Grandma's Perfume
When I was about 14my cousin Kim & her family moved to the same town that Ilived in. They bought a big,old house with the intention ofrenovating it. Kim & I were very close in age so I spent alot of time at their house. One day Kim & I were alone in thehouse. We were in the kitchen cleaning strawberries when westarted to hear a rattling noise. At first we didn't pay muchattention to it, but then it became much louder. We turned aroundto see where the noise was coming from & freaked!! On theopposite side of the room from where we were standing cleaningthe strawberries was the laundry room. The rattling noise we werehearing was the laundry room door & doorknob shaking likesomeone was trying to get out of the laundyroom. Now, you have toremember that we were completely alone in the house and no onecould have gotten in without us knowing because both of the doorsto the house were locked. Kim & I took one look at therattling door & we both took off screaming and yelling out ofthe front door of the house. Since the door was locked & wewere so scared it took us a few minutes to get out. Since Icouldn't get the door open fast enough for Kim she was pushing me& she left a big red hand print on the back of my shirt fromthe strawberries she was still holding in her hand. When wefinally got out we would not go back in and we waited out on thesidewalk for 1 1/2 hours until the rest of her family got home.When we told them what happened my aunt looked at us a littlestrangly and the rest of them pretty much thought we were nuts.
We were kids & pretty busy like most kids are with all of ouractivities so we pretty much forgot about the "strawberryincident". A few weeks later I was again staying at Kim'shouse. Kim & I were once again alone in the house because therest of her family had gone out of town to do some shopping. Wehad locked both doors again. We got a little bored so we decidedto surprise my aunt by cleaning up the house for her. Westraightened up the downstairs of the house by doing dishes,dusting, vaccuming,etc., and then we made our way upstairs tostart cleaning. We had only been upstairs about 5 minutes when wesuddenly heard a very loud noise coming from downstairs. We werescared but decided to go see what was going on. By the time wegot partway down the stairs we realized that the loud noise wewere hearing was the t.v.--which had NOT been on when we wentupstairs. We ran into the living room to turn off the t.v. (whichwas turned on with the volume just about all the way up). Wecouldn't figure what was going on, but thought that maybeeveryone had gotten home early & somehow gotten into thehouse without us knowing about it and were trying to scare usbecause of the "strawberry incident". We checked bothdoors & they were both still locked from the inside. Wethought that maybe somehow the t.v. had malfunctioned &turned itself on (don't ask me how this could have happened--wewere scared & were looking for any explanation)!! Then wenoticed that there were other things that were not right. We hadjust completely cleaned the downstairs, but you couldn't tell itthe way things looked! Two of the pictures that were supposed tobe on the fireplace mantle were now laying on the floor in themiddle of the room. All of the pillows from the couch &loveseat were also on the floor. The weirdest thing we found wasa spoon that was next to the couch--it was covered with somesticky red substance. When we checked the other rooms we foundKleenex thrown all over the bathroom & the garbage dumped onthe floor of the kitchen. You cannot imagine how scared we were!!Once again we ran outside & waited until my aunt and the restof the family got home. After they got home & saw what hadhappened they started accusing us of setting it all up--everyoneexcept my aunt that is. She looked as scared as we were!! Wheneveryone else went to do whatever they had to do my aunt calledKim & I into her bedroom and told us to close the door. Shesaid that she had something to tell us but that we couldn't tellmy uncle or my other 2 cousins because she didn't want to worrythem. She thought she could tell us because we had already hadstrange thing happen to us. She told us that from the first daythey had moved into the house she had had weird things happen toher. She would be in a room somewhere in the house when all of asudden the air around her would get really cold & dampfeeling and then she would smell White Shoulders (a perfume)really strong around her. She said that no one in the house woreWhite Shoulders, but she knew what it smelled like because hergrandmother had always wore it all of her life. Her grandmotherwas now dead! My aunt said that other strange things had happenedalso. Every Thursday night at about 11 p.m. she would hearfootsteps going up the stairs to the second floor. She said theyseemed to stop at each bedroom doorway for a few seconds and thenthey would go back downstairs again. She had tried walking up thestairs & stopping in front of every door too just to see whatit would sound like and that all of the squeaks on the steps andthe hallway upstairs matched with the ones she made when shetried it herself. Another thing that had happened to her was thatshe was cleaning the kitchen one day & when she finished inthere she went into the bathroom to clean up. While she was inthe bathroom she heard a crash in the kitchen and when she ran tosee what it was she saw a hand mirror that she had just put awayin the bathroom broken on the kitchen floor below the sink!! Shesaid that she had had a lot of other weird things happen too, butthat she wasn't really afraid of them anymore because she thoughtit was her grandma letting her know that she was alright and thatshe was watching over them. She thought this was so because ofthe strong smell of White Shoulders that she had always worn.
Eventually everyone that lived in that house experiencedsomething unexplained, but they just got used to it. They eventalked to the ghost and they never felt threatened once the shockwore off. They lived in the house for a number of years &every Thursday night they would hear the footsteps going up thestairs. My aunt said she thought that it was grandma checking tomake sure they were all fine & snug in their beds. After theymoved out of that house I ofter wondered if the new ownersexperienced anything strange, but if it really was grandma likemy aunt thought, once they moved out of the house grandmaprobably moved on too!!