Haunting Wednesday #4

Welcome to a new week of Haunting Wednesday! For those who are stumbling across this for the first time, Haunting Wednesday it's a weekly feature hosted by me and the author awesomeness that Lisa Rogers is, and as you might have hinted, it's about... well, ghosts! Me and Lisa Rogers came up with this wonderful feature in honour of her non-fiction book, On Haunted Ground, released on May 8th and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. Lisa is sharing with us her experiences with the paranormal world. Remember, if you ask a question in ANY of the HW posts, you can enter the draft to win signed goodies!

Missed a post? Catch up here!

Up to this point, the posts I’ve written for the Haunting Wednesday feature were summaries of stories that can be found in On Haunted Ground. Today I’d like to share a more recent occurrence.

Several weeks ago, I was expecting a small shipment of my books from the publisher, so when the box arrived, I knew what it was. I brought it into the house and quickly tore into it. As I peeled off the tape and folded back the last flap of the box, I literally stepped back and gasped. There it was—years of hard work, ups, downs, dreams, and fears, all neatly bound in a book with MY name on it. I snatched one out of the box and held it to my chest. I had dreamed of this day for so long… and it was finally here.

A flood of emotions washed over me as I stood holding my book… our book. On Haunted Ground wasn’t just my story, it was also my family’s story and more importantly, it was the ghosts story.

I’ve had many people ask me why I chose to write such a personal account of our lives and the simplest most honest answer is because of the ghosts themselves. I feel that too many times ghosts are unrightfully feared, and I wanted to show a different side of what it’s like to live with them. Sharing your home with ghosts does take some getting used to, but in my experience, it isn’t the hair raising, bone chilling events that the movies would have you believe and the day my books arrived was a perfect example.

Unfortunately, my family wasn’t home to share in the excitement as I opened that box, but I suspected the ghosts were. Thinking I felt them come into the room, I held the book up and said, “We did it.” I thanked them for being such a big part of our lives and then I took a seat on the couch. As I sat there, the smell of perfume drifted through the air. I recognized the scent as belonging to an entity that generally stays back in my daughter’s old room. (See chapter 24)

Smelling the perfume served as a confirmation that I wasn’t alone. I commented that I was glad she was able to join me in this moment of celebration. I also remarked that I liked her perfume. Immediately the light fragrance became so strong that my eyes and lips began to burn with its overpowering scent. I fanned the air in front of me and told her to back away a little and the fragrance once again became lighter.

I’ve found this type of activity to be much more common than blood dripping from the walls or knives flying through the air. So, I guess you could say that I set out to clear the names of some of my friends by writing On Haunted Ground. I could feel them around me as I wrote, as if that was what they wanted as well. And now that the book is published, all I can say is that I hope, at least in some small way, it worked.

Come back next week to see your questions answered!