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Back around the turn of the century I was living in this house owned by this wonderful woman named Rosie. She had lived in Maine all her life, but she had traveled extensively through the orient in the 70's and 80's, and she was fairly well off. She even ended up bringing back a crazy-rear end cherry blossom tree thing that, somehow, managed to actually survive year after year in Maine. She often sang to herself while she worked around her half of the house or in the yard, both in English and Chinese. Anyway, she eventually passed away one quiet night, just shy of 100 years old. Like I said, lovely woman, and, while sad, we all knew she had a great life and ventured into the great beyond not with sadness or fear, but with the excitement that she would see her life come full circle. It was lovely and sad when she passed. I was 17 at the time, and I had a girlfriend who lived on the other side of the village. It was summer and she worked late at an ice cream place, so I'd head off at 9 or 10 in the evening, cut through the woods behind our house, and pop out near downtown, go to walk her home and get free ice cream and what-not. We had a barn converted in to a garage on the edge of the property by the woods, and Rosie parked her clunk giant Oldsmobile out there. It was sitting there after her death, waiting for her grandkids to sort out the estate. I remember looking at the front of that car, poking out of the garage, as I started to take off to meet my girlfriend. Then the headlights turned on. At first I assumed her kids were there, so I hupped over to the garage. Nope. Doors locked, no one there. Than I started to get unnerved, almost electrically so. It felt weird, this strange crinkle on your skin. Goosebumps from it. I ran back to the house to tell my parents what had happened, and, also, to see if she had spare keys so we could turn if off. We didn't. We all went out there and, of course, the lights are off. So I'm telling my family that they were on, we're standing there, and, sure enough, they turn back on. This was an old vehicle, I think early 90's, well before any sort of wireless control. We though maybe it was an electrical storm coming in, or humidity, or some other random explanation. We hit a point where we're just going to let the battery wear itself out; we can't get in the car to turn it off. As we're about to leave I turn and say "Rosie, if the battery dies, how is Dick (your grandson) gonna the car out of here? The lights turned off. So, that was weird, but it was a thing that we just filed under "Huh" and moved on. Like I said, I was a teenager with a girlfriend and free ice cream, so solving mysteries with my parents wasn't exactly high on my list of ways to spend a summer eve. Two days later, daytime, and we hear Rosie start singing. My mom, my dad, my three siblings, her grandkids, all of us here it. Clear and distinct, coming from her half of the house. We went over there, and we could hear it, distant, somewhere. We legitimately searched for a tape, for a radio, anything. It was her, we were all positive it was her singing, and we could all here it. Eventually it grew quiet and faded and was gone. Off and on you would hear it over the next day or so while her grandkids cleaned up her stuff. We never figured it out. There was no terror or anything. Even when we all started to think that it must be paranormal, no one was too scared. We never figured out what to make of it. It was pleasant normal weather, summer, no real wind to speak of, sunny and typical. You could hear radios from the next few houses over, but nothing that sounded remotely like a 100-year old woman singing a combination of English and Chinese. Not much of a ghost story to tell around the fire, but 100% true, cross my heart.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:53
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 03:58 |
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