Episode Four

A Paranormal Pact

With the re-occurrences of the little blond girl in some of the encounters being relayed to me, I questioned the history of the house and asked if there was anything known about any children or any significant events that may have occurred; something that would act as an answer to the many questions concerning the ongoing paranormal events that went on there. One day while Ray was out trimming hedge at his Biscayne property, he finally got a possible answer t one of the mysteries of the house. Ray saw his neighbour, a long-time fixture in the neighbourhood and decided on a whim to as him if he knew of any blonde girls who may have once lived in his house. Turned out, one of the first families to have lived there did in fact include a blond girl who had died at only four years old. If the elderly neighbour knew the cause of the girl’s death, he wasn’t sharing it.

When the time came for Kim to sell the house, she sold it to her best friend. Knowing about the haunted history of the house, Kim’s friend thought it was in her best interest to have the house blessed by a priest before moving in, and as far as Ray and his sisters know, nothing out of the ordinary has happened in the house since.

Even though Kim’s best friend has since moved out, the house still maintains a certain hold on Ray and his sisters because, quite literally, it’s in their blood. The current owners, who once rented it from Kim when she and her husband owned it, was the sister of Kim’s ex-husband.

To follow the general genealogy of the homeowners it would look something like this: First, it was owned by Ray’s parents, then from them to Kim. After Kim the house went to Kim’s best friend and then to Kim’s ex-husband and sister-in-law. It would seem, at least to an outsider like me, the house and Ray’s family may have held an unspoken pact with one another. Certainly, the bond was the strongest with Ray’s family since the only other people who had lived there was a Pakistani couple, staying only two years after purchasing the house from the original owners.

Passing On

I got the impression Ray and his sisters didn’t often talk of their encounters with everybody, let alone with people they just met. As the fire danced behind us in the small pit, the warm night breeze carried their voices with tones of excitement and mysticism as they stood telling their incredible tales. When Kim and Kathy, in particular, spoke, I got the impression they were just as fascinated by what they had to say as I was to hear it. They took their paranormal experiences in stride as though it were a wondrous gift rather then a hindering curse.

I asked them why they thought their family has had as many strange encounters as it has. All they could do was shrug their shoulders and assume some people just happened to be more sensitive to the spirit world than others. I asked if they thought their sensitivity to such things was rare or if others like them simply chose not to share their experiences out of fear or embarrassment. My new friends were confidant the world is full of people who have strange stories of their own to tell but, out of fear for how others would react, they keep such stories private and locked away in the dark storage of their memory vault.

Deciding that we had secluded ourselves long enough from the rest of the group that sat around the fire pit, (and I was pretty sure I had only heard a small portion of the things they had to tell) we shuffled back to the fire to sit and talk of non-ghost related topics.

As we talked and joked, I considered how sitting around the fire suddenly felt a bit different. For me at least, campfires weren’t so much a place to sit and keep warm, cook a few marshmallows, or ward off some pesky insects. They had evolved into an eerie atmosphere perfect for telling tales of the past and of the supernatural. Within the ring of our peers, as we consumed the heat and security provided to us by nature, the fire has the power to ignite and infuse within us a blazing bond that cannot be easily undone.

It’s with these final words I encourage you, fellow readers and story tellers alike, the next time you’re enjoying a campfire with good friends or family, don’t be afraid to ask if anyone has had a haunted experience or two to share. You may be surprised to learn what stories they have to tell, or perhaps you have a few yourself about unexplained bumps in the night or of long dead children sitting upon your bed who demand more questions than they’ll ever answer.

**A special thank you to Ray and his sisters Kathy and Kim for being such giving story tellers.

An extra special thanks goes out to Ray for providing family pictures of the house in Ireland and for all his time spent on the phone talking with me about ghosts and life.**