It all started the day we moved into the big old house. The house was a beautiful house with 2 stories and rooms everywhere, not especially showy on the outside, except for the turret-looking part that faced the street. The natural paint and brown roof colors of it seemed to suit the neighborhood, quiet and peaceful, or so we thought. The first night we were there the noises started-creaking stairs, moaning and groaning, footsteps in the hallways and what felt like a cold wind would blow through the house even if the doors and windows were shut tight. The stairs and floors could be explained-it's an old house and old houses had creaks. The footsteps were a little harder to explain, as was the wind but my parents still dismissed them as nothing. They would never believe that the house would be haunted for they didn't believe in such things but a child such as I was would be more open to such as that. While I could believe that old houses had creaking stairs and floors the footsteps made me curious-what was making them if everyone was in bed? And what about the cold wind? Where did it come from and where was it going? I wanted to find out but what could a 10 year old girl do? I couldn't go anywhere without Mother or Father with me and they would never take me to the library to look up ghosts or any information that would suggest our house was haunted so what could I do? Then I had an idea. The house was old, perhaps there was still stuff stored somewhere in an unused section or in the attic. My parents wouldn't object to me exploring the house, it was all in sound shape so there was no danger of me hurting myself so I asked if it was ok. They gave their permission, figuring it would keep me out of their hair as they struggled to start up their home-based landscaping business. I was home-schooled so as soon as my lessons were over and I had done any schoolwork required of me I set off on my explorations Figuring I wouldn't find anything on the ground floor I went to the second level and went to some of the rooms in an unused wing. The first door I opened revealed an empty room with a musty smell as if it hadn't been set foot in for a long time. I went in anyway and searched around all the walls and in the closets just in case there might have been a secret wall or chamber (I watched a lot of ghost movies, much to my parent's chagrin and there were always secret chambers and walls in them) that hadn't been found. I didn't find anything but wasn't deterred either; I figured I wouldn't find anything in the first room I searched, though it would have been nice. I went into the next room and it was much like the first-musty and nearly empty except for a throw rug in the middle of the hardwood floor. I cautiously peeked under the rug to see if there was a trap door or something but all I found was some dust and dead bugs. Wrinkling my nose at the dead bugs I put the rug back the way I found it and felt my way around the walls and closets of this room, and the adjoining bathroom but found absolutely nothing. By this time it was getting late so I went back downstairs and washed up for supper was ready and I had come to realize that I was starving because I had not eaten anything since breakfast. I ate supper then spent the next hours before bed doing the homework that had been assigned to me by my tutor/babysitter then went upstairs and got my nightly bath and got ready for bed. My parents came in to say goodnight and asked if I had found anything interesting in my explorations of the unused part of the house and I said no, just a couple of empty rooms and a throw rug but that I would like to explore some more after my lessons the next day. They smiled and said it would be fine. I fell asleep thinking about which rooms I wanted to explore the next day and my dreams were filled with images of secret rooms and hallways yet undiscovered. The next afternoon after I had done all my schoolwork and chores I changed into some old jeans and a t-shirt and went back to the wing that I had been exploring before. The next room was in the round turret, as I had taken to calling it, and I pushed open the door. A cold breeze brushed softly across my face, startling me, for the window was closed and there were no fans of any kind that I could see. It was such a light touch that I wasn't even sure if it was a breeze or fingertips I felt. There went my overactive imagination again I said to myself, seeing and feeling things that probably weren't even there. I eased cautiously into the room anyway; if there was a ghost there I didn't want to unknowingly upset it. The room was almost empty except for a trunk over by the window and I walked carefully over to it, hoping if there was a ghost there that they were friendly and didn't mind me snooping. I lifted up on the lid, hoping it wasn't locked, and it wasn't. The lid creaked slowly up as if it hadn't been lifted in a long time and probably hadn't, judging by the amount of dust that coated it. The faint smell of cedar drifted up from the box when the lid came up and I peeked inside. "Wow." I said to myself. Inside the box were some old clothes that looked like they would fit a little girl about my age. There were dresses adorned in lace and other looked like they were maybe for every day. There was also a picture in the box that looked very old too and I carefully