I heard about that phenomenon, though I never believed it. It’s called “The woman in white.” Thank God, she had realized on time that I did not deserve her punishment. Thank God, my wife couldn’t wait to see me.
I’d invited some friends over for a barbecue and cards after dinner. We had a full house and were enjoying our company and talking about what’d happened since the last time we’d seen one another. I had no clue then that some really weird things were going to happen. Our house was such that the kitchen and dining room were separated by a wall; the wall had a cutout between the two rooms, and the other side was the living room where our TV and stereo system were hooked up. They paralleled each other and between them was a slightly raised entry where the front door was.
Now, I’m not a big believer in ghosts, or spirits, or anything like that, but after what happened that evening and subsequently later on, I’m not so sure anymore. I had the stereo on for some background music while we were cleaning up and chatting in and around the kitchen. We were getting things set up for playing cards and I started a small fire in the fireplace to take the chill off the air instead of turning up the heater, plus it was just nice to watch the fire burn. While we were talking and getting set up, the stereo volume turned up to the point where it rattled our windows. Thinking one of the kids was playing games I walked around to tell them to turn it down but no one was there. Not thinking much of it at the time, I just walked over and turned it back down.
When I went back I stood where I could see into the other room and watch to see if one of the kids were playing a joke on us. After about five minutes the volume went up again even louder this time. Again, I saw nobody there and that made me start to wonder. I hurried over and turned it back down and stood there watching it for a minute. I didn’t know why it was doing that but wondered if maybe there was something wrong with the stereo. Satisfied it was going to stay turned down, I went back to the kitchen and got ready to play cards.
About fifteen minutes later it did it again. Angry now, thinking one of the kids was being very sneaky, I got up and went over and just turned it off. The kids were playing in the back of the house and I went there to find out who’d been doing it. They all denied knowing anything about it and thought we were just having fun ourselves by turning it up loud to show it off . I was now perplexed. When I walked back to the dining room and stepped up onto the entryway, I tripped and fell, to my astonishment and everyone else’s. I don’t usually fall and I didn’t know what had happened; it was as if something physical had grabbed my ankle, but nothing was there. I got up and sat down at the table wondering what had just happened. Everyone was making fun of me for falling and having a great time at my expense.
After things settled down and we started playing cards, the stereo turned back on. I jumped. Now all of us were looking at each other wondering what was going on. A couple of us walked into the living room and looked at it. It wasn’t loud this time so there was no need to turn it down, but as we stood there and looked at it, the volume knob turned and the volume went up again as we watched in disbelief. None of us knew what to make of this and why or how it was happening, but I was getting a little nervous. What did all this mean? I didn’t really want to find out, so I unplugged the stereo and we went back to playing cards. None of us said a thing about the stereo but like me, everyone was wondering if it would happen again. If it plugged itself back in and starting playing again, I think I would have run out of the house. It didn’t.
The rest of the evening was enjoyable and when everybody left, I went to take a closer look at the stereo. It looked normal enough and I plugged it back in, wondering if it would happen again. My wife thought I was nuts but I sat down on the couch and waited. After more than an hour and nothing happened, I went to bed.
Some months later, having almost forgotten the weird things with the stereo, I had another strange encounter. I like to read late at night and a lot of the time I do it on the couch so that my wife doesn’t have to listen to me or try to sleep with the light on. On the end table we have a three-way touch lamp that I’d always liked and I turned it on as I sat down. I set it on the middle setting so it wouldn’t be at full light which tended to be a bit harsh late at night.
I was fully immersed in my book when the light turned to the brightest setting. Without really thinking about it, I
