The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story (5 page)

five

The next morning, Tony left for work about 6:45. Around 8:00 a.m., Taylor, Karen, and I woke up. We puttered around upstairs, getting ready for the day, and didn’t see anything amiss. We talked about how foolish we had been the night before and laughed about how ridiculous we’d acted. It was embarrassing to think about how we had run around in such a panic.

Karen got dressed and went downstairs to pack the rest of her things for the flight home. After the activities of the previous night, I was rather shocked when she went downstairs alone, but since she had an early flight back to Buffalo, it left us very little time to get out the door and be on our way. Our experiences from the night before seemed like a distant dream. Daylight is an amazing boost for bravery.

Since she had forgotten to turn on the video camera, Karen felt confident nothing had been recorded. She began to pack up the recorder without reviewing the tape. Just as she was about to dismantle it, she noticed that the viewfinder had been pulled into an upright position. Although this was not the position she had left it in, she thought maybe Tony had played with it before leaving for work and didn’t give it much thought.

Curious to see if he had recorded anything, she put her eye to the viewfinder. She was puzzled by her immediate ability to see a portion of the room she was in. She knew that when you could see through the viewfinder, it meant that the camera was in an energy saving stand-by mode that lasted only a few minutes before the camera shut itself off. In other words, someone or something had interacted with the camera only a few minutes before she’d peered into the viewfinder. Thinking the camera had possibly malfunctioned, and not wanting to draw unwarranted conclusions, she packed it up without saying a word.

En route to the airport, Karen pulled out the camera to film some interesting sights. Kansas and Missouri had had so much rain prior to her arrival that it flooded our whole area, including much of the road to the airport. While filming, she told me what she had noted before leaving the house. During the drive, we tested the automatic shutoff. It seemed to work perfectly, taking the normal three minutes to shut down. We did the math—Tony had left for work more than an hour before Karen or I got up, which meant he couldn’t have caused the camera’s “ready” mode. When I asked Tony about it later, he said he hadn’t touched the camera.

Although we talked as we drove the rest of the way to the airport, we avoided any talk of ghosts. As Karen started to board her plane, I said with pleading eyes and voice, “Hope you had a good time.” We both laughed as she responded, “It sure turned out to be an interesting visit!” The sound of her laughter and the happy look on her face assured me that she had enjoyed herself despite the last twenty-four hours of hair-raising experiences.

On the long drive home my mind wandered over the many odd things that had happened during Karen’s last night. Before I knew it I was parking the car in front of our house. I really didn’t feel nervous or scared as I opened up the front door. I was, however, anxious to see if anything would happen while I was there alone. I decided to make every effort to go about my normal activities as naturally as possible.

As I walked through the house, I could feel my muscles tighten with each step. I scrutinized each room, trying to note where and how various items were placed. I felt like a soldier walking around in an unfamiliar jungle: eyes focused forward, neck stiff, and mind acutely tuned to my surroundings. I paid especially close attention to what I could see in my peripheral vision.

Although I was quite eager for something to happen, I was also very apprehensive. I had always hoped for the experience of turning around to suddenly see a ghostly figure standing or floating behind me, unable to make itself disappear before I caught sight of it. But now that it was actually a possibility, I wasn’t sure how I would react. Would I be able to handle it calmly or would I jump out of my skin?

As the hours went by with nothing ghost-like happening, I began to suspect that ghosts were active only during darkness. The uneasy feelings and elevated stress diminished, and before long my sense of curiosity began to surface. The events of the previous night seemed like a movie, something that hadn’t really happened. To validate that we really did have paranormal activity, I needed to experience it again. Feeling much calmer, more collected and clear-headed than the night before, I began to think about how much I had wanted such an experience. The opportunity to experiment with spirit communication was at my finger tips, and I was actually getting excited about it.

Tony was often late getting home from work because he’d stop at his parents’ house for a visit. On this day, however, he was unusually late and I began to worry. Had the events of the previous night gotten to him? Had he decided not to come home at all? When he finally he showed up, he was barely into the living room before he began telling me what his mother had just told him.

After Tony’s phone call to her the previous night, her curiosity had gotten the best of her. While I was taking Karen to the airport, Tony’s mother, whom I’ve always called “Mom,” contacted a long-time acquaintance who happened to be the mother of the house’s previous tenant. Mom had asked if the woman had ever experienced anything odd while living in the house. This woman volunteered to call her daughter who was currently living in another state. Later in the day, the woman returned Mom’s call with some interesting information.

Her daughter reported that she would often smell something odd or foul in the house. She also said that her young son had slept in the corner bedroom, now the nursery. She went on to say that she was always picking up his toys and reprimanding him for not putting them away. The boy would often retort, “But, Mama, I didn’t play with those toys.” The mother had always chalked it up to the typical fibs of a child not wanting to be responsible for picking up his toys.

She added that her daughter had had the bedroom with the walk-in closet. She hadn’t remembered anything strange about the room, with one exception. She remembered her little girl had not only grown attached to an imaginary playmate named Sallie, but would entertain herself for hours playing with her in the closet. Remarkably, the little girl had not spoken of Sallie since moving away.

