Listen to these Conjured Stories read by a few familiar faces from around Edmonton.
In the Darkroom
As an amateur analog photography enthusiast I was in my makeshift darkroom one stormy night. As per usual, I was developing my film with nothing more than instant coffee, washing soda and vitamin c. I took these chemicals and mixed them to create what would become the most horrible concoction I ever created. I had understood the basic mechanics of the emulsion used in film as well as the developing process. How misled I was. My roll of HP5+ was in my tank, I poured the devious liquid inside. Shook it like a mother could shake her baby in desperation. After a couple minutes of fury, it was done. And there was nothing else to do but open my tank. I pulled that plastic snake out of the tank and… it was gone. All the photos disappeared. In that moment I knew that a ghost had stolen my photos to use in his own personal portfolio. This ghost had robbed my work to become famous in the ghost world. And I’ll never forgive them for it.
Footsteps
When I was 12, my sister and I were sitting on my bed with our backs against the wall. My bedroom was on the 2nd floor so our backs were against the wall that faced the outside of the house. My aunt came into my room and asked if we wanted to hear a ghost story. We said sure, and she started to tell us about a time when she and her friends were at a cabin sharing spooky stories and all of a sudden, they could hear footsteps go up the front of the cabin, across the roof, and down the other side. As soon as she told us this part of the story, my sister and I could hear footsteps coming up the front of our house and we could feel it against our backs once it reached the second story. We leapt off the bed screaming…and we could hear the footsteps going across the roof…it was terrifying!
Child Laughing
I had an app on my phone that would record noises or movement while you slept (like if you snored). I was listening to a couple of recording from the night before, when suddenly my phone picked up the sound of a little girl laughing ( sounded like it was right near the phone) in the middle of the night and I live alone. Immediately deleted the app after that.
The Repeating Dream
I once had a dream where I got out of my bed and I started walking through my halls and when I blinked I was back in my bed like nothing happened. This happened multiple times until one of the times I went to the window that looked out into the field behind my house. There I saw a coyote-like figure. It stood up on its hind legs and the dream ended there. When I woke up and got out of my bed, I went to the same window and saw the same coyote like figure watching me through my window, it then stood up on its hind legs and I blacked out. When I woke up in the morning I was back in my bed like nothing ever happened but I swear it was real.
Mommy's Home
On a cold Sunday morning, I was walking to my back door after our church service when I was suddenly blasted with a weird sense of someone watching me. I had to stop and take a minute to look around. That was when I heard a voice whisper in my ear… “Brinlee, it’s mommy.” My mom had died 6 years earlier so this was definitely an experience. Mom, if you’re reading this, I hear you.
A Silly Little Ghost
When I was younger my friend and I used to go to the cemetery and make charcoal etchings on paper of the old graves. One time I was joking around in front of one of those massive old headstones (probably not a very good idea) and I felt the distinct feeling of someone’s fingers trailing up my back. I screamed and thought it was a wasp. It was not. Needless to say my friend and i ran away and never went back.
Driving at 2am
Coming home from an acquaintance to see a white figure on the side of the road twice in different time intervals.
Didn't See This Coming!
Give or take the end of August and the beginning of September, I had purchased a new Samsung cell phone and the pictures it took were amazing. Moving forward it was around 2:45am and I just couldn’t sleep. I was very restless so I got up, grabbed my phone and went out to the garage to have a tea and smoke. It was a beautiful night very clear but the night had a weird something-was-off kinda feeling. Anyway I had the garbage door open about half way when I could have sworn I heard a woman and child talking no more like whispering in a very low tone. I walked out of the garage to the front driveway pad and to my left was our neighbours house and right in front of his big bay window was a huge ornamental crab apple tree which was full of leaves yet and thick. I proceeded to take my new phone and repeated taking numerous photos and thought nothing of it. In the morning so too speak I was having a coffee and flipping through the photos I took and with a gasp I had two identical photos and in it was a woman and little boy grey in colour, like they were perched in the tree looking right at the camera when I took the photo. I still have the pictures and I have shown numerous people that say they see a woman and child grey in colour perched in the tree. It’s very disturbing because not even a month before ,our next door's daughter committed suicide by cutting her wrists and sitting in the tub running hot water on herself until she bleed out. Ever since then there are orbs, flashes of light and strange odours coming from the front of the yard.
