Gramma's House
I need to get asmany opinions as possible about something that happened two yearsago at my grandmother's house...
I have stayed there for most of my life and rarely lived with myparents, One summer, while housesitting there while my gandmotherwas in Italy, I decided to have my friend Beth spend a few weeksthere with me.
I have always had horrible nightmares while staying in the house,and my gandmother often screams in her sleep. Beth and I are bothvery sensitive to unusual occurrences, she sees hazy or ripplyoutlines of things, and I just tend to know if something is there( don't ask me how, because I don't know, all I have to say isthat it freaks my mother out that I can start and finish hersentences for her.)
Anyway, I had always had dreams about someone screaming andthrowing things in the library, which can be seen from my bedroomdoor. I was always frightened, but I had dealt with it for about18 years, and I was pretty used to it. Beth, however, wasn't.Around three in the morning, Beth screamed and jumped into bedwith me. Somehow, I knew she had seen something or was beingaffected in the same way. I had never told her about my dreams,but when she told me that she had had a horrible nightmare aboutsomeone screaming and throwing books around in the library, itwas far too familiar.
We walked through the house hand in hand, and there were placesin the house where it felt like we were walking though pools ofwarm water or oil. Whenever we passed them, it felt like someonehad slid a stick of margarine down our spines. Beth startedseeing "ripples" all over the house. I had never reallybelieved her, until we were sitting on the bed, and I watched hereyes follow something that wasn't there across the floor and themstop. She screamed her head off and started shaking. She told meshe had seen a kitten walk across the floor, sit down, anddissappear. This sounded really strange to me until I found outthat my father had had a kitten that matched its description whenhe was a child, and that it always sat on that spot on the floor.I hadn't thought about the kitten ( Who had died in the basementby drinking turpentine ) since I was about 10 years old. Beth hadno way of knowing about it.
So after I realized that, it seemed like it was possible thatwhatever else she saw could be real as well.
She saw things in the same places I seemed to sense them, so whoknows.
Finally we took a cross down off the wall ---another long story--- and held it between us. We let it lead us through the houseand found on old photo album and a portrait of my grandfather. Welooked through the photo album to try and find some sort of info,but found nothing.
Whatever it was seemed to feed off of fear or strong emotion,like anything we felt charged it up like a battery. We thoughtthat the whole thing could be some sort of " place memory" but we weren't sure.
Anyway, when we asked my father if he knew anything about it,after laughing at us for a good five minutes, he told me thatbefore my grandfather had died, he completely lost his mind tosenility. He would get lost in the house, most often in thelibrary, and scream and cry and throw things because he didn'tknow where he was.
Since we found the portrait, Beth and I are almost sure that it'sjust a really strong place memory, but we can't be sure. Anyinput would be helpful, as we've been trying to figure this thingout for three years now.