Home?

I caught part of an episode of Ghost Adventures the other night. At one point they were discussing the feeling you get when you sense a place isn’t quite right. The hair on the back of your neck stands on end and your mind goes wonky. Yep, I know it well.

The house I grew up in inspired that feeling often. I hated it. It wasn’t so bad when I was real little and my room was in the old farmhouse though it was still there. My room was in the front corner, the one that faced the direction storms came from. I loved sitting on the deep windowsill, watching them. But that was all I loved. The ceiling was tongue and groove dark wood with patterns on it. Patterns that would begin to move if you stared at them too long. Kind of hard not to do when I was awake with screaming nightmares all the time.

For some reason there were two holes in my ceiling that opened up into the attic. My parents put tinfoil pie plates in them from above to close them off but that wasn’t enough. I’d work up my nerve to go to the attic in order to put something heavy on top of them, quite a feat for a petrified kid. Only thing was before long I’d hear scraping above me during the night and the next time I went up whatever I’d put there would be gone. I just knew something was peering down at me whenever I closed my eyes. I could feel it.

Then, when I was eight, my parents built an addition and I got a new room. Mine had a window above the porch roof. Big mistake since there was often something out there. It also overlooked the creepy cornfield you’ve already heard about. Or perhaps not. At least I had a second window facing the backyard too. I could get out if I had to. Of course I’d have to jump two stories but that wasn’t important. My brother’s room only had one window so I’d have felt even more trapped if I’d ended up with that room.

If not for my fearless cat, Dee Dee, I don’t think I would have survived growing up in that house. She came to live with me was I was six and protected me until I moved out. As long as she was with me I was safe. Whatever it was that was in the house was afraid of her. But her sphere of influence was only so big. I had to keep her right with me in order to remain protected. At night, I’d lock her in my room with me or I didn’t stand a chance of sleeping. And yes, I do mean lock, literally. When she was there I could even open the window above the porch so we didn’t suffocate.

The rest of the time she more often than not humored me by staying with me. Then I could go anywhere in the house. Oh, except on the few occasions she refused to go to the basement. But, if she wouldn’t go, neither would I and no amount of threatened punishment from my parents could change that. I didn’t care if the laundry, one of my chores, was done or not. No way was I going downstairs to the washer without Dee Dee.

My family, of course, thought I was insane. They couldn’t feel it. I suppose that’s good, since my mother still lives there. Alone. On the other hand, it’s not because she won’t be expecting it when whatever it is decides to reclaim its territory. But I won’t be at all surprised. And you better believe now I only go there when I absolutely have to and in broad daylight.