A Breath of Air
In 2019, I was sitting on the couch in my condo in the Brewery district in Edmonton. All of the windows were closed, the fan was not on, nor the air conditioner or heat. I was by myself reading a book, when suddenly it felt like someone was standing right in front of me and blew a big breath of air on me. My hair even flew back a bit. Freaked out, I checked my condo of other people or “others”, but did not see anyone. I had goose bumps.
Hawaii Volcano National Park Military Base
My family and I stayed at the old military resort - we were next to the old hospital. One night my sister woke up and noticed this really weird light in the corner of the room, with this girl wearing a nurse uniform. My sister thought it was me, but when she looked over to my bed I was sleeping. She tried to fall asleep, but minutes after, my sisters best friend that came along with us woke up. She noticed the same thing - that it was me in the corner of the room. She did the same thing as my sister. At about maybe 3am I woke up and noticed this really weird blue light in the corner of the room, but there was no girl there. I thought it was one of our devices that turned on, but my phone and iPad were under my pillow. I went to where my parents were sleeping, and tried to tell them but they didn’t listen. They said it was nothing. In the morning I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I told my sister and her friend what I saw. A couple minutes after, they told me what they saw.
The Thing in the House
Over my lifetime I have encountered many an oddity in my home - from disappearing black cats to strange floating orbs in my kitchen - but my favourite memory was of George, a strange red haired man with black sun glasses. He often told me stories of a place called Frost Creek. One night when I was 6 and a few months, he took me outside with him in the middle of the night. We walked down my driveway and he told me he was going back to Frost Creek. I never saw him again and I always wondered how he got in my house without using the door.
Ghost Nanny
When my cousin and I were very young (2 & 5 y/o), we had a nanny who slept in a separate building from the rest of us; the building was a century old. One morning my cousin and I went to find the nanny to play with her, but we found her sleeping in the old building and would not wake up no matter how many times we called for her. We eventually gave up and left the building. As we were leaving, the nanny greets us at the door. We asked if she had been sleeping in the building while we were there, but she was not. We went back into the building to double check, but the “sleeping nanny” was gone.
Patrick, the Ghost of the Townhouse Basement
My brother was barely 3 years old and I myself was 6. My brother and I were obsessed with the Canadian classic childrens show about the paranormal, “Mystery Hunters”. We watched every episode and loved hearing stories and enjoying investigations about the paranormal.
One day during summer vacation, I decided the make a ouija board out of a cheerios box. I used a keyring and cut a spade shaped pointer in order to make it as legitimate as possible. Knowing my brother could not spell, let alone read, I was excited about the possibility that I could truly figure out if our basement was haunted. It had a creepy feel as it was and I had previously found a strange and old photo underneath the stairs. Under the stairs happened to have an entire area to sit under and was highly mysterious.
After I finished making the ouija board, my brother and I sat down in the living room floor. The main floor housed the living room of the townhouse, and we were right above where the nook under the stairs to the basement were. I wanted to truly figure out if ghosts existed and so being able to have a brother who couldn’t spell or read would ensure that no one was messing with me when I was very serious to find out if ghosts existed.
I ask, “Is there anyone here with us, my name is J-,” and before I could finish asking, the spade shaped pointer began moving with both of our fingers on it to yes. The yes followed an immediate spelling of the name: Patrick.
I asked more questions but I didn’t understand the responses. This spirit answered every question with haste and for whatever reason, I could just tell that this was a friendly spirit.
To this day, I will never know how that moved and spelled names, locations, days. One thing I do know for sure, though, is that my brother and I were extremely serious about doing this and I was not moving the pointer. Considering my brother can’t spell or write, I’ll leave you to decide what you think of the spirit Patrick. I know, I did not move that thing and I’ve continued to have many more experiences throughout my life.
Who were you, Patrick the ghost from the year 1999?
A Story My Dad Used to Tell
My father used to work on the road a lot, this meant constantly changing where he slept. On one occasion he was staying in a bungalow in northern BC. Here he encountered a ghost who would come to be known by him and the fellow workers staying at the house as “lee” the encounters started off innocuous, a beer cozy moved into an odd spot, lights going out in the basement, flags unpinning themselves from walls, but grew more intense as time went on, in one story, as my dad would always tell, the ghost appeared as a silver misty figure in the centre of a pool table my father and his friends were sitting around. On one occasion, a woman ran out of a bathroom claiming she saw a spirit named “lee”. This story has always floated around at family gatherings, and whether its true or not, its always just been there, always entertaining the family.