picked up the ornately framed thing out and carefully wiped the glass off with the end of my t-shirt. I sat staring at the little girl for just a moment; fascinated because she looked like she could be my twin except she had long black hair to her waist and I had short curly blonde hair. A chill ran down my spine as I sat there and stared at...me...was the only way I could put it, me with long black hair. I put the picture carefully aside where it wouldn't get accidentally broken and went back to rummaging in the chest. As I rummaged under the dresses I got a funny feeling, you know, the kind of feeling where the hair on the back of your neck stands up for no apparent reason? Almost as if I was being watched. I looked around but couldn't see anyone and there wasn't any place in the round room for anyone to hide, no closet or adjoining room or heavy curtains on the window for someone to hide behind. Putting that feeling off to my suddenly very overactive imagination I went back to the trunk and rummaged until I got to the bottom of the chest. I got a really funny feeling when I touched the bottom of the chest that I at first jerked my hand back. Then curiosity overcame my hesitation and I began removing the dresses from the chest and laying them neatly aside until the chest was empty. Why I was being so neat is really beyond me because usually I'm not a very neat person. This time I felt the need to keep everything neat and tidy so I did, although why is still beyond me. I went back to the empty chest and started feeling around the bottom of it. I wasn't sure why I did that but the feeling I got when I touched the bottom of the trunk was too great to ignore, it was as if something was telling me to look there, so I did. While running my hands around the edges of the bottom I came across a smoothness that felt funny, not like the rest of the bottom. I felt around it and was able to get a finger into a small groove not noticeable unless one was looking for it. A little tugging and a small section of the bottom came out and I peeked into the compartment that had been exposed. "Well, let's see, what have we here?" I whispered to myself, reaching into the compartment. I pulled out what looked like an old diary, old enough that the lock had rusted off. Fascinated, I put the book aside for now so I could put the clothes and picture back into the trunk. I put the top back on the compartment and could see why it was hard to see, it matched the rest of the bottom of the trunk almost perfectly, it wouldn't be easy to see even if one was looking for it. I folded the dresses back up and put them back into the trunk carefully so as not to wrinkle or tear them. I put the picture back between a couple of the dresses just as I had found it then closed the lid of the trunk. I put the diary into my backpack that I had brought along with me then stood and looked at the room again. Something about it pulled at me and I started wishing I could move into it instead of the room I was in. I wonder if mom and dad would let me, it would mean moving all my stuff from my room downstairs and that wouldn't be easy. I decided to think on it a day or so before making a final decision. Looking at my watch I saw it was already time for supper so I went back downstairs, washed up and went to eat. The next day I did all my chores and lessons then changed again and went to the second level to explore some more. I hadn't yet opened and read any of the diary, it just seemed a little too personal to read someone else's private thoughts. I kept it in my backpack instead so no one would find it, it just seemed the thing to do for some reason I hadn't yet figured out. When I got upstairs to the second level I was about to go into another room and search it when I got an overwhelming urge to go look in the attic; where this feeling came from I have not the slightest clue but it was strong enough that I went to the door that led up to the attic and opened it. There were stairs leading up to the attic that creaked and moaned as I went up but they were in basically sound shape so I wasn't worried about them giving way or anything, besides, I was only 10 years old, hardly big enough to make the stairs creak anyway. When I reached the top I found the attic to be kind of dark, with light filtering in through some small windows that gave the room a predawn appearance so I looked around and found a light switch and flicked it, hoping the light was working. The light came on, just a bare bulb on an electrical cord but at least I could see now, and what a sight I found-it was a whole bedroom ensemble with a 4-poster bed, matching dresser and some kind of cabinet on legs that I later learned was a highboy for hanging clothes in much like a closet. There was a larger trunk here that when opened revealed bed linens and blankets in shades of blue ranging from the very lightest to almost a navy in the multicolored comforter and the sheets were royal blue. I couldn't believe my parents didn't know any of this stuff was up here but then again they had been so busy they probably hadn't even set foot in the attic so it wasn't really all that hard to believe that this stuff had been here all along and undiscovered. I'm not even sure why the realtor didn't tell us about this stuff either, surely she would have known about stuff like this in the