“D-D-D-D-Did you hear that?”
I leaned over the top bunk and looked in the bed below and saw my brother huddled in the corner with a couple of small books and a stuffed animal. He looked absolutely terrified. Steve is six years younger than me which means he was about ten years old at this point.
I had indeed heard that and now I was scared.
Five minutes ago I had been just waking up in anticipation of the alarm going off. In those days I was the one who got everybody up and got them ready for school. As I floated toward wakefulness, I heard the slow turning of pages in what sounded like a large, heavy book sitting on the dresser beside the bed. Then I became fully awake and expected it to go away figuring it was left over from a dream. As I moved to reach for the bedside lamp, the pages began to turn faster. The closer I got to the lamp, the faster the pages turned until they began to riffle very quickly. As I snapped on the light switch, the book fell and hit the floor with a heavy thud.
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs thinking how bizarre it was that this particular dream had continued well after I thought I was awake. Then I heard my brother’s small, quivering voice asking if I had heard it and my blood went cold. I thought maybe it had been one of his books. But they were the little Golden books and sounded nothing like what we’d heard. Besides, Steve was clutching them to his chest for “protection”.
The house we lived in was already a little scary. It was about 150 years old and there were rumors that it had once been occupied by witches. Of course, my parents may have made that up. It didn’t help that in my position on the top bunk, my head was just below the attic access. All of my life I had been terrified of the dark and this did not help.
Years later I asked my brother if he remembered the incident. He said he very clearly remembered it and that it wasn’t the only incident of its kind. Now in my 50s, I don’t remember anything exactly like that happening again directly to me. Though several other strange events happened to other people in that same area of the house. I’ve never had a good explanation for this. I don’t believe it was ghosts or witchcraft. I do think there could be some mysterious aspect of our minds, and perhaps unconscious communication between individuals that could help explain this.
But, for now, it remains a mystery.
