The Haunted Flat

Halloween will be upon us soon. How many realize that the current holiday is based on the Celtic year's end, Samhain? (pronounced sow' in) The Celtic year ends; the festival of Samhain celebrates the dissolution of the boundaries between the world of the living and of the dead. On the last evening of the year, the dead walk the earth.

Visitations of the dead are not limited to Samhain. We lived in a haunted apartment once. The apartment was part of a two flat that was attached to its mirror image. The buildings were constructed in the mid-1920s when riches flowed freely. Our flat was on the second floor.

There were no bumps in the night, no eerie sounds, no apparitions hovering above the old gas light fixture in the hallway. The only intimation of the haunting was a feeling of presence. But there was more going on that I was unaware of.

I never mentioned the ghost to anyone while we lived there. It was represented by a feeling that an old man was watching over our infant son while his crib was in the front of the house. Until he was sleeping through the night we kept his crib in the dining room near our bedroom, and a bit later the crib was moved to the alcove over the front stairway. Only later did he join his big sister in the back bedroom. After the move to the back of the flat the "old gentleman" disappeared.

Our ghost was a benevolent spirit who was protecting our infant son. During those months the spirit visited late in the evening. I felt that our "visitor" was the ghost of the man who build the apartments. The man was successful enough to have made a world tour. Many of his mementos were still lodged in the basement. He had wanted a male heir, but never had a son.

Other strange things happened while we lived in the apartment. A gallon of apricot paint seemingly tipped itself all over the bathtub when we were painting. There were several women on the block and many of them pregnant at one time or another. Accidents happened to my visiting neighbors who were soon to deliver baby boys. Three women fell down the stairs--back stairs, outside front stairs, and the stairs linking the first and second floors. One woman very narrowly escaped death when she barely missed an old metal sled lodged at the bottom of the inside stairs. Throughout the five years we lived in the apartment, accidents happened to boy children in the back parts of the building.

I never made the connection until we had moved out to the suburbs. My brother and his wife came to visit. They had taken the apartment after we moved. As the evening conversation continued my sister-in-law asked why we had never told them about the ghost. Chills ran down my spine. I had never mentioned it to anyone. Apparently one of their friends came to visit and immediately sensed a ghost in the back portion of the house. She called the ghost Millie. Millie's favorite color was blue and she did not like little boys. She was not a pleasant spirit.

Was my "old gentleman" protecting our son from Millie? Were those falls just the clumsiness of pregnant women, or was it Millie? Ladies expecting girl babies never had a problem. Who tipped the apricot paint can? Did Millie cause the accidents little boys suffered in the back parts of the apartments, or was it just a coincidence? It's a true story. Believe what you will.

Happy Halloween. Happy New Year.