attic but I never heard anything about it. I planned on asking mom and dad that evening if the stuff could be moved back downstairs into the turret room and if I could move in there and just leave my stuff where it was at except for my clothes and toys of course. I put the lid back down on the trunk and went back downstairs to the turret room and looked around again. It was just the way I had left it, with the trunk still underneath the window and shut tight and nothing else. There was a bare wooden floor and the bathroom was just across the hall so I wouldn't have to go too far to use it and the highboy would be large enough to hang my clothes up in since I had very few that actually needed to be hung up, preferring to wear jeans and t-shirts most of the time so my dresses usually just hung there and did nothing. There also looked to be plenty of room in the bottom for my shoes, not that I had that many anyway. Looking at my watch I discovered it was again dinnertime so I went downstairs and washed up and after supper I approached my parents with the news of what I'd found in the attic and what I'd like to do and they said they would sleep on it and get back to me the next day. A week later I was in my new room sitting on the bed. Mom and dad had agreed to let me move in and while I was at lessons some men came by and began moving the stuff from the attic. After lessons, everything had been moved down and I went upstairs and had the men move the room around until I was satisfied with the way it looked. The bed was really comfortable and I was sitting there with the diary in my hand but still hadn't worked up the courage to read it. Just looking at the book made me want to open it and see what was in the mind of that other little girl, that is, I assumed the diary was hers since it was in the trunk with her picture in it. The trunk was still sitting by the window; I couldn't bring myself to move it so it just stayed where it was. I looked down at the diary in my hands then back up again and was almost scared off the bed when I saw her-the little girl in the picture-standing at the foot of the bed. I couldn't move or even make a sound, I was so startled, and she was just standing there looking at me as if she was trying to tell me something. The way she was dressed reminded me of some pictures my mom had showed me once, by someone named Norman Rockwell, she could have come off of any of his Saturday Evening Post covers. The only thing that seemed to be off was her color-she was very pale, as if she had never been outside a day in her life and she looked about as scared as I was feeling. I wanted to move closer to her but she looked like she would run at the slightest movement so I just sat there and we looked at each other for what seemed like a long time but was probably not more than a few moments, then she looked at the diary in my hands and back up at me. I know I probably got a guilty look on my face and felt it turning red but she just smiled and nodded then disappeared. I was astounded! One minute she was there and the next minute it was as if she had never been there. I scrambled to the end of the bed and looked over, but there was nothing there, she wasn't crouched down hiding, she was just gone. It was at that moment that I realized I had seen a ghost, the ghost of that little girl from the picture. I sat back in the bed, clutching the diary to my chest and thought about what had just taken place. I looked at the diary clutched to my chest then back at the spot where she had been standing. I occurred to me then that she had given me permission to read it by smiling and nodding at me before disappearing. The intercom by my bed bleeped, startling me out of my thoughts and I heard mom calling me down to supper. I replied that I would be right there then slid the diary under my pillow and straightened the covers before washing up and going downstairs to eat. I had already decided not to tell them about my encounter with Melissa because they would only think I was crazy, after all, they firmly believed there was no such things as ghosts and my telling them I had seen one would just earn me a trip to the psychiatrist, if not an asylum so I kept that information to myself. They didn't even know about the diary or they would probably have taken that away from me too and now that I had permission to read it I wasn't taking any chances. After supper I excused myself and went back to my room and pulled the diary back out from under my pillow. I sat back against the pillows I put behind my back and stared at the diary a moment before opening it and reading. By the time I looked at my bedside clock I was shocked. I had been reading for 3 solid hours. The book may have been small in size but it had a lot of pages in it and almost all of them were filled. I had been getting more and more disturbed the further I read and by the time I had finished-it just stopped abruptly one day-I wasn't sure what to think. The way it stopped was as if she had simply stopped writing one day and never picked it up again, no 'the end', goodbye, to be continued or anything, it just stopped. That disturbed me most, considering what I had been reading, it just stopping like that. I reached over to turn off my bedside lamp when I saw her again, standing at the foot of my bed. The lamp only lit the area around my