We found the information quite interesting. “Perhaps we have a little girl ghost by the name of Sallie?” I wondered out loud. We both just looked at each other, silently wondering if this was a possibility.

Tony’s brother Larry called. His boss, Annie, had called her sister Barbara and briefly relayed our experiences. Barbara, without having met or talked to us, said she felt we had the spirit of an young girl between five and thirteen years old. She also felt the little spirit not only liked the house and felt comfortable there, but was protecting a baby.

Barbara also explained that the movement of the stuffed animals was probably this little spirit playing with them as if they were her own toys. Barbara had asked Annie whether or not our baby could see this spirit. Even through Annie did not know much about the situation and couldn’t answer the question, Barbara had felt confident that Taylor probably could. She had explained to Annie that controlled testing using infrared cameras has shown that young children can see spirits whereas adults—even those sitting right next to the children—cannot. Annie couldn’t answer the next question Barbara had asked either: “Has the baby been waking up a lot during the night?”

The idea that Barbara had known to ask this question indicated she had been able to focus on what had been taking place in our home and she was trying to verify what her psychic abilities had been picking up. As a new mom uncertain of my motherly instincts, I had often blamed myself concerning Taylor’s night time sleeping habits; I just knew I must be doing something wrong. Not wanting others to think of me as a failure or a bad mother incapable of taking care of Taylor, I had told no one of the baby’s sleeping trouble except my sister. For Barbara to have hit on such a major issue from as far away as California, not to mention by way of a fourth party, was truly astonishing—and it eased the thoughts that it had somehow been my fault.

I held the phone tightly to my ear, listening to the information Barbara had provided. While doing so, I began to draw even more parallels. For instance, I found it uncanny that Barbara had described our spirit as a young girl, the same conclusion I had come to. The idea that she believed the spirit was “playing” with the stuffed animals again paralleled my thoughts. “It’s okay, you can play now,” I’d said in the nursery.

Barbara suggested we tell the ghost that although she was welcome to stay with us, she would have to behave; she could play with the toys, but she had to put them back when she was done. We were also instructed to make it clear that this was our house and if she wanted to stay with us, she would have to follow our rules.

Larry said Barbara would welcome a phone call from us and I wrote down the number. Just before ending the conversation, Larry told me the most bone-chilling thing I had ever heard: Barbara had casually mentioned a name which was persistent and overwhelming in her mind. The name was Sallie. I managed to say good-bye before hanging up the phone, but my heart had momentarily stopped as I felt the weight of what that name meant. The imaginary friend named Sallie, which the previous tenant’s daughter had played with, was actually a ghost.

I took a couple of deep breaths to calm my thumping heart. Seeing the worry on Tony’s face, I recapped everything Larry had told me. Afterward, we fell silent. We were dazed by the information that his mother and Barbara just revealed to us.

The probability that we had a ghost had just increased greatly. It was like finding out that the adoption went through and there was a new baby waiting for you. Now how would we deal with it? To be perfectly honest, denial would have been a lot easier. I still wasn’t sure I was ready to accept the existence of a ghost in our home; I knew Tony wasn’t.

I brought up what I felt were obvious concerns and questions. How will we communicate with her? How old is she? When is her birthday? Had she ever lived in the house? Did she die in the house? Why had she chosen to make herself known while my sister was visiting? Was night her only active time? Most importantly, was the baby in any danger ?

We found ourselves wondering about Taylor seeing Sallie. Did she scare him with her antics or did he like her gentle playfulness? This brought to mind Taylor’s disturbed sleeping patterns. Was Sallie responsible for this? When we first brought Taylor home, he slept the entire first day. As a result, he was up every hour through the night. We chalked it up to the fact that he was simply trying to make the adjustment from the womb and would soon realize daytime was for being awake and nighttime was for sleeping. Everything we had read had described this transitional phase and said that it would only last a few days. Taylor’s adjustment period was going on three weeks long.

During my sister’s visit, Taylor seemed to sleep just fine. Had Sallie decided not to wake the baby while he slept near my sister? Had Karen’s visit and her being a stranger in the house made Sallie uneasy? Still, the question of why she had been waking him in the first place kept coming back. Had Sallie just wanted to play with him, or was there a more important reason for her actions?

Before long, I found myself worrying about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and I wondered if our son had fallen victim to SIDS several times; perhaps Sallie’s waking him had actually been her way of reminding him to breathe. If this were true, we were greatly indebted to her. Of course, we had no way of knowing the answers to our questions and decided to move forward one day at a time.

Around 10:30 p.m., realizing we had talked through the entire evening, Tony and I decided to go to bed. Having just walked upstairs, Tony reached to turn out the hall light. His hand was on the light switch, but he hadn’t flipped it and I noticed his blank stare. He was absolutely motionless. I asked him what was wrong and with one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding expressions, he said, “Do you see anything odd?”