my parents started on my "active imagination". Anything that they experienced that was paranormal, they would do their best to debunk with a natural explanation. I had their "natural explanation"...............we had ghosts!

The negative atmosphere that was in the house increased after my grandfather passed away. My sister and I foolishly decided to play with a Ouija board, seeing if we could communicate with him. We had just asked, "Papa, are you there?" when the door to my bedroom slammed shut! I tried to open it, and I could feel someone pulling the door so I couldn't.

I kept pushing on the door, until finally it gave way. My sister and I ran out of my bedroom and into hers. We were too terrified to speak. I slept in her room for the next several nights until I got the courage to go back in there. The Ouija board was on my bed where we had left it. I held my breath, picked it up, and ran downstairs to throw it in the trash.

To this day, I regret that action. The board was not properly closed and the negative energy in that house began to multiply. The ghosts that I saw, including the little girl, began looking fearful and distracted. In this dimension, my family began to fall apart. My parent's marriage, which had been a happy one, began to deteriorate after my grandfather's death. I began acting out, and my ability to see spirits began to anger me.

Through it all, the little girl remained. She had never grown older, and yet I felt more connected to her than friends my own age. I wanted to be normal. I wanted everything I saw to just go away.

When my parents divorced, it was decided that my father would stay there and my sister and I would move with my mother to another house. I was glad to be moving, but in my heart I knew the little girl would have to stay behind.

I continued to see her the few times I visited my dad, and then his house was sold. I don't go back there, as I still feel the negative is too powerful. I do however pray every day for whoever lives there now, that they are able to protect themselves against that negative. I pray someone came along who knew how to help the spirits there to cross over. I especially pray for my constant companion while I was there...........and that the little girl found peace.

Incidentally, there was a book written about the many hauntings in my town. It was in that book that I discovered the land my former house was built on had once been the potter's field for a cemetery long forgotten.

Forgotten by everyone...........except the spirits of those buried there.

Article written by Angela Sangster (Burdine)