The Party
Once I was at a family event, which took the form of a house party. There were a multitude of strangers there, and I was only eight or so, so it did not surprise me when a stranger (a wizened, black haired woman) approached me, made strong eye contact and croaked “do you remember me?” Oddly disquieted by her voice and appearance, I hurriedly said no and made my leave post haste. I brought it up to my mum afterward, and she reacted with surprise- the description matched that of my deceased great grandmother. I always wondered what would have happened if I had stayed and talked further. Who knows, maybe she’ll visit again, or perhaps the mind of a child is more open to the folds of the hereafter’s veil.
The Diary
My great grandmother was a witch and owned a home in Kitchener, Ontario which had previously been the home of a doctor who worked with sick children. She claimed to be in contact with spirits regularly, but my mother never truly believed her, until the death of my maternal grandmother. My grandmother had kept a diary during her youth and up until her suicide, and it lived on the mantle above the fireplace of the family home. Before anyone had been notified of my grandmother’s death, my mother recalls seeing the key to the diary spin violently in a wooden bowl on the mantle. In response, my great grandmother immediately threw the diary into the fire, burning it to ashes. My mother then recalls seeing the spirit of a young girl place her hand over the bowl to stop the key’s spinning. They received notice of my grandmother’s death that night.
The Ghost of Art Sales and Rental
In this very building lives a ghost. Travel downstairs to the Art Sales and Rental department and make sure you say hello when you enter the gallery, you wouldn’t want to catch her off guard. The racks move on their own, lights turn on and off, she leaves the smell of her perfume in the stair cases. She prefers to communicate when you are alone…
The Nun on the Bus
This is not my own story but one that my friend recently experienced. While taking the bus for work in st.Albert my friend said that a nun got on and sat by her. While sitting the nun was asking questions about what my friend was doing on the bus, where she was going, etc. after the conversation ended my friend looked away and said that she didn’t even see the nun getting off the bus. But when she turned to say how nice the conversation had been to one of her coworkers they were confused saying a nun had not been on the bus. Everywhere around us there are ghosts, and maybe one day I’ll get the chance to talk to a ghost myself.
The Girl in the Bathroom
I used to work in a event space that had a small party room for kid’s birthdays. It was rarely used, so the staff would always use it for the private bathroom. One day I entered to use the bathroom. All the lights were off in the larger room, and the door to the bathroom was ajar. I went to pull on the door, and saw the bottom of a child’s dress and shoes as the door slammed shut. I apologized for interupting and waited for a response, but one never came. Eventually I pulled on the door to check on her, as the lights in the bathroom never came on. There was no one inside.
I confessed to my coworker what I had seen, and she said that she no longer changed in the staff room, as she had seen a little girl inside watching her from the corner. We often heard small footsteps running when we opened and the building was empty.
Family Movie Night
My family loved movie night. On a weekend when everyone was home, we would grab a VHS or DVD make some popcorn and all gather in the living room to watch a movie. It was usually a James Bond movie or one of my mother’s favourite musicals, The Sound of Music.
We moved to a new house in 1991. The previous owner was a widower with two young kids. My older brothers always tried to come up with creepy stories to scare me. They told me many stories about what they thought happened to this man’s wife. All of them ended with her dying in the home. I started to think the house was haunted.
My fears of living in a haunted house always grew stronger with movie night. The basement door was very creaky. There was no way you could sneak up or down those stairs without anyone knowing. Whenever we would huddle up in the living room for our love of cinema, we would hear something. The basement door. The door would always close. Specifically, during movie night. All six of us were in the same room. I didn’t make too much of this phenomenon at first but one day I decided to open the door again after it closed. I opened the door as far as it could go and returned to the living room. Minutes later we all heard the creaking door moving and closing. Everyone was still in the room.
This went on for years. Now, however, the door no longer closes on its own. Movie nights happened less and less as we all started getting older and spending more time outside of the house with friends or working later in the day. The door closed less and less. Now all the kids are out of the house and the door doesn’t close on its own anymore. I’ve always wondered if the spirit decided that when the kids left it was also time to leave the nest. Or maybe it just really didn’t appreciate James Bond or the Sound of Music.
