Thursday, October 28, 2010

Boo-fest

Thanks to Quinn over at seeing, dreaming, writing and Patricia at Simplicity in Volumes for hosting!

In the spirit of Halloween the idea of this blogfest is to tell a ghost story....a true one. Mine is posted below. It's my own story.

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Most people’s recurrent dreams involve flying or forgetting their high school locker combination or showing up to work naked. Not me, I dream about houses. It never used to bother me all that much.

Until the day I found one of them.

One night I dreamed about a house. Primly white with neat landscaping it boasted a row of small square windows across the top floor. Inside nobody was home, but I had the guilty feeling that comes with trespassing. I snuck through the rooms, exploring, careful not to disturb anything. On the main floor I found an office, the walls paneled in dark wood.

Upstairs the back bedroom was papered in pink and white stripes, with a fireplace at one end. Another bedroom was painted mint green.

I woke the next morning and went about my life, not giving the dream another thought because it was just one of many similar dreams. Just another house.

Months later, nearly Christmas, I was shopping for a gift for my boyfriend. I planned to visit a store I’d never been to before. Navigating unfamiliar streets, I glanced to my left.

There was the house from my dream.

I drove another block and turned around, pulling into the driveway. It was abandoned, the paint peeling, the landscaping overgrown. Several of the square windows were broken and staring like hollow, brooding eyes. It had a presence. It was watching me. It knew I had finally come.

I went home and told my boyfriend the whole story and he went back to the house with me. We went inside together. I held his hand so tight I felt the bones crushing together under my fingers. The house wanted me. It had called me.

We explored the main floor – there was the wood-paneled office. Upstairs I told my boyfriend that the back bedroom would have a fireplace and pink and white striped wallpaper – and it did. Another bedroom was painted mint green.

The house was full of scattered debris, the detritus of a family long gone. On the floor in the living room, in a pile of old papers, we found a sepia photograph of a boy and girl holding hands, happy grins on their faces. It was taken in front of the house.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and goose bumps raged on my skin. Empty and alone, this house had reached out to me in my dreams. But now that I was here I didn’t know what it wanted. I didn’t want to stay and find out.

Some houses don’t need ghosts to haunt their halls. They have souls of their own. And often, these houses haunt my dreams.

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Hope you liked it! Happy Boo-fest and Happy Halloween!

btw, I'm still looking for volunteers to critique my query letter and synopsis. Anyone interested, e-mail me at maranash66(at)gmail(dot)com.

17 comments:

Meredith said...

Creepy!!! It sounds like that house has quite the personality.

Summer Ross said...

I've had house dreams. I found two of my houses in the same town I lived. There's only one house left to find and I'm not sure i want to. everyhouse has a death story for me. the first was a battle at the house- like guns and war, the second, was a battle in the family resulting in hurt people, the third- the one I haven't found- id ghosts of all the people that died in that house- they want revenge.

Michael Di Gesu said...

I still have chills running through my body. I have deja-vous all the time about places, knowing them before I've ever visited, but this is chilling. I never had a place call to me. I give you a lot of credit for going in. My first though was that the house wanted you to buy it, but on finishing it's something more.

Has this every happened to you other than that time?

Michael

Bast said...

Have you found any of the other houses you've dreamt of?

I'm really glad you could participate, Mara. I really enjoyed your story as it's an area that I actually have no experiece with.

Joanna St. James said...

wow really creepy maybe it wants u to buy it. but then u prolly wont be able to sleep in it ever again

Mara Nash said...

Summer - wow, that's creepy.

Quinn - I haven't found any of the other houses I've dreamed of, which I think is kind of weird considering that I dream of lots of houses. But I don't get out much, either. hehe.

Joanna - The house was actually demolished to make way for an apartment complex. I think it was calling to me to try to save it. My boyfriend (now my husband) and I tried to get it on the historic register, but couldn't. We have a picture of the house (not the one on this post) and every time I look at it, I get chills.

gideon - I get deja vu all the time about places too. And believe me, I did not want to go into that house. But my boyfriend/husband was totally stoked about it. He thought it was cool I'd dreamed of the house and then found it. I was terrified. When I visited Little Big Horn I couldn't stay because there was an energy there that had me on edge the whole time. I could swear I saw someone on horseback on a hillside, but maybe it was my imagination.

Theresa Milstein said...

A deja vu moment! I've had so many of those. It makes me believe in the supernatural. And it's creepy.

Perfect entry!

If you get a chance, I'm hosting a Halloween Haunting at my blog "Substitute Teacher's Saga" from 10/28-11/1 if you want to join in. There are prizes!

Patricia A. Timms-McGehee said...

Mara this is a great posting. It hooked me right away. I dream of the first house I grew up in all the time. When I go back to Utah I drive by it to check in on it. It has actually held up better than all the others in that one neighborhood. In my dreams I'm in the house but the people around me are from my current life. I don't know what draws me back to that house over and over.
Good for you for trying to save those children's home. Thank you for participating! Congratulations on your 100 followers too!

N. R. Williams said...

I've never had a house call to me except in the mundane way. I like your story. I did imagine you would recognize the children in the picture but I guess not.
Nancy
N. R. Williams, fantasy author

Mara Nash said...

Patricia - Funny you would say that. When I dream of my parents, I dream of the house I grew up in, not their current house. When I dream of my in-laws, I dream of the trailer they lived in years ago. And, like you, the people in those dreams are all currently in my life, and age appropriate. Maybe it's because those places were significant to me.

Regina said...

Like Patricia, I too dream of the house we grew up in all of the time, but with a mix of my current family and my childhood family. Those dreams always get to me for some reason. Thanks for sharing this, it is a very interesting and chilling story.

Francine Howarth said...

Hi,

Oh spooky is that, but have you researched the house, i.e. who has lived there for as long as the house had stood? You may well find a family link! And, wehen we talk about genes passed down through the generations, there is now neurological evidence that memories are passed in genes hence deja vu moments! ;)

best
F

Kristina Fugate said...

This quite literally gave me chills. It's just...so darn creepy! Thanks for sharing this totally eerie story!

Misha Gerrick said...

Oh my word. I get that too. But I've never been brave enough to go inside.

Karen Jones Gowen said...

Mara, Haunting your blog from Theresa's, so nice to meet you. Am following if I can get blogger to load.

Houses appear in my dreams all the time. But they're never scary, usually they represent comfort in my dreams. Cars on the other hand are the stuff of my nightmares.

KarenG

Sondrae Bennett said...

I wonder if the other houses exist too. How creepy!

J.C. Martin said...

Perhaps it was reaching out for a new owner! Can you afford a mortgage at the moment? What an interesting account, and very eerie!