Tags
ghost stories, ghosts, glass shattered, Haunted houses, heavy sleeper, Historic houses, light sleeper, noises in the night, real ghost stories
This isn’t my normal blog, so forgive any typos or grammatical errors. I don’t have time to edit. I just want to tell you a quick little story. A ghost story. A real ghost story.
We live in a beautiful, historic house and I love it. It’s got character and more than a few strange quirks…like doors that don’t stay shut, blinds that flutter for no reason and lights that come on downstairs after we go to bed. Once, our bedroom lights turned on at 1:15 in the morning. It woke us up. The lights stayed on for a moment, flickered, turned off, turned on again and then remained off.
Now, I’m a very light sleeper. If the kids get up to use the bathroom, I wake up. If the dog starts chewing a bone in her crate, I wake up. If Gerald gets up to get a drink of water, I wake up. Trust me. I hear everything.
We’d been in bed for a couple of hours when Gerald bolted upright and woke me from a dead-sleep. When something jolts me awake, I am completely and immediately wide-awake and alert.
“Who’s there? Who’s there?” Gerald asked.
I immediately thought one of the kids must’ve come into the room and instantly went into mommy-mode. I thought, “Someone must be sick.” But, before I moved, Gerald said even more emphatically, “Who’s there?!”
At that point, I remembered we’d closed and locked our bedroom door, so I knew it was not one of the boys. Before I could remind him the door was locked, he shouts, “What the hell? Answer me!” He switched on the bedside lamp.
“Gerald! What’s wrong?”
“Someone was here.”
“No one was here.”
“Yes, there was!”
“No. You were dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
“I am not dreaming. Someone was just…walking around in here. Walked in front of the bed a couple of times. You didn’t hear footsteps?”
“What? No. You’re dreaming. I would’ve heard footsteps. I hear everything.”
“I was not dreaming. Someone was here. Someone walked back and forth in front of the bed.
“The door is locked, Gerald. No one was in here.” His eyes grew wide; he realized how weird everything had just become. He cleared his throat and tried to act normal. “Umm…I guess…maybe I was dreaming.”
I was totally freaked out, but I convinced myself if there had been any noise whatsoever, I would’ve heard it since I am such an ultra-light sleeper. He had to have been dreaming.
Eventually we went back to sleep.
An hour later, I jumped up and threw back the covers. A jolt of adrenaline shocked my system like a bolt of lightning. “What the hell was that?”
Gerald sat up next to me and groggily asked, “What’s happening?”
“Didn’t you hear that? Something just shattered.”
He switched on the light again and we looked around the room. Nothing was wrong. Nothing had moved or fallen. Door was still closed and locked.
“I didn’t hear anything, Kristine. Now you were dreaming.”
“How could you not hear that? Something shattered in this room.”
“Everything is fine, Kristine. You’re just scaring yourself.”
“No, I’m not. I heard it. I swear. It was real.”
“You had to be dreaming. Let’s just go back to sleep.”
“Okay. Fine.” Maybe I dreamt the noise.
Except—
After my shower the next morning, I sat down at the vanity table in my bedroom to put on my make-up. The one-inch-thick custom-made glass that covered the antique vanity table had been broken. Not just cracked —half of it had been shattered into several pieces. If you have had those glass protectors made for your furniture, you know they are extremely thick and durable. This particular glass protector made it through four moves across country without a scratch–it’s that sturdy.
After Gerald came home from work that evening, I asked him, “So…still think you heard someone walking in front of our bed?”
My fearless warrior, super-confident, not-afraid-of-that-kind-of-thing, doesn’t-believe-in-any-of-that-stuff, husband mumbled, “Well…I heard something.”
“Yeah? Like what? Still think it sounded like someone walking in our room?”
He wouldn’t even make eye contact with me. He just shook his head indicating he didn’t want to talk about it.
So, naturally, I kept talking about it.
“Well, come take a look at the vanity.”
He stared at it, his brow wrinkled. He scratched his head.
“I told you I heard something shatter.”
“Wow.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Is it under the vent or something? Maybe it got too cold? Too hot?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right. A mighty blast of a heater set at 69 degrees can do that kind of damage. Admit it. That’s some scary stuff right there.”
He scoffed. “Probably had a chip in it we didn’t notice. House settled…”
“You know as well as I do, there was no chip in that glass yesterday.”
We still do not have any explanation for the events that transpired that night.
Below is a picture of the vanity top. I did not move the glass before I took this picture. The one piece on top of another is exactly like I found it. Not only was it broken…but the big piece ‘landed’ in that strange position.
If you can explain how this happened in the middle of the night–on the same night my husband swore someone was walking in front of our bed, I’d like to hear it. I’m sure he’d like to hear it, too.