The Little Boy
One day when I was in the car with my family, I saw this little boy running behind a lady at a crosswalk . I told my mom, “Wow, I can’t believe that lady would leave her little boy behind, especially at a crosswalk." My mom and my siblings said, “What boy?” And I kept pointing at the boy but no one else could see him!!!
Can I see ghosts?!?
A Brother's Goodbye
It was roughly 3am, and I was woken by some sounds in the house, I was about 11. Within a few seconds my mother came to my room, and we woke my three sisters. Mother was carrying a baseball bat. She was clearly spooked. She gathered my sisters and I in a room, in fear of an intruder in the home, as her blankets were tugged off her as she was sleeping, and that’s what woke her. Within the same hour, the house phone rang, and it was news of my uncle’s passing (in Panama).
My mom thinks it was her brother trying to warn her of his passing (and even prank her) as a spirit.
Girl in the Window
I was about 8 years old and we had gone to Drumheller for vacation. We decided on going on a sightseeing tour bus and this one stop really freaked me out. I can’t quite remember the name but it was a haunted saloon from the early 1900’s , so bad that the top 3 floors were boarded off because they were so dangerous. A few people were murdered there gruesomely, such as one young woman who was shot to death, a drunk suicide, and people having horrific experiences staying there. Blood-curdling screams at 3 am, blood in bathtubs, voices in your head, even kids died there so people would see dead kids in hallways. When we were leaving my mom had taken a photo of the saloon, when we were heading back to the hotel we looked back at this one photo… in the top corner of the room that woman had been murdered she was roughly standing in the window looking in a way grieving? Keep in mind all the floors hadn’t been touched in 90 years, there she was just standing there. Creeped me out till this day.
A Ghost in My Dreams
I saw her for the first time in one of my dreams in my hometown (Spain). She always wanted to hurt me and sometimes I used to wake up so scared, feeling that she was still in the room with me. It became worse when I moved to Michigan to work as a nanny, I started hearing noises in the house. It when further one day when I saw the baby I was taking care of, she was staring into the ceiling and she started crying. After that she never wanted us to turn off the lights when we put her to sleep.
It become very usual to hear noises and steps in the house, but one day while I was driving I saw her through the mirror of the car and I almost crashed it. I used to wake up to her screaming in my ear and I stopped dreaming with her and seeing her when I left Michigan.
Church Ghost of Old Quebec
I was on a 9th grade Quebec trip as a part of my high school. One of the four nights of our trip, we took a ghost tour of the city. It was filled with your typical hokey stories of men who met unfortunate ends or widowed lovers. But, towards the tail end of the trip, we explored an abandoned church with nothing but a (likely battery-powered) single lantern. Our tour guide brought us into the pews and whispered another one of their pre-prepared stories. We were shook at this point just being in here. The one and only time I saw a ghost was staring down one of the endless side hallways exiting the church. I can’t exactly make it out, but they seemed Victorian era, just standing and staring at us. My eyes have never adjusted to the darkness like that before, and I’ve never seen anything like it again.
The Balloon Ghost
When I was 8, my mother bought me balloons for my birthday, those big aluminum ones that have a number of how old you were turning. I kept the balloons in my room, and one by one, they deflated, all except one that had the inscription ‘Happy 8th Birthday!’. For a whole month the balloon never deflated, and it appeared to have a mind of its own. It would round corners in our house without even skimming the wall and would stop in front of us just as it saw us. One night, I had the balloon closed in me and my sisters room, but when my mother woke up, it was hovering right above her, bumping her face and lowered down next to her on the bed. The balloon would have had to go through three doors to make its way to my mom's room. Whenever we closed the balloon in a room, we would get home to it waiting next to the door for us. Whenever we told it to stop, it would halt and stop moving, until we walked away from it. Eventually we popped the balloon, after having multiple experiences with it that were weird. After we popped it, the spirit was gone.
