Yes. That creepy old house as..,again. You know, that place where sometimes there’s a “door” and sometimes not. And you don’t realize you shouldn’t be or you don’t want to be…there….until it’s too late.

Does that happen to you?

I never know at first.

The first floor always looks friendly and warm and nice and it even looks different each time so I don’t recognize it.

The second floor, well, it starts to let me know with eerie places that pulse with a warning and the attic…I don’t go in there.

At my bravest I might peer inside before I slink away from the malevolence pervading from that place.

Except once. I don’t like to think about that. I got hit in the shoulder then and it still hurt after I woke up.

But today I was happy chilling in one of my bedrooms in my grandiose house. Heck. Grandiose mansion. I was reading or writing when Alicia, the daughter of a childhood friend, stopped by.

We chatted about a lot of things before she
asked just how many bedrooms I had in my gorgeous new place.

“Three,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

I laugh, “Of course! Would you like a tour?”

So we go from room to room chatting about the house’s decor and its charm. We poke through my posh living room and kitchen before we venture to the staircase.

I have a grand staircase! How cool is that?

We go upstairs and into another bedroom. Four. I didn’t realize I had four. Back to the hallway and I grab another doorknob. Bedroom #5?

It’s a bathroom. And with shivers needling across the backs of my arms, I shut the door. No. Not this place again.

“Is there a problem,” Alicia asks.

I shake my head. I have the right to occupy my space. Be fearless.

Exactly why do I find this place so creepy? Why do I always question that when I’m here.

I thought it was the ambiance of clutter and dirt and disrepair. But the place looks clean…it looks habitable this time.

There’s also a heavy presence which hates others occupying ITS space. But the air…it might not be as light as downstairs, but it doesn’t feel oppressive. More like waiting.

Be brave.

I continue the tour.

After a few more rooms we step into an L-shaped sitting room with hundreds of colored glass lanterns in various shapes hanging from the ceiling. They are all lit up. It gives the room a warm almost magical look but the room tastes like old smoke and regrets.

I don’t like the dirty blue-glass ashtray sitting on the large circular dark wood table. The table triggers an almost-memory. I can’t place it but I’ve seen that table before.

Alicia and I take a seat on the dark leather couch. I look at the cork board overhead and I notice faded old pictures pinned of people I don’t know.

This is my place now. Perhaps I should take them down.

Muttering — I can’t make out the words but maybe I shouldn’t try — come from the table. No one is sitting there.

Alicia grabs my hand. Her eyes are huge and round.

“Don’t worry. I’ll shun them,” I say.

(What exactly does that mean?? Did I know when I said it?)

I breathe Reiki-style at the table. “Leave. Take the attic but you can’t stay here.”

I’m able to see the attic through the walls of the room. I should’ve not been able to. It defies the laws of nature but I’m more struck to see the attic cleared of all the junk.

Did someone come in and do a major housecleaning? There is furniture in there. Like 60s, 70’s styled. But no crumbling old boxes. No dust. No scurrying movement. No holes in the walls.

I’m tempted to venture in. No. I told whatever it was to stay in there. I will stay out. For now.

I turn back at the hanging lanterns and I get the impression of a young woman, a sad young woman.

Then I hear a child singing. I am pulled away, eyes open to a window overlooking a familiar snowy scene.

Yep. Our resident 8-year old is up. I reach for my phone. 7:30? (Ugh) I shoo him downstairs.

So in-between shushing him so others can sleep and writing this I’m left with the feeling I should know the answers behind that house.

Is there an answer or is a dream just a dream?