Hey witches! People like to call October the season of the witch. It’s ok but honestly I’m a witch every season! As are all of you. Still it’s fun and there’s something to be said for the thinning veil season. This is the time of year where so many cultures have collectively decided that those who have passed on can now visit the living more freely. Maybe it’s because of the dying season where everything starts it’s slumber for winter. It got me thinking about ghost stories and how everyone seems to have them and what better way to start October fun than sharing! So come sit around my bloggy campfire and let’s swap some ghost stories!

Old Lady and the Gate
When I was a kid, maybe 12 or so, we moved into a house that was big and old. The previous owners had passed away of illness in old age. I recall adults talking about them and I always felt there was an old woman there. I don’t know why or how but she just was. I could see her clearly in my mind. Short curly grey hair, sickly thin and very crotchety is how I saw her. The weird thing is I never saw her but to this day I remember her.

The house had some fairly dangerous non regulation stairs. They were off in height just enough to make tripping up or down the stairs a common thing. Anyone who’s lived in a really old house knows what I’m saying. We also had a lot of pets. Like I’m talking I can’t count how many cats but where did that one come from and a handful of medium to large dogs. When someone came to the door it was mayhem and if we were upstairs with some dogs the going down became infinitely more dangerous in the stampede. So my dad decided, after some close tumbles, that there should be a gate to keep the pack downstairs.

About a day after that locking gate went up we started finding it open. Was it a cat? A forgetful kid? I was walking past the gate and that damn thing ripped open and slammed against the wall so hard it bounced. I stood there trying to make sense of it and I honestly have no explanation. All I can think was that old lady was really mad about the gate.

Ghost Car
We moved again after a few years down a mile long camp road, or fire road as they call them, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere. There where a few of these fire roads, they used them to fill fire water trucks I was told, ours had a spot where it had once connected to a neighboring fire road. The connect was at a sharp bend in the road and it had been reclaimed by the woods to the point you could barely tell it had been a road at all. 

It was beautiful and peaceful and probably my favorite childhood home. The downside was that we had to hike a mile through the woods to get to the bus stop for school every morning. So I can honestly say, “When I was a kid I walked through three feet of snow in a blizzard to get to school!” Because I did.

Anyone who’s been in the woods in a snowstorm knows what that’s like. The silence that’s deafening, the occasional crack of a frozen branch, your white breath, the crunch of snow. While walking with my sister on such a morning silent and grumpy because we thought we had a snow day. We approached the bend with the over grown road and there was a Model T sitting there. At first I thought I was seeing things, everything was at that blue winter morning stage and it was snowing big heavy flakes. I kept my eyes on it and it didn’t go away. I started feeling unreal like I was in a dream, maybe this was someone about to abduct us? I kept walking as the anxiety grew. Just when I was about to turn tail it was just gone. I said, “Did you see that?” She said, “Yup.” And we didn’t talk about it again. Was it a ghost car? Who knows but definitely one of the weirdest things to ever happen to me.

The Russians at My Sister’s House
Where I live there are many very old giant houses. One of my sisters happens to live in one. There’ a lot of us. My family is witchy and my mother is a medium. We are into ghost hunting and my sister’s house is a convenient place to do it. Plus her husband makes us drinks, bonus! Our town was founded by Russian immigrants and we even have a Russian Orthodox Church complete with an onion dome. Those are the mushroomy, fairytale looking domes the Russians use on their towers. So it made sense that when we used a spirit box, we got Russian speaking voices. But dang how frustrating is that to get voices but have no idea what was being said!

So after I don’t know how many sessions getting the same thing my brilliant niece said, “Just use google translate.” She’s the smart one. So we set it all up and it worked. That deep Russian male voice we had heard so many times on whatever spirit box app we used was answering us. It was amazing. He said he built, or lived in the house with his family. All that time, he must have been as relieved as us. It was less scary and just such a cool breakthrough moment really.

Top Hat Guy
I was having a moment once when I was going through some tough life issues. I think I had just been to a job interview and had parked my car at the back of a parking lot overlooking a busy city road below. You know those moments where you just have to stop and collect yourself? So I’m kind of numbly watching the cars go by, not the kind of road people walk on and one that was created for horses not cars. Just almost not wide enough for the cars going both ways.

I noticed a lone walker. He was tall, slender and decked out in a tux complete with a top hat walking down the road about lunchtime past dirty old gas stations and repair shops. I remember it was really sunny and cold and everything seemed dirty and dusty but here was this dapper dude strolling along. He stuck out like a sore thumb and it was the strangest thing. I watched him walk down the road not looking around or reacting to the cars at all. He didn’t seem cold and the wind didn’t seem to blow on him. I got a call and looked down and up again and he was just gone. Goosebumps and chills, I left pretty quick. Was he a ghost? Was he residual energy? Was he just a weird guy? I’ll never know.

Dream Girl

I was young. I met a dashing older man at my place of employment (bad idea, I know) He was worldly and sweet. He bought me gifts and took me to fancy places, even a trip out of the country. I fell head over heels for this man.

He liked to cook me fancy meals and one day, while he was in the kitchen I fell asleep on his couch. He rented an old carriage house that overlooked the ocean. The view was spectacular.

As I was sleeping a young woman came up to me. I wasn’t afraid at all. She was very friendly and warm and seemed excited to talk to me. She was wearing a dress of around 1910 style, I actually looked it up after. She told me that she was getting married and then looked confused. She then said she drowned and didn’t get married but she was ok with it. Then she got really serious and close. She said that under the carriage house, in the boat launch, there was a lot of bad money. She said to be careful. I jumped awake and I had only dozed for about half an hour.

I have weird dreams so this is not anything new as weird as it might sound to you. I just kind of felt chilled but also kind of tickled. She was that sweet and it was just a dream, maybe? I distinctly remember the odd look on the face of my dashing older gentleman when I told him my dream. It was like confusion, suspicion, disbelief and then so fast it was joking and mirth. But that split second where he acted off was definitely there.

Long story short, this man was a con artist who was wanted by international police and was lying his way into “investing my savings for me.” He actually went to jail. Looking back I think my dream girl just might have been trying to warn me.

So these are a few, maybe not so terrifying, supernatural experiences I have had. I want to hear yours! Please!
Happy haunting!