Haunted Too. Dorah L. Williams

so much better when I saw this. I stopped crying and just stared at the shadow for a long time, and was so glad it was there with me.

      Finally, though, I began to get curious as to what was actually casting the shadow. I got out of bed and looked around the night light and the rest of the room to see what could be creating it. But there was nothing that seemed to be causing it. Yet there it was, right above my bed, and so clearly defined. And I knew it had not been there for the first few hours I was in bed, it just suddenly appeared.

      I climbed back into bed, exhausted, but kept opening my eyes to make sure the shadow was still there. It stayed above me all night. I finally fell asleep, and when I woke up in the early morning, the shadow was gone. I never saw it again. But I have never forgotten that, and I think it must have been a protective spirit, or angel, letting me know she was watching over me.

      Do You See What I See?

      I was helping my friend move into an apartment. After unpacking all of the boxes and getting everything organized, we went into the living room to take a break. The living room was situated at the end of the hall that led to the bathroom and bedroom.

      While leaning against a wall in the living room I could see out of the corner of my eye that someone was approaching us from the hall. I turned and saw a middle-aged brunette woman in a navy blue dress walking up the hall toward the living room. She stared straight at me, and our eyes met for a second. She didn’t look very happy to see me standing there. Then she slowly turned around and headed back down the hall toward the bedroom.

      My friend was also looking toward the hall in a curious way, and asked if I’d just heard someone walk toward us, stop, and then walk back down the hall again.

      I explained that I had just seen that woman, but had not heard any footsteps. So we both thought that was really strange; I had clearly seen an apparition, or whatever it was, of a woman but hadn’t heard any sound. My friend had clearly heard the sound of footsteps walking toward us and then away again, but did not see anything at all.

      We did a thorough check of the hall/bedroom/bathroom area, of course, but no one was there. We were the only two people in that apartment.

      Ouija

      When I was growing up my family had a Ouija board, and sometimes we would play with it. I never felt comfortable with the idea of communicating with spirits, though, so I never directly participated. But I was always curious enough to want to see what would happen when others used it.

      My cousins were using the board one day. One of my cousins and I have the same unique name (and the same unusual spelling). So when the two people using the board asked who the next message was for, my name (and my cousin’s name) was spelled out. I was about twelve years old at the time. We asked which person they meant, and then my last name was also spelled, so it was clear the message was intended for me and not my cousin who had a different last name.

      I was uncomfortable by the whole idea of a Ouija board and sure didn’t want to be singled out for any specific message from it. I asked my cousins to put it away, but they said they wanted to see the message and went ahead using it. The message was that I was going to die when I was thirty. Even though thirty sounded pretty old when I was only twelve, I was still upset about that message. If anyone else had been using the board I may have suspected they were just trying to frighten me and made that message appear themselves. But I could tell my cousins were almost as disturbed by what was spelled out as I was, and I knew they hadn’t caused it to spell that.

      When I asked, with forced bravery, how my death was supposed to occur the word cancer was spelled out.

      I asked my cousins to put the board away, and that time they listened to me, and we never used it again when they came to our house. And although I tried to tell myself it was just a silly game that couldn’t possibly have the ability to predict the future, I still couldn’t help but think about that message occasionally as my thirtieth birthday approached. But fortunately quite a few years have come and gone since that age and the message was proven to be false.

      My next, and last, experience with a Ouija board was after graduating from college, when I shared a house with a few roommates. One day two of us were out shopping and happened to pass by a thrift shop. We saw an old Ouija board was for sale in the window, so thought it might be fun to buy it. We were having a get-together with some friends that night and thought it would be funny to play with that. I didn’t expect to have a repeat of my last experience on that other board from my childhood, and thought it would just be entertaining, if it even worked at all.

      The board we bought was old, and it didn’t have the planchette with it in the box still, so to improvise we used an upside-down glass. Two girls at the party put their fingers on the base of the glass, and we all proceeded to shout out questions about our careers, love lives, etc. Nothing happened at first, and we thought it wasn’t going to work. Then, just as we suggested giving up and putting the board away, the glass tipped over. The two girls using the board jumped, because neither of them even had their fingers on it at the time.

      One of them then asked, “Is anyone there who would like to speak to us?”

      The glass immediately moved to the YES on the board and kept sliding back and forth across the word in a very strong movement.

      At first it seemed as though the two girls had to be moving the glass themselves, because how else could it slide around like that? But the more questions that were asked the quicker the response seemed to be, and at times the girls were barely able to even keep their fingers connected to the glass because it was moving around the board so fast, spelling out the responses.

      The answers to the questions were very innocent at first. But after a while the tone (maybe intent is a better word to use) seemed to change, and the answers became nasty and sounded angry.

      One of our friends couldn’t be there that night because she had to work a very early shift at work the next morning so she was at home in bed. Nevertheless, after a few more minutes, no matter what questions were asked, the message kept only spelling out that our friend wasn’t there with us that night. We all thought it was strange that it kept doing that but didn’t worry about it too much at first. But then it started spelling out how our friend was soon going to be murdered. It gave the exact time, day, and month this would happen and described it graphically.

      I got angry and told the two girls that they shouldn’t even joke about something horrible like that. They insisted they weren’t doing it, and one got up and asked if I wanted to try it for myself to see that the glass really was moving on its own.

      By that point I was getting a little nervous of the board and really didn’t want to get too close to it, but I didn’t want those kinds of messages to continue and really thought once I had my fingers on the glass I would make that stop.

      When I put my fingers on the glass I was barely touching it, and I could see the other girl was just lightly resting her fingers against it too. But no sooner had I sat down and touched the glass than it began to slide quickly around the board spelling out more gruesome messages. I knew I wasn’t making it do that, and I could tell the other girl wasn’t either because she even had a hard time keeping her fingers on the glass at all because it was moving so quickly.

      We got so scared from the messages it was spelling out about our friend that someone telephoned her to see if she was all right. (I’m sure she didn’t appreciate having us wake up her that late, when she was asleep.)

      When we all expressed how relieved we were that she was safe and sound at home the board again spelled out the specific time and date this murder was predicted to occur in the near future. It was so scary.

      The glass then tipped over again by itself. When we put it back in place the other girl using the board asked if anyone else was there who wanted to talk to us.

      This time the glass began to spell out words in a much more gentle and slower manner.