True Story Fit For Halloween

What follows is a small chapter of my life in the year of 1971.

The alarm went off at 5:30am. After shutting it off, I made my way to the half bath and then thru the front room on my way to the kitchen. Wait! The window blinds are rolled all the way up. I am exposing my naked body to anyone that might happen to walk or drive by. Hastily I pulled them down. I was sure I pulled them down before going to bed.

Thankful that very few people were out this early, I went on to the kitchen to fix breakfast. What happened here? The curtain rod over the small kitchen window was bent way down in the middle. It was not like that yesterday and I am the only person living here...............I think.....I hope. This is a bit weird...and kinda spooky. I straightened the rod, made breakfast and packed my lunch.

It was a big house I had contracted to paint in exchange for my living there for a while. Three stories high and had a basement too. A doctor had the house built during the electrification era and every room had a chandelier that half the lights were electric and the other half were operated by natural gas.

From the street sidewalk there was a wide set of steps. Six of them as I remember. Then a wide walkway passing between two stone lions before six more steps up to the front porch. The porch was the same width as the house and eight feet from the front edge back to the front door. That first door, a big one at 42 inches wide, led into a vestibule with two more doors, one to the left entered what had been the doctors waiting room, half bath, and exam room. The other door opened into a hallway with a set of pocket doors opening into the living room on the right, just beyond that was a regular door opening into the dining room, and at the back of the hallway was steps leading to the upper floors.

The painting was finished except for some trim and the weather had turned cold as October often does here. It was drizzling rain as I returned home late. When I put the key in the door, there was suddenly a cat running from the living room, back the hallway and into the dining room. A solid black cat. I followed it into the dining room and closed the door. Don’t want a cat in the house. I’ll throw it out. But I could not find it! I saw it go into the dining room and I have closed the door so it cannot get back out. From here it could go thru the pantry and into the kitchen and even into the servants stairwell but the servants stairwell is closed at the top. So where is that cat? After a half hour or so I gave up looking for it. This scenario would repeat itself many times. As did the curtains, curtain rods, and window blinds phenomenon.

When I told the owners of the house what was going on, they told me that their grandmother had kept a cat but nobody knew where the cat had gone. Their grandmother had died in this house. Did I mention the small rug by the door to the basement? I was beginning to notice that rug was sometimes a little damp. Come to find out that the grandmother had kept the cat litter box on the landing at the top of the basement stairs. I was keeping that door closed now that the weather was chilly.

In fact I had closed all the windows sometime in late September and in October I had begun keeping some interior doors closed to selectively heat only rooms that I was actually using. It is now late in November. At least eight weeks since I closed windows and doors. No normal cat could survive without food or water for that long. But....there is BLACK SPOOK running down the hallway yet again. And......once again disappearing into ..... what, ... thin air?

The next morning the blinds are again up....I know beyond any doubt they were down when I retired for the night. Not only are the blinds up but the sheer curtains have been pulled down. One of the curtain rods has even been pulled off the wall. I am not one to believe in superstition and/or supernatural things but I am now officially spooked. I don’t know what or who this spirit is or if it is just feline or maybe feline and master. Although it/they have not harmed me yet, I am getting a strong feeling that my presence here is not being accepted. In fact, I am beginning to believe it is desired that I leave immediately and never return.

It spoke to me one morning when I was fixing breakfast. Then I knew! That night when I returned from work, I opened the outside door of the servants stairwell and ran that spirit out. No more curtains were torn and all was again quiet and secure.

Bigwolf