Whatever It Was: A Ghost Story

The South in the Summer

We land in an airplane, back on our own dot on the map in South Carolina. Coming down, mentally speaking, from an espresso drinking – let’s take advantage of every daylight hour- getaway to another country- with my husband, feels like driving into a cement wall.

The glass of water on my nightstand makes me feel as if I never left, and even worse, as if I will never leave again. But I did leave, I feel like telling the glass – and I’m leaving again tomorrow. So there.

I didn’t love getting up the next day to drive to Virginia’s Northern Neck, but truth be known, I liked it better than staying put. The cement wall syndrome that follows me after travel isn’t anything new. Even the fact that this time it meant driving 7 hours by myself with Lily the Labradoodle on her biggest journey to date wouldn’t stop me.

Perfect Hammock

In the Northern Neck the sultry summer embraces you like an afternoon storm cloud. Energy, if not released in the form of a crack of thunder or two, is practically guaranteed to dissipate on its own without notice. There are few cement walls and even fewer clocks. Daylight hours don’t require thrills and caffeine, perhaps just one rapturous and unplanned nap.

Perfect Screened Door

House, River, Storm and Sun

Do you see the little fenced area under the shade of the big tree in the above photo? It’s a family plot, or graveyard from the house’s long ago first owners.

Perfect Transportation

This is my aunt and uncle’s house, and we hadn’t been there since Dolly was a baby. Like many first time visitors, Dolly, Sparkle and Sparkle’s BFF got a kick out of lightly speculating on the presence of ghosts.

One afternoon in broad daylight, Dolly and I were talking. We thought we heard someone take a few steps upstairs. Lily heard it too.

Perfect Dog

We took pepper spray and our big girl courage and walked all around upstairs just to reassure ourselves. Dolly and I were glad not to find anything or anybody, but felt pretty ridiculous.

That evening at around 9 pm Dolly came to where I was reading in the living room. She said that they, meaning her, Sparkle and Sparkle’s friend, were going to town to get ice cream. This constitutes major activity here.

I continued to read, but  became aware of what surely were normal old house noises. I told myself I was noticing them now because I was alone.  After trying to make it all the way through the same paragraph for the fifth time, I  got up and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

As I got to the spot where Dolly and I had been sitting earlier, I heard footsteps upstairs again. I told myself it was nothing, but still called Dolly on her cell phone. Like the wimp I am, I asked them to please not linger at the ice cream stand even though it was undoubtedly very exciting.

“Are you scared, Mom?” Dolly asked.

“Just get home,” I said.  “I’m fine.”

As soon as I hung up the phone, I heard noises that brought me to the realization that I definitely wasn’t alone.  Steps, as if someone were accelerating, grew quicker and louder.  I grabbed a drowsy Lily by her collar and my car keys. Barefoot and wearing a nightgown, I headed out the door just as this – whatever it was – was running down the steps.

I looked back to see if - whatever it was – was going to chase me. I hoped he planned to just stay put in the house to which he had laid claim.

And, it was then that I saw that whatever it was, it was neither stranger, nor ghost, but Sparkle. Apparently, without informing their looney tunes mother, one child had decided to stay home at the last minute.

I had never been happier to see Sparkle.  She felt so bad about scaring me, that I in turn felt bad about making her feel bad that she made me feel bad.  After a day or so my heart rate eventually came down.

None of this explains the noise  Dolly and I heard earlier in the day.  I believe that if that “whatever it was” were a “ghost,” that it was a very nice one who was just saying “hello.”

And in retrospect, I noticed that Lily only barked at this first one.