Mellon House Spirit
I recently was staying at an AirBnB at the Mellon house on 106th ave near Whyte. It’s a house built in 1902. There was me and Jedediah, a young fellow doing a rumspringa. There was a shared kitchen on the second floor for the guests. There’s only one entrance to this part of the house. Jed was in the washroom and I was cooking a meal. That’s when we both heard heavy clomping up the stairs to the loft room. I quickly stuck my head out to the hall and Jed rushed out of the washroom. “Is the door locked?" I asked. Jed went to check the door and I rushed up the stairs. It was cold at the top and the door was locked to the loft. Despite it being 28 degrees Celsius outside and the old house was quite warm. The entrance was locked. Needless to say I’m glad I did not accept the loft room. Poor Jed had to stay there for another week alone.
Grand Aunt Having Breakfast with Me
We begin this story back in the Philippines in which every morning at 5:30am, I would have to be up and getting ready for school. As I would be eating at the dinner table, I would always, everyday to no fail would be looking at my food and somehow see from the corner of my eye someone quickly walking across the hall to my grand aunts room,.. I was not aware that she died in the house decades before I even arrived until I brought this story up to my grandma who with no question said, “Oh yeah, that’s your grand aunt, Mellisa." To this day I still experience and see similar apparitions.
The Girl and the Dog
This is a popular Mexican legend. There once was a wealthy Mexican couple who had a single daughter. When she turned 7, they moved to an old house in the outskirts of Mexico City. She started hearing noises in her room, so her parents gave her a dog. The dog slept under her bed and every time she heard a noise, she would stretch her hand and the dog would lick her finger to calm her down. Until one day, when she heard horrible and louder noises. Terrified, she stretched her hand under her bed and fell asleep. The next morning the parents woke up hearing their daughter scream and ran into her bedroom. In the walls written with blood was NOT ONLY DOGS CAN LICK...
A Late Summer Night in Cebu
On a late summer night in 2018, in Cebu, Philippines, my cousins and I were drinking and merrily singing our woes away into the night. My older cousin, eager to fill in her friends of her latest drinking session was taking photos, a lot of them. It was late at night so it was hard to see each other but the flash made it easier for the photos to show me, my cousins and as well as this person leaning over, clearly wanting to be included in the drunken selfie my cousin took.
We didn’t see it until we posted it on Instagram, I know I said person but it did not look like one. It had sunken dark eyes, really high cheekbones and it had pale, very pale skin. It was gaunt, and had a scowl on its face, it wasn’t human—that we knew for sure.
Was it angry because we disturbed its rest? Was it just a lonely spirit eager to be with other humans, and was it not made aware of its passing and left buried somewhere in the mountains of Cebu, without never knowing rest? For that, we will never know and I hope it didn’t mind me crying over my failing grade in high school math.
Just a Tricky Guy
At my old house, I lived with my aunt and mom, I started to sleep with my mom as a 12-year-old since every night I’d wake up to shadow figures at the end of my bed. We would wake up every morning to things being thrown off the counter and light fixtures smashed with no sound whatsoever. Every night something would happen. I think the spirit meant no harm however, just a tricky guy. The figure would always be running through hallways and whatnot. We moved shortly after all this and had a medium or something come to fix the house.
Seance
I was with a group of friends last year. My friends wanted to do a seance and I just went a long with it. We thought nothing was happening until we all started to get the creeps. in the corner of my friend's bedroom, we see an older woman just watching us. We all saw her and freaked.
Nahuales
In some towns in Mexico, it is believed that there are people, humans, who can transform into animals when they want to. They are called nahuales, they usually live near forests, and people visit them to ask for help, as it is believed that they have the power to cure or to make spells. But they are also very dangerous beings to be with. They rely on sacrifices to get their power either through killing or destruction.
Footsteps
After my great grandparents passed away in the early 2000s, my father and I went to stay in their home while we cleaned it out to sell. We got home from the store and my dad threw something in the fireplace and we went upstairs. When we came back downstairs the bag was hanging from inside the fireplace swinging and we could only see the bottom of it.
In the same house we heard footsteps, and every time our dog barked the lights would go out for a moment.
It was really strange, yet I am still a skeptic. These images gave me the creeps and I hope to one day be proven wrong!
The Pale Woman
One time I had to baby sit for a full day, in this massive estate. It was extremely old. When it was near 11:00 PM I put the kids to sleep and had a late snack. Since their rooms were upstairs, I had to go downstairs to the kitchen. I then closed the door and was ready to head downstairs until I saw a pale looking woman staring at me. It was only me and the kids present at the estate, so yes I was horrified. Her face was blank, and instead of eyes she had black holes and a smile that stretched all the way to her ears. I then ran horrified and left the estate in an hurry. I never returned or got my snack.
Jumbie
Once walking home in the evening, I saw an old lady walking in the opposite direction of me. It looked like she was having a spirited conversation with someone, I thought it was on a phone but as I got closer I couldn’t hear anything, although her mouth was still moving. As we approached each other, she moved off the sidewalk into the shadows between the lights, watching me with enormous dark eyes as I passed. Her eyes took up half her face and she stared silently as I passed by. I was so disturbed I ran the rest of the way home, where my brother told me a lady across the street had recently died and it was the holiday celebrating the dead, pitri pak. I am convinced I saw a jumbie to this day.
A Locked Door
In my great grandparents rural home, there has been many tales of paranormal experiences with a woman in a white dress. Whenever she appeared, in dreams, early morning hazes or late night stupors, she was a bad omen. She appeared in the corner of my grandma’s room, the night before my grandfather passed. I saw this all as stupid taboos and theatrics until the night of the locked door.
I was over for the night with my partner, who had to go to the outdoor bathroom in the middle of the night. She was scared of my grandmas tales, of the women in the white dress, so I accompanied her. As we exited our room into the hallway, we walked down to the end of the house before we heard a door close. We both looked back and saw it was from the room we came from…. We rushed back to the door, and upon trying to open it, the door seemed to be locked. However, this door had no lock. It was stuck, it wasn’t opening. After some struggle, it budged and we were relieved but scared. She dumped me the next day.
Bloody Mary
One day me and my friends were playing Bloody Mary. My little sister wanted to play too. So we sent her in with Kylie my best friend. The started the chant. And everyone knows it doesn’t actually work, it’s just for fun. So when we heard screams we freaked out and tried to open the door. But it was locked. The screaming continued and we tried again and again to open the door. But it wouldn’t budge. So we grabbed a chair and rammed it into the door. It busted open and we found Kylie and my little sister Tina lying on the ground. Dead. Or so it seemed. They had pranked us and were covered in ketchup. Then my parents got mad cause the door was wrecked. And we had to buy a new one. Also, that door was really expensive and it had a silver knob.
Krasue
The Krasue is a Thai spirit with the head of a beautiful woman attached to entrails. There are regional variations throughout Southeast Asia, but the common thread is the floating head above intestines.
I first heard about the Krasue from my mother, a Bangkok native. It is her belief that the Krasue feeds on garbage, excrement, livestock, and the occasional newborn baby. It was common practice for my grandfather to place nails in the windowsills when a baby was born so the spirit’s entrails would tangle, preventing it from entering the house to take the baby.
My mother swears that one night, back when she was a child in the 1940’s, she witnessed the unmistakable hovering glow of a Krasue coming towards her. Thankfully it wasn’t hungry for children, and my mother still lives to tell the tale.
Guardian Angel
In 2014 I was admitted to hospital with a progressive skin eruption on my legs & arms. My potassium was dangerously low and my organs were shutting down. It was eventually diagnosed as an allergic reaction to a medication my gastroenterologist had prescribed. I had a near-death experience. My husband had visited for a short time one evening. I was alone in my room, hearing powerful cracks of thunder and watching the lightning flash across the sky. I decided I would like some photos of the lightning and took multiple shots. The next morning I decided to review the photos and see what I had captured. To my shock, I had not captured the lightning show. I had photos of an enormous Angel with blue wings and attire, slightly bent over. Was this my guardian angel? There was also a really ugly skeleton-like person that seemed very evil. Was this the devil? Was this the night I was to die? Were they both laying claim to my soul? I still have these photos and have shown them to many family & friends. Most of them are freaked out. Some of them do not wish to comment and just say that the photos are for my own interpretation. I felt at total peace the evening this happened and had no knowledge that I may have been near death.
Namekus
A month or so before a camping trip I had been to see a psychic to help with some insights into some things that were happening with me health wise. Yes, I go to psychics every couple years, I find it fun and I always take it with a grain of salt, even though I believe in this stuff. She kept saying that I needed to go to a place called “Namekus” and whether this made any sense to me. I said that it did make sense as it is a small lake a little ways away from the main lake we usually camp at. She said I would need to go to the lake and when I got to the lake I needed to turn left and bury something, but otherwise I would know what I needed to do. While the place made sense, it made no sense as to why I would need to go there and why I would need to bury something.
A few days into the trip we decided to do a day kayak trip to “King’s Island”. Prior to its current name the island was known locally as Devil's Island due to a Cree legend that claimed it was inhabited by supernatural creatures of a mischievous or demonic nature. It is a tiny little island in the middle of the lake that you can walk around in about 30 minutes and there is one lone picnic table if you want to have a picnic out there. The trip out there was uneventful and we got out of the kayaks and decided to walk around the island. It was highly overgrown, with lots of spider webs and we were generally ready to get off the island just because it was a pretty uneventful spidery webby hike. As we were about to leave there was another family leaving and so we took the opportunity to sit down on the picnic table they were at to rest for a second before we paddled back. Right where the family was sitting there was an arrowhead at my feet. I picked it up and exclaimed about how cool it was and my husband, being the wise, level-headed one of us said, “put it back.” I said, “It’s so cool though!” He insisted that I put it back and so like a complete idiot I gestured like I had put it back, but put it in my pocket instead. When we got back to the campsite, I tucked the arrowhead into my wallet and forgot all about it.
We had a great night around the fire and then proceeded to go to bed in the tent around midnight. Just as I fell asleep, I started to dream or what I would call dreaming. It was absolutely no dream! I was fully aware and present for the whole experience. Now you may say this was sleep paralysis, but that is not my interpretation of it. In the dream (that was not a dream) I was presented with a woman who was holding a baby and as she held the baby she turned into a demon who started to scream at me. Then that scene stopped and for the next three hours or so I saw nothing but the flashing of demon faces trying to get to me. I could hear screaming in my ears and wailing noises. I was terrified and could not move my body or close my eyes. I could see my husband behind the veil of the demon faces, but I could not scream out to have him wake up to help me. Around 5 in the morning an owl hooted and the demon faces suddenly stopped.
I woke my husband up and told him I needed to go to Namekus NOW! He was of course very sleepy and wondering what the heck was happening, but luckily refused to let me drive in the state that I was in. I just knew that I needed to go bury the arrowhead at Namekus. We drove the half hour to Namekus, my husband looking very concerned, but also respecting that I couldn’t talk about what happened or why we were driving out there. I walked to the lake and turned left and asked for forgiveness for taking the arrowhead and then asked to be released and forgiven for anything else I was unaware of. I buried it in the sand, my husband asked if I did what I needed to do and we drove back to the campsite.
Now the story doesn’t end here. I have a very good friend who is very psychic and intuitive. I called her from the lake because I was panicking. Without saying a word she said “what did you do? There is a chief attached to you and he is not pleased with whatever it is that you have done!” I told her about what happened and then she assured me that she would help soothe and clear the energy. All good right? Nope!
Now I was incredibly remorseful, incredibly embarrassed and still really scared. Later in the afternoon I went to the bathroom in the campsite and there was a girl with long black hair draped over her face just staring into the mirror not moving at all. I just knew she wasn’t alive. I felt like I couldn’t pass her to get back out so I went into the stall to hide out. I eventually came back out and she was gone, but no door was opened, no footsteps. Now I raced back to the campsite, crying and scared, and refused to go anywhere alone and my husband and cousin officially thought I had lost my mind, but I still couldn’t tell them what was happening to me.
The next night comes and of course I am terrified to sleep, but everything is ok and the rest of the trip goes as well as it can given that we are sleeping in a tent and I am freaked out!
Now this story doesn’t end here. I return home remorseful but feeling like it will be ok. And then the dreams start again. This time it is an old woman and she is haggard and terrifying and there is just a feel to the dream (that isn’t a dream) that is unlike anything I can even describe. This dream lasts every night for about 6 weeks. I am not getting a lot of sleep, I am terrified and I have no idea what to do. My husband is of course noticing that something is really wrong and again like an idiot, I don’t share. Now I have been with my husband for about 23 years, we talk about everything, but I just couldn’t tell him what I had done.
I consult my friend again and she asks whether I have told my husband what actually happened. I had of course not, because I have never been so embarrassed and ashamed of doing something so disrespectful. A couple weeks later when I feel like I can’t be tormented anymore, I tell him everything that happened with the arrowhead. He grabbed me in a big hug and was so happy I told him what had been happening with me and then rightfully said “I told you so!” Since that day no more spooky demons! I’m still very intuitive and see and sense all sorts of things, but nothing that has been terrifying in the way this was.