bed but I could see her clearly and my hand stopped just before I pushed the button to turn off the light. She was standing there, just like before, like she wanted to say something but couldn't. I stayed where I was, I didn't want to frighten her away and just looked back at her. "Are you Melissa?" I finally asked? As she nodded I heard a knock on my door. It was my parents, come to check on me since I had been quiet for the better part of 3 hours. Melissa had disappeared again so I slipped the diary under my pillow and told my parents they could come in. After the made sure I was ok and getting ready for bed they bid me goodnight and left. I went across the hall and quickly got my bath, put my pajamas on and brushed my teeth so I could get back to my room in hopes of seeing if Melissa might reappear, she had looked like she was wanting to tell me something and my parents had interrupted her. She must have known somehow that my parents didn't believe in spirits of any kind since she disappeared when they appeared at my doorway so I hoped she would be back and that my parents wouldn't interrupt again. "Melissa?" I whispered as I went back into my room. She looked up from where she was sitting on the bed and smiled at me. I smiled back and climbed up into the bed and sat beside her. We sat there regarding each other for a brief moment before I spoke again. So far she hadn't spoken a word and I wondered if she was able to or not. Only one way to find out so I asked. "Can you speak?" I finally asked. She shook her head no. "I thought so." I said, smiling. "It's ok; I can talk enough for the both of us if I have to." I said, smiling and keeping my voice low so my parents wouldn't hear. I thanked goodness that the house had thick walls and doors, not the thin walls that most new houses had where you could hear every whisper no matter where you were. Melissa smiled when I said that it didn't matter that she couldn't talk and probably would have laughed if she could have when I said I could talk enough for us both. Then she got a sad look on her face when she looked at the diary I had pulled back out from under my pillow. I looked over at her uncertainly. "Something's bothering me." I said. "Can I ask you some things?" She looked at the diary then back up at me and slowly nodded. I thought carefully about what I wanted to ask, how to word it and I finally decided to just ask outright. "Your life sounds a lot like mine except you didn't like not being able to go outside and play, did you?" She nodded at the first part of my question and shook her head at the second part. "That's what I thought, that didn't bother me as much as what I read later on, but I'll get to that." I said. Apparently her mother kept her inside all the time, not letting her have anyone over, not that she had any friends since she wasn't allowed out to make any, and she had tutors come over to school her at home. Her mom's explanation was that she was highly allergic to almost everything although she didn't have anything to support her claims. Her servants kept the house spotless, there was never dust anywhere. "Were you that allergic to stuff?" I asked. Melissa shook her head then opened the diary to a part I hadn't got to yet. It told of how she had sneaked outside in the front yard and played for over an hour before her mother had found her and locked her in her room the rest of the day and warned her not to ever go outside again because her allergies could kill her. She wrote that she had felt no ill effects from being outside and had begun to doubt her mom's claims that she was allergic and was beginning to think that her mother just didn't want her going outside. Reading on, I discovered that Melissa had never known her father, he had been killed in an accident coming home from work when she was just a baby, at least that's what her mother had told her, all she knew was she had never seen her father except in wedding pictures. It wasn't long after she had snuck out that Melissa started getting sick. She had written in her diary that her mother had said 'I told you so' about her going out but Melissa still didn't believe her. She was beginning to get suspicious about the warm milk her mother would bring her every night to help her sleep and would make her drink it. Every time she drank the milk it wouldn't be long before she would start feeling sick and the symptoms I was reading about didn't match any allergic reactions that I knew about and that sounded totally suspicious to me. I got an idea and looked at her and smiled. I went over to where my computer had been setup and turned it on. She looked at it, fascinated and I explained as best I could what it was and what I was going to do. I went to Google and looked up poison and found a website. I looked through the site until I found the particular symptoms that Melissa had written about in her diary. If the site was right, Melissa had exhibited all the signs of strychnine poisoning, not allergies. The more on this I found out that it was the main ingredient in rat poison. "Did your mom keep rat poison around?" I asked, curious. Melissa thought for a second, and then nodded. "I think your mom fed you rat poison to keep you sick." I said and even got suspicious about her dad then, what if he didn't die in an accident like her mom had said? What if? I couldn't even