Haunted Too. Dorah L. Williams

He had died several years previously.

      The words being spelled out over and over were: “Stop using this now … it is not a game … stop using this now … it is not a game …”

      There was some giggling in the crowd, and the glass began to move quicker and with more force as though in response to the laughter, and repeated the message: “Stop using this right now … it is not a game …”

      The two of us using the board decided that was good advice, and not only did we not want to use it anymore, we didn’t even want to keep it in our house. So we put it into a big paper bag and went together to the side of the townhouse complex where there was a large, empty Dumpster. We threw the bag into the garbage and ran back into the house, relieved to be rid of it.

      The next morning my roommate yelled to me to come quickly, and I ran downstairs to see what was wrong. I looked outside and could see the bag was now back at our front door. My friend thought the board had crawled back to us!

      It had been a windy night, and obviously the bag had just been blown out of the Dumpster and landed back at our front door. But after looking into the Dumpster and then around the property we never could find the board again, so we weren’t sure whatever happened to it. We all had a good laugh at our friend thinking it had “crawled back,” though, and teased her about watching too many horror movies.

      But, regardless of whatever happened to that Ouija board, I will always remember that experience. Our friend is still alive and well, and the gruesome prediction of her murder proved false when the date the board had spelled out came and went without incident, thank goodness.

      I really think Ouija boards can be sinister. If my cousins didn’t purposefully spell out that message about my death just to scare me, and I am sure they did not, then why would it spell out a thing like that? I don’t know what it is that makes those things actually work the way they do, but if it is spirits communicating, it makes me wonder what kind of evil spirit would want to frighten a twelve-year-old like that. And obviously that message about our friend’s murder was spelled out just to terrify us too, which it certainly did.

      Out-of-Body Experiences

      My experiences aren’t about being haunted, but are about a spirit. My own, and how it has left my body twice during near-death experiences.

      I grew up in a very large family, and am the third youngest of ten. My father died when I was only five.

      Not long after his death I got measles. I had pneumonia too, and was very sick.

      I was lying on the chesterfield downstairs in the living room, feeling so ill and scared, because I saw how frightened my mother was when the doctor examined me and then asked her to step into the hallway with him to talk. I could hear her crying, and I remember closing my eyes and starting to cry too.

      Suddenly I felt completely better in every way. I opened my eyes in relief, but immediately realized that something very astonishing was happening. I was floating up at the ceiling and looking down at myself still lying on the chesterfield below. I wasn’t frightened being up so high, although I have been terrified of heights all my life. I stared down at myself, thinking how small and sad I looked, when I heard my mother crying again out in the hallway with the doctor. As soon as I heard her, I wanted to be with her, and as soon as I thought that, I was then immediately in the hallway with her, still floating up at the ceiling, but now looking down at my mother and the doctor where they stood by the front door.

      He kept saying to keep me as comfortable as possible, and that he was very sorry. I knew he was trying to comfort my mother, and I knew it was because she was so sad about me. But I felt so good now, and I wanted her to know I wasn’t sick anymore.

      As soon as I thought that, I was back in my body, lying on the chesterfield, and then feeling so badly again.

      But my fever broke, and my mother said it was a miracle that I survived. I was told it must have been a dream when I tried to explain about floating out of my body the way I had. But when I was able to tell my mother, verbatim, what she and the doctor had said to each other, she realized I could have only known that if I’d been in the hallway with them because they spoke in whispered tones of my serious illness, and it would have been impossible for me to have known exactly what was said from where I lay in the other room behind closed doors.

      I know my spirit briefly left my body as I had that near-death experience.

      Many years later when I was married and had just had my third baby, the delivery was very difficult and I had almost not survived it. When I was finally out of the hospital and back at home recuperating, but still bedridden, my mother was staying with us, caring for the two older children and the new baby.

      One day, as I lay in bed, I started to feel very strange. I called out, but no one came, and I realized I was alone in the house, and I was sure I was dying and wanted my mother with me.

      The shades were pulled down in the room so it had been dark, but suddenly it was almost blindingly bright, and at first I wondered what happened to the wall in my bedroom because now I was looking right into the backyard. But then I realized I was actually outside myself, and no longer in my bed. And, again, I was floating.

      It was a gorgeous sunny day, and I could see my two older children playing on the swing set in the yard, the baby was in his carriage, and my mother was leaning on the fence as she talked to our next door neighbour.

      And, as with my mother and the doctor when I was young, I could hear their entire conversation about how worried everyone was that I was still so weak. But I felt incredible, not sick at all anymore. And just as I was feeling so lucky to feel so well again, I was suddenly back in my body, in bed, in that darkened room. And I quickly recovered after that.

      Definitely Not Welcomed

      We lived in a haunted house for over ten years, and for the most part it was easy to coexist with the ghost. Knocking on walls and the smell of freshly baked bread were the most common occurrences. Sometimes our shoes would go missing for days and then show up again right at the door where they’d been last seen. Our dog would get very agitated and often stare at something near the ceiling and whine. But all in all it was never anything too unusual, and never threatening in any way.

      Then came the night of our daughter’s first date. When she invited Stan into our home, we all met him and thought he seemed like a nice kid. As she led him down the hallway and into the family room at the back of the house I could hear a series of loud crashes and went to see what was going on.

      By the time I got to the family room too, I saw what had caused all that racket. A family portrait (of ancestors from over a hundred years ago) had somehow flown down the hallway and smashed on the floor right where Stan was standing in the doorway of the family room. And another very old picture (of a great-uncle from that same family as in the other portrait), in a very heavy brass frame, had smashed on the wall right beside the boy’s head as he started to enter the room. This photo had been on the windowsill on the opposite side of the room. No one had been anywhere near either of these photos.

      I only heard the noise, but my daughter and her date saw them actually flying through the air right at him. My daughter was shaking, but poor Stan was too shocked to even move.

      After cleaning up the glass from the shattered frames, I reassured the kids it was just a freak accident and not to worry about it (but wasn’t so reassured myself).

      They dated for several months, and the longer we knew him the more we all started to realize Stan was not such a nice kid as we had once thought. He was a good actor, though, and it took a while before his true character was known. But the moment he walked into our house, something or someone was very protective of our daughter, or just hated him, and definitely didn’t want him there.

      I don’t think there was a time during the length of their relationship that something didn’t hit or trip him while he