To this day I have no idea why I picked up the arrowhead and I have no idea why it had to be taken to Namekus. I do know that I learned a lot of lessons on that trip about being respectful of artifacts and the dead. I will never again play around with things I have no business or understanding of. I still go to this lake every year to go camping with my favourite people, but I have not been back to the island and don’t know if I ever will. If I ever do it will be to apologize again and to offer respect to the chief and the island. I will be forever grateful that he was able to release me and forgive me for what I did.
Calling My Name
When I was about 13 or so, my parents were redoing all the floors in our house so we could not stay there for a while. We ended up staying at my uncles house while he was out of town. One night while I was sleeping, I was woken up by an unknown voice saying my name. I did not recognize this voice and I was alone in the room. A day or so later in the middle of the day, I was alone reading in my room and again heard this voice saying my name. clear as day. I was home alone this time so I was pretty freaked out. I sat outside with my dog until my parents came back. Still have no explanation as to whose voice it was and why they were trying to talk to me.
Bed and Breakfast
A few years ago me and my family booked out a Bed and Breakfast in an 1890's Greek Revival Mansion near the French Quarter in New Orleans. Strange things started happening to me in my room almost immediately but they started small like things not being where I remembered putting them so I dismissed a lot of it. One night I woke up to the ceiling fan on low. The fan had a remote so I thought maybe I rolled over the remote in the night or turned it on by accident in my sleep. So I just turned it off and went back to sleep.
The next couple nights I woke up to either the ceiling fan or the air conditioning on. The air conditioning, like the ceiling fan, also had a remote so I dismissed it with the same rationale and just turned it off and went back to sleep each time.
As I was getting into bed on our last night I made sure to have everything turned off and put the remotes to the ceiling fan and the air conditioner across the room so I couldn’t accidentally or sleepily turn anything on in the night. I awoke in the middle of the night and everything in the room was on… everything! The ceiling fan was on full blast, the air conditioner was on full blast, the ceiling light was on, a floor lamp was on and two bed side lights, ON. I freaked out and ran across the hall to where my sister was sleeping and stayed there for the rest of the night.
In the morning over breakfast we asked our host if any strange things happen in the house and he smirked and said yes that they often have people who are staying in the room I was staying in say they feel someone touching them and when they turn to see who it is, there is no one there. They said that at one point the room would have been the nanny’s room and it adjoined to the children’s room where my sister was staying and they think that the nanny haunts the house. The owner even said they have had ghost hunting tv shows come to the house to try to document any strange happenings but so far nothing has been caught on film!
Irish Pub
I grew up above an Irish pub in a large Catholic family. As you probably know, the Irish pub is the main social gathering point for Irish people, many pubs or bars across Ireland are full of their own folklore, stories and hauntings. In Ireland there are many local versions and stories about Banshees! Legend has it that the banshee can be heard wailing and crying before a death occurs.
I have experienced many, many creepy things over the years, from paintings falling off the walls, flickering lights and shadows passing by. One night I was woken from a deep sleep by what sounded like a surreal female scream that could be heard way off in the distance, followed by barking dogs who must have also heard the same thing. It must have been an animal or something. I thought nothing more about it and lay back down to go to sleep.
The next night I was working in the bar, collecting glasses and empty bottles from the tables of locals and tourists. All seemed normal - the traditional Irish music was ramping up in momentum, just like the scene in Titanic in third class when Jack & Rose are dancing. Then the music stopped abruptly with a loud screech of a violin. Everyone turned around toward the music to find the fiddle player was lying on his back. My father turned to me and asked me to get the holy water... I said, "What about a doctor?"
I did as I was told and went to grab the holy water which my dad always kept on hand in the back kitchen. As I came back out to bless the fiddle player as I approached him, I could see before my own eyes his pallor change to a waxy porcelain white. I blessed him and gave him my own version of his last rights.
Sadly, the fiddle player passed away, I think that is exactly how he would have liked to have died, doing the thing he loved most. Then I got a wave of goosebumps as I thought of how I had been woken up the night before by what must have been the Banshee telling the town about how this respected and well-loved musician was going to pass over.