think about what was forming in my active mind. About that time it started getting really cold in my room and I shivered, looking around. Melissa got a scared look on her face and hid behind me, pointing at the door. A woman stood there looking angry. "Melissa! You need to come with me right now!" The woman said, giving me another angry look. "She's not going anywhere with you!" I exclaimed, giving the woman an angry look of my own. "You killed her with rat poison, and I bet you killed her dad too!" Those words were out of my mouth before I could call them back and I just looked at the woman, seeing the truth in her eyes even before she spoke. "He was leaving me and taking Melissa too." She said. "I couldn't let him do that, she was mine and I wasn't letting another woman raise my baby!" Both of us looked at the woman, the madness evident in her eyes. The truth was starting to dawn on me-she poisoned Melissa's father and became so obsessed with keeping Melissa that she wouldn't let her go anywhere, telling her she had allergies whenever she questioned about it. "I had to do it, she was going to leave me, she called my sister trying to get her to come get her and I couldn't allow that." She rattled on, almost to herself. It dawned on me then what she had done, she had given Melissa a lethal dose of poison and then killed herself and had been keeping Melissa prisoner even in death. "You can't have her anymore." I finally said. "Melissa's my friend and I won't let you hurt her anymore." "You can't stop me!" She cried, starting toward us, but was stopped by someone else who appeared. He grabbed the woman, who began screaming in frustration. "She may not be able to stop you, but I can." He said, pulling her back to him. "It's time to go, and you're coming with me." "NOOOOOO!!" Screamed the woman as the two of them began to disappear. "Take care of Melissa." The man said, just before the two of them disappeared completely. The chill in the room left as abruptly as the two of them had and I looked at Melissa. "Was that your dad?" I asked and she nodded. "Well, since he left you here, you have a choice-you can go too or stay here and be my friend." I said, smiling at her. Her answer was to smile back and take my hand. We climbed in the bed and I went to sleep since it was very late by that time. "We've been friends ever since." The old woman said, smiling at the young girl sitting beside her on the big four poster bed. "Grandma, that was some story but do you really expect me to believe that you've been friends with a ghost practically all your life?" The 9 year old looked at her grandmother and wondered if she really did have dementia like everyone claimed or if she was just plain crazy. "Everyone knows that ghosts don't exist!" She finally said, although not too convincingly, she really wanted to believe that her beloved grandma was still of sound mind. "Child, I'm not crazy nor do I have dementia." The old woman said. "Neither did your grandfather, he helped me take care of Melissa and they all thought we were both crazy because only we could see her, she wouldn't appear to anyone who didn't believe. I can see you want to believe, you're just afraid to. Don't be afraid, Melissa just wants a friend and I won't be around to take care of her much longer and I want to make sure someone is there for her. She likes you, you know." "She does?" Heather asked. "How do you know that? Is she here right now?" At the old woman's nod at the other side of the bed she looked but didn't see anyone. All she saw was the old woman's upturned hand that looked like it was clasping something. She finally looked back. "I can't see her, why did you choose me to tell all this too? If she likes me so much why won't she show herself?" "I chose you because you're more like me than you think you are." She said. "Don't think I haven't seen you reading about ghosts and goblins. I've even seen where you've been surfing websites about the spirit world. I've been watching you for awhile now and I think it's time you embraced the fact that on one level you do believe. She won't show herself until she's convinced you do." "Ok, I have been reading up on it because it fascinates me. I find a lot of it hard to believe but after hearing your story I'm beginning to. You say her father left it up to her to stay or go?" At the old woman's nod she looked again where Melissa was supposed to be. She started to let go of the fears about the unknown and spoke again, this time to Melissa. "Melissa, I know my grandma isn't crazy so I know you're standing there holding her hand. She isn't going to be around much longer and I think you know that too so if you want I'll be your friend until you're ready to go." She waited, not looking away until she saw the little hand clasped in her grandma's hand. Little by little Melissa appeared until she stood there smiling at Heather and Heather smiled back. The old woman smiled at them both. "Now I can go in peace." She said. Two weeks later, after the funeral, Heather's family moved into the big old house. Her brother complained that he had wanted the turret room but his parents said that one condition of the will was that the turret room and everything in it went to Heather. Heather just smiled, and stood there holding Melissa's hand. Back to Index Background texture and banner image courtesy of: