Here via Holly Black, so forgive me being the first post.

Here's my ghost story. It's not all that special ;) When I was ten years old my family moved from a large inner city environment to a small town. We moved into a small, old house which due to our limited finances was in horrible condition, but livable - if one can live without appliances, central heat and air and seperate bedrooms - since only the master bedroom had a door.

My room was actually a nook off the large kitchen, which contained a pantry/closet. My father hung up sheets for my privacy, and I spent many nights reading in the dark from the light of the back porch light, with the night wind breezing through the window screens by my bed.

The only bad point was, I woke my parents a number of nights, screaming something was in the closet. My parents reasssured me that our old house had any number of mice and other crawly critters around (not to mention racoons mating beneath the house, which sounds like every haunt in the world) and I attempted to deal, since I was TEN after all. Not a little child.

But I very clearly remember one night the closet door swinging open and a humanlike form coming out. It was human, but also a CREATURE, which an odd inhuman gait and glowing eyes. It was half my size, pale and had an odd smirk on it's face. I've never forgotten it.
I spent the next few nights curled up at the foot of my parents bed, until my father put a lock on the closet door and took down the "privacy sheet". Crosses were suddenly placed throughout the house as well. My parents didn't really believe in what I saw, but they believed I was afraid.

A few months later, my father tore down a small section of wall dividing the bedroom from the kitchen, that had been added to the house around 70 years before. We know this because he found layers of wallpaper and newspaper dating back to the Victorian era. After that, I never heard any sound from the closet again, but I have no idea why a small section of wall not original to the house and the creature I saw would be linked. We moved a year later, and the worst that came with our new home were some used crack pipes in the closet ;)

To this day, I refuse to live in a house that isn't new and my five year old still cosleeps because I don't want him alone in a room with a closet. No magic or message, because I was too scared to look for one honestly... That's my only ghost story.

Here via blackholly and I hope these are useful!

Ghost story #1: After Jake (the family cat) died, I visited the family home for a holiday, and was awakened by the distinct feeling of a cat walking on me, from the feet up to my chest, settling down next to me and curling up. I felt very nervous about this, for some reason, though I did get back to sleep. And no, there wasn't another cat at this point.

Ghost story #2: Much more meaningful. I was going through a very bad time in my relationship, and really didn't know what to do. My grandfather had recently died, and it all added up to the stress in my life. One night, after his death, I had a very vivid dream where Grampa and I sat down and talked. He told me lots of very important things, and when I woke up I couldn't remember any of them, except that he said he loved me very much. That really helped me get through the bad time, and stay true to myself. Later, I used that experience as inspiration for the last scene of my play.

Hope this helps!

The horse barn I used to clean stalls in had a concrete floor right before the door. So if one were to hear the sound of hooves on it, that would be bad, as it would suggest that some stall/door/etc was not closed, possibly by a stall cleaner, and a horse had escaped.

And when that sound--a highly distinct sound--happened, my friend and I, cleaning in separate stalls, would come dashing out to see what had happened, what horse had gotten out and how. And we would hear this, both of us at the same time, on a fairly regular basis. And there was never a horse there. Ever.

Which I suppose by itself could mean nothing. It was quirky, but sounds echo and all that. Except that one time in school around Halloween one of our teachers was asking us about ghost stories, and had any of us ever seen a ghost. And one of the girls who lived in the area of the barn said that she'd seen a glowing light moving across the pasture one night when she drove by.

So I always thought those two stories tied together interestingly, and considered doing something with the two of them, but I'm probably too easily spooked to do anything.

Also via Holly Black!

I used to spend my weekends poking around in antique stores in the town next over from mine. In one particularly large and rambling shop, I was upstairs in the building alone with only my boyfriend. I was admiring some antique couches when I distinctly heard a man's voice speak in my right ear, "Turn around and look over here."

Of course I thought it was my boyfriend, so I turned to see that he wasn't anywhere nearby. I located him a few rooms over, digging through some clocks, and asked him if he'd been in the room where I'd been, and if there was something he'd wanted me to see. He was quite confused, and I brushed off the incident.

A few weeks later, I went back to the place. This time there were two other people there, and I was looking through some photographs with the gentleman of the pair. Eventually a woman approached the man and asked if he'd called her over from across the shop. He hadn't, and she seemed irritated and said that he'd told her to turn around to look at something, but when she did he was nowhere to be found.

Strange but true.

I'm here also via Holly Black's LJ post.

Mine are much more of the medieval style.

After my maternal grandmother died, and I had met my husband I had a dream where she came to me. We were in a simple, empty space. She seemed a little surprised to see me, my husband was with me. What I remember of what was said was simple.

I said "Hi, Marian, this is my fiance Douglas, Douglas this is Marian, but I used to call her Nan."

She looked at me and said "Nan... yes, I used to be called that."

More recently my maternal grandfather has been slowly slipping away, my mother says he doesn't have long. He and my grandmother were deeply in love until she died. I had another dream where my mother and I met them at a hot spring, we were all lounging in the warm water catching up on things that have happened since my grandmother died, and my grandfather was sitting peacefully with her, holding her hand and looking off into the distance.

I think both are more about closure, the dead, or near dead, helping the living.

Also here via Holly Black. My ghost story really isn't a ghost story at all, but a story of remembrance. I'm half Filipino, and over there there's a superstition/tradition that whenever a praying mantis or a moth or a butterfly, or anything bug like but not creepy crawly comes into your house it's a spirit of someone you loved coming back to visit you. Usually to determine who it is you think of all the people you knew who died during that month. This superstition isn't taken seriously by most but is used to take time to remember someone who's past. I have two stories about this tradition, both of which are about my grandfather.
One afternoon, my family went out the market. I decided to stay at the house. This was my first visit back after my grandfather died and I didn't really feel like leaving the house. While they were gone, I turned up the music and started dancing in the living room. All of a sudden, a flying praying mantis comes zooming at me, hits me, and then flies over the wall and sets itself there for the remainder of the afternoon. After my family came back, my mom jokingly asked, as she walked through the door, "Did your grandfather come to visit you?" I turned to her and, wordlessly, pointed to the praying mantis on the wall. The family turned and looked at it, at which point it flew through the window. I got chills up and down as the entire family thought the same thing, that he had come back to watch me while I was in the house alone.
The next time I was there was for my Uncle's wedding. The night before the wedding, everyone was gathered in the kitchen when one of us looked up and noticed this butterfly/moth. The thing about this butterfly was that its wingspan about about a foot across and it was the most vibrant green and yellow I had every seen on a butterfly. All of us were stunned and we raced to get cameras to take pictures of it. However, the scale never did quite show up in the camera. We all looked around and decided it was my grandfather coming to see the wedding.
Ghosts like these don't really scare me. In fact, I welcome them.

Hello Ari! Ember here. The most realistic and pivotal dream I've ever had was about 4 years after my father passed away at 60 years of age. Prostate cancer. The following is a snippet of the journal entry I posted on 6/15/04.

He died four years ago. The man was too young to go, but he was happy. To this day I keep a few of his traditions alive to share with my friends. My personal favorite being margaritas by the pool on the 4th of July. LOL! My Dad loved a good barbeque. Even to the point of getting the longest orange extension cord Lowe's could provide so we could have a blender of margaritas by the poolside.

*sigh* We had our moments, good and bad. He wasn't perfect. He had his issues like any human being, but thank the gods he was loving and sane. Same goes for my Mom.

But this isn't completely about Dad. It's about a dream.

I was sitting at work. A rather hectic day, really. People running frantically to and from the fax machines. Me chugging down my mocha as I disbursed my pile o' files. Something caught my attention as I blurred through fundings. Looking up, my eyes focused on a tall gentleman inquiring at the front desk. "Is Ember here?" Squinting I could make out the regal, bald head with silver hair, brown as a nut tanned skin, and the green Eddie Bauer shirt I knew all too well.

"Dad?" He had a small suitcase on rollers and he turned around out of view. He was leaving.

"No....no...Dad! I'm here! Don't leave.....I'm here!" I sprinted up to the reception area as if my life depended on it. But he wasn't going anywhere. All he did was sit down on the lobby couch, which was out of my field of vision from way back in the office.

"Dad....where've you been?" He didn't say a word because his beaming grin said it all. I jumped into his embrace with my arms wrapped about his neck. Toes dangling, my Dad hugged me tight as we slowly twirled. Dancing. I sobbed pure tears of joy of being in my Dad's arms one more time. I could smell his scent of Old Spice off his neck.

This morning is different. This morning the clinging cellophane has disrupted my normal, daily routine. This morning feels like a hiccup that cannot be subdued.....and more than anything I remember just how much I miss my Dad.

Here via several links, and thought rather the timing was interesting given some recent events. So here is my personal story. It's not scary at all, but rather comforting.

I volunteer at a community theater. It's a small place that means the world to anyone who participates within its walls. And no we don't have a ghost in residence, but I did have one personal experience. Six years ago, myself and another woman (let's call her E) joined the theater around the same time. We became very close friends and she graced our stage in several wonderful roles. She often remarked how the theater was home.
Unfortunately, four years ago, E was diagnosed with cancer. At first the doctors were extremely hopeful for her, but she still had her moments of fear. It was during one of these moments, when she was discussing her own mortality with me, that I tried to make light of the situation. Jokingly, I commented that if anything did happen, that she could come haunt the theater, and then I promised to leave the ghost light* off on the night before opening so she could always see the show. We laughed, and truthfully the moment was forgotten.
(*The ghost light is a common theater superstition where a freestanding light is placed in the center of the stage and left on all night. It is suppposed to scare away ghosts from inhabiting the theater, and also provides enough light that you can walk onstage to turn on the main lights without bumping the set or props)
Eight months later, E was gone. It was too quick and I was not able to say goodbye. At the time I was working on a show at the theater (one that was dedicated to her as most the people in it were her friends), and two nights before we opened I asked my director if we could leave the ghost light off as I had recently remembered my joking promise. I was told no, that the set was too complex and for saftey reason we couldn't. The last night before we opened came and as we were leaving, the ghost light was put out on stage. Only it would not work. We had three electricians in the theater try to make it work and nothing happened. They checked the plug, the bulb, the wiring, everything. And at that moment, I heard E's laugh in my ear so clearly it was like she was standing behind me. I couldn't help but smile. The next night we opened, and out of a two week run it was the only night where everything went perfectly. And opening night (after the show), and still to this day, the ghost light has worked every time.

I have only had one other moment where I felt I had been contacted by E. A few months ago, I awoke one Saturday from a dream. Not suddenly or anything, just woke up. I laid there thinking of my dream. I remembered E being in it clearly, and that we had merely been sitting and talking. I remembered filling her in on the recent gossip and events that had happened to others at the theater. It was very calm, as so real. For a second, after I woke up I thought to myself that I needed to call E and tell her about my crazy dream. I actually starting trying to think when the last time I called her was, then I remembered that she had died almost three years ago. For a while I thought that it WAS just a dream, and that I merely was missing my friend. Until I remembered that at the end of the dream she had said that she needed to go because she was going to visit a mutual friend of ours. Out of curiosity, I asked him if he had dreamed of her. He got a shocked look on his face and said yes, that he had had the most realistic dream about her. We compared dates and they were around the same time. I truly feel that it was E, that she had come to visit and check up on us.
So there's my humble little story. It's not bone-chilling by any means but comforting to know that however much I miss E, I still have some kind of connection to her. However small and otherworldly it may be. I hope this helps.

Also here via Holly Black.

The women of my family all see ghosts and whatnot, so I've got lots of stories.

--When my mother was a child, she woke up in the middle of the night and saw an old woman dressed in white sitting on the end of her bed, just looking at her. I think she put it down to a dream and went back to sleep.

--A former resident of what is now my grandparent's house committed suicide in my aunt's bedroom. One night she woke up because the dog, a Jack Russell was growling at the direction of the door and spazzing. She looked at the door, and there was smoke coming from underneath it, covering the floor of her room. She immediately thought there was a fire, got out of bed and opened the door and turned on the lights. The was absolutely nothing happening, so we figured it was the suicide guy.

--After my great-grandfather died, we had him cremated, and we went to the beach to scatter the ashes. It was a cold and windy day, so after we threw the ashes to the wind and the waves, we walked back in a tight group. A swallow came out of nowhere, and flew around us in a circle a few times, as if tying us all together with a string. I'm pretty sure it was my great-grandfather.

--The bedroom I had as a child was haunted, and I remember all sorts of creepy feelings. The ghost mostly seemed to stay in the closet, where it would play with my dollhouse--things would be knocked over, furniture and people would be in different rooms, very terrifying for an eight year old child.

My bedroom as an adolescent wasn't haunted, but things seemed to come and go. My most vivid memory from this time: I turned over in bed so I was facing the room and opened my eyes. There was a...something looking back at me. I say looking...It looked like one of those little Halloween ghosts they have you make in elementary out of a handkerchief. It was maybe a foot tall and about four and a half feet off the ground. It didn't have features, but it had enough concentrated interest that you could tell where it was focused. It was just sitting there fluttering and "looking" at me like I was very interesting, or it wanted something from me. I essentially told it that I was too tired to deal with this shit and to go away, and then turned back over. It left.

I've also seen/felt the ghosts of two cats, one at my father's house, another at my partner's family's house. The one at my father's just appeared at the foot of my bed at sat staring out the window. The one at my partner's climbed onto the couch while I was lying down, stepped on and over my legs, made a few little circles and flopped down. I got the impression that she was a very disgruntled cat in general. I told my partner that there was the spirit of a cat next to me on the couch and he said "Oh, that's probably Jesse. She was always restless."

So those are my ghost stories for the moment.

My little sister, Heidi, died of a heroin overdose about ten years ago. She was cremated and I had (and still have--but this happened in a different house) her ashes in a small glass cabinet. I wanted to fill the cabinet with things she loved, so in addition to pictures of her, there's her signed Misfits t-shirt, her pewter bat necklace and some lots and lots of other stuff. A few months after her funeral, I was getting ready to go out to some goth extravaganza and no necklace quite worked with my vinyl outfit. I tried on one and then another and then I remembered Heidi's bat necklace in the hallway. I asked Theo what he thought about me wearing it and he said that Heidi wouldn't have minded--she loved to make me wear her things. I decided that I would at least try it on, so I took it out of the cabinet and gave it to him to latch around my neck as I watched in the mirror. As the latch clasped, a music box behind us sprang to life. The box never played before and has never played again.

When I was a teenager, I was in a youth acting troupe at the Cocoa Village Playhouse in Cocoa Village, FL. The CVP dates back to the 1920s, used to be a vaudeville house, and is notorious in the area for being haunted. The Playhouse ghost has never been connected to an actual death in the house, but he's known as Joe, and is popularly supposed to have been a lighting guy. Not only is the lighting booth a favorite haunt of his -- he can be both heard and seen there -- but his presence carries the distinct odor of stale sweat and burning electrical equipment. (That's about to become relevant.)
My first year in the troupe, I was at a rehearsal of our annual play, and I realized that I had seen every inch of the playhouse except for the dressing rooms under the stage. They were working on the first act, and I didn't make my entrance until Act 2, so I slipped away from the group and starting sneaking down the stairs. By the time I was on the third step, I had this terrible foreboding feeling. By the fourth step, I felt cold. And on the fifth step, the smell hit me.
"OK, Joe. Going back."
And I beat it back to where I was supposed to be.
It wasn't the only time I saw, felt, heard or smelt something odd at the Playhouse, but it was the strongest experience, and the first one.

I am also here via Holly Black. :)

My dad died from complications of MS when I was 20 years old. He died in my arms, and it was one of the hardest experiences of my life - my dad and I were soulmates, and I missed him horribly. At the time he died, I was also engaged to a young man who ended up dumping me two days after my father's death.

Almost exactly a year later, I still wasn't fully over either event, and life was very hard. I was dating here and there, but I still hadn't found anyone who made me truly happy. And I missed my dad.

One night I had a dream that was so clear, I still remember every detail. In the dream, I was newly married to a young man with dark hair and glasses, who wore very "preppy" looking clothes (khakis and and a sweater), and whom I teasingly called "doctor". We were moving into our first home, and everything around us was sunshine and light, happiness bottled in crystal. I gave my husband a kitten as a housewarming gift. And while we were cooing together over the tiny kitten, I saw my dad walk past the open front door, in the sunshine outside.

I was surprised - I knew my dad was dead, and he had been a quadriplegic for years before his death, bedridden for the months immediately prior. I kissed my husband goodbye and ran outside, where my dad was standing in my yard.

I remember hugging my dad, and he felt so real and solid. We walked together toward the woods that surrounded my house, and I asked him what he thought of my husband.

"You're both dreamers," my dad told me, "and that will make things hard for you, some of the time. But you will love each other very much, and you will be very, very happy, for the rest of your lives."

And then we were at the edge of the woods, and my husband was calling me back to the house. My dad slipped into the shadowy forest, smiled at me, told me he loved me, and told me, "Your life will be blessed." I said goodbye, walked back to my house, and just before I went through the door, I turned to wave at him. When I walked through the door, I woke up.

One year later, again almost exactly, I met the man from my dream. He had dark hair and wore glasses. He was studying for his PhD. Right now, this moment, he's wearing khakis and a sweater. He loves cats. We were married in 2004 and we have been blessed and happy.

Two nights before our wedding, we were asleep in my childhood bedroom, when I woke up suddenly. I had heard someone call my name and it had drawn me out of a sound sleep. As I lay in bed, a music box across the house began to play... "Somewhere out there/ beneath the pale moonlight/ someone's thinking of me/ and loving me tonight." It played long enough that I could wake up my husband (then fiance), and he heard it, too. Just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

I still miss my dad, but I know he's looking out for me. He came back to give me light and hope when I thought both were very far away.

Edited at 2009-02-09 09:00 am (UTC)

Here via Holly...

Three experiences stand out in my mind. The first is from a house we lived in when I was a teenager, a bungalow-style house built in about 1912. We moved there shortly after my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Almost immediately upon moving in, within a week or so, we felt as though we weren't alone. Mom began seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, and at night I would hear a child's laughter as I fell asleep. Eventually the shadows became figures we weren't sure we'd seen: a woman, in a dress, standing in the dining room. A man in a smart coat and hat in the living room. I never saw the child, but I heard him. Our cats took to hanging out in the hallway that was always cold, even in the dead of a California summer, and they would roll around on the floor and stretch as though someone were petting them. We heard floorboards creak as if someone were walking back and forth, and sometimes I smelled smoke from a pipe (no one in my family smoked).

As my mother's health deteriorated, my parents and I saw more and more of our housemates. As far as we could tell it was a family, and we saw the mother most often. Sometimes, I would be sitting at the computer in the living room, my mother asleep in her hospital bed, and I would feel someone standing behind me, touching my hair, a gentle pressure on my shoulders. I didn't have to look to know I would not see anyone, except the one day that I did - the mother, a woman in clothes not fashionable for at least a hundred years, smiled at me from across the room. It was such a sad, empathetic smile. Maternal.

The day after that, my mother passed away. I moved out shortly thereafter, and Dad said after that when I left, the family's appearances tapered off until he stopped seeing them altogether.

I lived for a time in a house in which the previous owner was a depressed single mother, and one day she wrote a suicide note, tucked her children in bed in the master bedroom, and set a fire. The children died of smoke inhalation, she lived and went to a prison mental ward, and my then boyfriend bought the house from the state.

There were no bad feelings in this house, ever. On many mornings, the upstairs bedroom doors that were closed would creak open just a crack, and then shut, in order around the hallway. It was as if we were being checked on.

Also, the dog that lived with us would be played with. A tennis ball would come flying down the stairs, he would dart after it and bring it back upstairs. The floor was hardwood, so we could hear the ball hit the floor and his nails stop ticking. Then the ball would come flying down the stairs again with the dog in hot pursuit. The ball was moving far too fast for it to just be rolling.

Thirdly, on several occasions when I was carrying large loads and wondering how to juggle them and open the door to a particular room, I would stop outside of the door to shift my load, the door would open by itself, I would go into the room, and the door would shut behind me.

All of the incidents were confined to the top floor, and there was just a pervading sense of happiness there. It was wonderful, and I miss it.

Also here because of Holly Black.

I've had a lot of experiences with supernatural stuff. I'll only tell one story because it's the only story no one has been able to write off with some bogus explanation.

The summer before my sophmore year in college a family friend, Damen, died. It was really heartbreaking because Damen was really full of life. He died in a drunk driving accident so his death was really sudden and a total shock to all of us.

I have to say something about his personality before I move on. He loved/loves to play tricks. His favorite artist was Prince, he always wore purple, wore vests without shirts underneath them, and if something glittered he had to have it.

Maybe two months after he died I started getting a lot of calls where no one was on the other line. Half I assumed were from solicitors who had gotten my number so when no one answer right off the bat I hung up quickly. Also, at this time I lived in the basment of a dorm which the cell phone reception was pretty pathetic you'd have service one second then two seconds later in the same spot you wouldn't. So those were the reasons I used to explain the weird calls.

One day, I'm in my dorm room and I get a call. I look at the number, don't recognize it and answer it anyway. I say "hello, hello" but nothing is on the other line. I looked at my signal and it was at only one bar so I yell "I'll call you right back! I'm going to run upstairs so I get better service" I hung up and ran upstairs. I tried the number but this time I got a message that said "this number is not in service" It creeped me out but not too bad. I again wrote it off as a solictor.

Maybe an hour later my best friend, who had at that time recently become obsessed with Psychics that talk to the dead, she desperatly wanted to talk to Damen, called me. She had seen a psychic and she had known a lot. Even stuff about my family, stuff that my best friend didn't know. So I believe that she isn't a fraud.

Sue, my best friend, tells me all of this stuff about people we both know who are dead, and people she's never met like my dad and my great grandmother. Then she tells me that the psychic asked her if she ever got any "dead calls." I asked what a dead call was and she explains that its a call but no one is on the other line or at least they don't seem to be. She said that the only black man in the group, D-something, had been trying to get ahold of us.

I flipped out. I yelled at Sue that I had been getting them all the time and even had one that day. I told her I would call her right back. I looked up the area code on the mysterious number and it was from Gary, Indiana. I had never been there and the only person I knew who had been there was Damen, it's where he was from and he was buried there. I knew it was him.

After that I got more calls which I always answered and talked to and when I was driving in the car alone on long trips all the sudden "Purple Rain" would come on the radio. It would come on popular radio stations so I thought it was strange. Also things would move just a little bit around me. They were always purple or shiny things. I knew that when it got to the moving things it was just Damen showing off and playing pranks. It started freaking me out one time I was watching something move and I yelled "Damen Stop!" and it did. He didn't call me back ever again either. I think he knew his joke went to far. I think he still bother's Sue though.

Dear Ari

I was around eighteen years old, when I started noticing someone following my dad around. (Seeing ghosts / shapes / images / having dreams, has always been part of my growing up and my family is quite normal about it now!).

I couldn't figure out who this chap was, but I did see him clearly - he was dressed in WW1 army clothes, he looked familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Whenever he saw me staring he would just smile this enigmatic smile and turn his attention back to my dad.

Eventually it got so bad that he was always present, when my dad was around - at the dinner table, watching tv, whilst he was working on his car. It was driving me nuts - I couldn't seem to get away from him and neither could my dad. There were cold-spots in the house (which was huge and draughty anyway) and sometimes there was muffled conversations.

I told my mom, she panicked a bit, and she asked a priest to come around and just do a calming prayer in the house. It did not help / work. The energy was never anything malignant, this guy was still following my dad around - he was a handsome younger man, maybe in his early twenties and he always looked immaculate in his uniform.

My dad genuinely didn't seem to be bothered by him and we left it at that. Then something odd started happening - my dad's voice started failing. Initially we thought it was a bad throat infection but then he went to the doctor, they did tests and it turned out he had throat cancer. Once he was diagnosed, the chap in the WW1 uniform disappeared from our lives - I didn't see him for two years after that.

My dad's cancer went into remission after treatment and we were all very pleased, as you may well imagine!

He only reappeared when my dad was admitted to hospital for a random check-up - he had to stay for a few days as it turned out he started showing signs of being allergic to some of his medication. Once I saw him sitting next to my dad's bed, I freaked out completely and burst into tears. I was inconsolable, as I knew this time around, he wasn't there as a companion, this time he was there as a guide.

My dad passed away two days later. When we were clearing out all his stuff, as we had to move to a smaller house, we came across old photo albums of his family - and photos of my WW1 soldier was in there. I still have no idea who he was or why he was sent to look after my dad. None of my dad's family know who he is - all we have are initials: JKV.

I have more, but this is probably the most personal and poignant one for me and my family.

When I was 7 years young, my parents, me, my brother and my sister moved to an old house. The first thing I did when I entered the house was walking to the basement door, opened it and said out loud: "There's a monster in the basement." I never went to the basement alone or if I was alone in the house. I don't know what it was, but in my mind I had an image of those monsters under Calvin's (from Calvin & Hobbes) bed, hairy, huge and drooling.
The house was also infested with faeries, who grew very close to me (I was the only one who ever had any contact with them), pulling my hair and giving me bruises and such.

There was also a ghost, who made me really nervous. He'd stand next to my bed and just hover over me at night and stalked the stairs. One night I was getting up the stairs and heard a "whooooosh"-sound behind me. I turned around, saw a figure with it's hands and arms reaching for me, freaked out completely and ran into my bed, where I hid under the covers while he kept leering over me.
Another empath once told me the ghost was my godfather, who had killed himself. Why he seemed so hostile to me, I don't know, as he was the kindest person ever.

Linked from Holly Black...

Where to start? My cousin Mark, who was more like a brother to me than anything else, committed suicide 8 years ago, when he was 20. The moment he died, I couldn't breath. I sat on my bathroom floor, gasping for air, scared to death because I didn't know why it was happening. Two hours later, my mother arrived to give me the news. After that, there were all kinds of signs that he was still with us. It started a week later, when the senior picture he absolutely hated kept toppling from the shelf. Mom finally put it away when the glass in the frame shattered. Or she would get up in the morning and all of the candles on the kitchen table had been knocked over. Then I started to be swarmed with love bugs 2 months before love bug season was supposed to begin. Or I'd turn on the radio (I was going through a country music period) and hear this song "I'm All Right", and it would always be the same part of the song, about the person not knowing when they'd see her again. Then I began dreaming about him off and on, some good, some bad. Kind of odd, because I very seldom dream. There were the dreams where we just sat there talking, and there was the dream where he stood by my side while I heard that my mother had been killed in a car accident. That one woke me up, and I got a promise from my mother that she would seek an alternate route to and from work. She's still here, and I'll be forever convinced that it's because of Mark. The last I heard from him was a couple of months ago, at a reading from a medium. He told me that Mark was always with me, that he sat beside me when I drove and enjoyed listening to my out-of-control road rage.

Other instances in the family include my great-grandfather appearing to my mother just before a death in the family, my brother training himself not to dream because all the strangers coming to him while he sleeps and telling him about their lives and their children scare him to death, and the horrible heebee jeebees I get occasionally when I walk into rooms in places I've never been before.

Hi Ari.
I am Holly Black's Mom.Just so you know from whence the story comes.
When Holly and her sister were very young we lived in an older house (across the street from a cemetery...though not the one where my Uncle was buried.) with a bedroom that faced South East so it was full of light early in the morning. One bright morning ( it was about 6AM) I awoke and was looking about my room and specifically toward the dresser with the large mirror when my Uncle Vincent materialized in front of it.
I don't know how else to describe it. One minute he was not there the next he was.
He was wearing the tan pajamas and burgundy robe he had worn when I saw him last and looked wonderful.( he was a very nice looking man) He looked pink and healthy and very much alive. My Uncle was someone I was very close to. He had died of brain cancer about a six months before this.
He approached the side of the bed moving in front of one of the sunlight bright windows and appearing totally solid.He blocked the light just as you or I would. The only thing I observed was that all noise( we lived on a busy street) seemed muffeled and time felt like it had shifted a bit, either speeded up or slowed down.
He smiled and asked me if he didn't look good, said he felt well. He asked me how the children were. He asked me how Krissie, the dog he an my Aunt Audrey had, was. Then he said something about "the trees" I couldn't catch it all because in sound there was a sort of static like interference. Visually he broke up a bit also. He then said he had to go, gave us all his love and disappeared.
I went back to sleep for a short time until Heidi woke up wanting to be nursed.
I would have written it off as a dream except for the fact that when my Mom called me about 9AM she told me my Aunt Audrey (My Aunt and late Uncle lived across the street from my parents)was having some large old trees taken down in their side yard. That she and my uncle had fought about this often as he liked the trees where they were and that now he was gone she had the men in cutting them down. They had begun that morning.

Holly sent me

I have lots of supernatural stories but I won't tickle your brain with all of them.

-One year ago I was the first person on the scene of a car accident. It was wet and cold outside which made it even more miserable. The car hit a tree sideways and flipped over on its side into a small creek. I slide down the bank and was in the car before the dust settled. I was the only one who was small enough to fit in the bend of the car that happened to be where the window was. I was not going to leave the girl alone and the police man knew that, so he told me he had my back. What I saw was the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. Her name was Ashley and she was a fighter but it wasn't enough. I rubbed her hands and her back to try to calm her while I was looking through her stuff to find her name, all I could find was valentines she was going to give out the next day. Finally our towns incompetent EMS got out of the way and let the fire dept. save the day. A small fireman and myself lifted her out through a window. They worked on her in the field and then loaded her into the ambulance, where she died five minutes later. After she was out of the car I found a bracelet so I put it in my pocket to give it back to her later. When I was back in the warmth of my house I remembered the bracelet. It was not in my pocket. I went back to the scene several times and it was not there. Where did it go? I also will get a whiff of a soft, sweet scent. When that scent floats by I always think of Ashley. It happened a lot more when I would ponder about the accident. I think it is her way to help me be at peace.

Hello Ari, I'm here from Holly's journal as well. I grew up in my grandmother's incredibly haunted house, but the one haunting that has always stayed with me is the ghost who played our piano. When I was little, I would hear someone playing the piano every night. I asked my grandmother if it was her and she said no. One night as I was coming down the stairs to sneak a cookie out of the tin, I saw a woman walk from my playroom into the music room. She was just a shadow, but I could tell she was wearing a dress with a pronounced bustle. A few minutes later, I heard the piano as usual.

I would have written this off as the overactive imagination of a child, but years later my own children (who had never heard the tale) asked me if I'd ever heard the lady playing the piano in that house. We never did figure out her story and the house is now sold. I often wonder if the new owners ever hear her playing.

Ever since I was a young child, I have interacted with the spirit world. As I grew up, I started to acknowledge that what I saw was real and that I needed to pay attention to the visitations I received from spirits. The most memorable one happened when I started school at Central Michigan University back in 1998.

I was on campus before any of my roommates, because I was participating in Leadership Safari. My parents had dropped me off and left on their return trip to the UP. While I was organizing my things and starting to make my room presentable, I saw a small, black figure out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look though, there was nothing there. I figured I must have been seeing things, since I had two black cats at my parents house, so I continued unpacking.

A little later (around twilight) I heard a faint meow and some purring, also seeing a small, black figure scurry under my bed. I thought I was going nuts at first, then I decided to sit down and open myself to any spirits that were present. It turns out that I had met a ghost cat, who I came to call "Midnight". I think he may have been one of the track cats around the railroad tracks that run through CMU. Regardless of where he came from, he stayed with me throughout all of my 9 years in Mount Pleasant. My friends would see him and comment about him before even knowing about my experience.

Midnight was with me through my time in the residence halls, followed me to my apartments, and interacted with my live cats. He was there with me when I was at my loneliest. I think he may have been tied to the area though, because he has not followed me to Tennessee. I hope he is either at rest or has found another person to keep company. I'm sad that he is no longer with me, but glad for the time we had together.

Sent by Holly Black
I have two stories to tell, both true.
The first is about my dad. He died January 2008 and it was a very strange time for my family. It was a car accident. So, in December, I started having dreams of my usual unusual stuff and he would suddenly bust in and my dream would evaporate. He would start to scream at me but I couldn't hear him; his lips moved but I couldn't understand. When he finally realized that, he started pointing to a picture I'd vaguely recalled from my childhood. It was baby me in one of those toddler swings in the house and he would point angrily at something behind me. This went on three or four times a week all December but when the anniversary of his death came around they stopped. I don't know if that means it's too late for what he was trying to tell me; I recently asked my mom and she said the picture was in the attic somewhere but we still haven't found it.
The next story I have to share took place late in July 2008. My boyfriend, some friends, and I were hanging on the back country street where most of them lived. The town's only homeless man, Michael, approached us. He was a bit grungy as always but everyone knows he could be as nice as anything. He told us he'd been sleeping in the old Victorian house at the end of the road and he wanted to show us it. A friend who was with us owned the house but had the kindness not to mention it. Michael said the house was haunted and he wanted to show us. As we walked toward the house, I was excited. I always wanted to meet a ghost and Michael began to tell us horror stories such as the old "cat house" that burned down near the river and some nights you could still see the "cats" walking back and forth.
We made it to the house and Michael started talking about a great evil that existed in the house but it hadn't done anything to him just let him be. As we walked around to the overgrown broken porch on the side, the front porch, locked, had a a hole under it; I felt a cold draft blowing heavily out from it on this hot summer night, but my boyfriend was the only one to stop in front of it and stare awhile before Michael called and told us to hurry up. No one else mentioned the cold. We climbed over the porch side to find that the door had been kicked in; Michael swore he didn't do it. He walked in first, then two of my friends. My boyfriend was walking behind me his hands wrapped around my waist. As soon as I stepped onto to the door something down on the floor grabbed my legs and began to pull. I paused and looked down but there was nothing and it began to pull harder as if trying to pull me into the basement. I freaked out and ran out of that house, jumped over the cumbersome porch and out into the road as if the devil himself had come for me. I started screaming "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" even though I knew it wasn't there anymore, I could still almost feel it. I had a picture appear in mind of it as it started coming out of the house for me. I had no legs of its own and dragged on bloody stumps, it's face, eyes, teeth were just wrong and it scared me. I knew it wasn't really there but I could almost see it. And I just knew that whatever evil belonged to the house, that thing wasn't it. Somehow I knew it traveled from abandoned house to house looking for something; it had broken down the door and it wanted me. Soon, unnaturally long finger and hand marks appearing in heavy black and blue bruises on my legs. I made my boyfriend take me home immediately just to get away and told him what I saw. He then replied that something under the house was calling him and once he was inside something deeper in the house starting almost demanding him and if I hadn't run out, he would have gone with it. Later, our friends told us Michael was almost gleeful about what happened and kept asking them to bring me back. But I refused. That was the last time I saw Michael and eventually he faded away so that no one on the street knew what really happened to him. My boyfriend still believes Michael had been recruited by the house to get him. I don't know what I believe about that night. I just know that this memory stands out vividly in my mind. Every time I visit that street, I look at the house and wonder what might have happened had I stayed.

My Mom died in 2005 and talks to me all the time in dreams. I never do remember what she says but I know I feel better the next day when I've dreamed of her.

When I was a little girl (possibly 4 or 5) I remember being at a party for my grandmother. I spent the entire night talking to a red-haired woman and her companion. I thought the red-haired woman was, quite possibly, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I remember falling asleep in her lap as she stroked my hair. When I asked, later, who she was, I was told that there were no red-haired women at the party. That, at one time, there had been a red-haired woman that lived there but that she had died. I am never quite sure whether it was a dream or not.

As you know we lived in a haunted house. What Holly may not have told you is that there is a strong psychic line that runs in my Dad's family. He and his oldest sister especially. I seem to have inherited a bit of the sensitivity! I do seem to run into creepy things. ( and they seem to find me too!)

This story begins in a former church and ends in a Mazda GLC..how is that for a weird ghost combo??

I belonged to Eastern Star many moons ago. Our group held their meetings in a former church. I was Worthy Matron of the group and frequently went in there alone to set up for the meetings.
The place was lovely. High Gothic with lots of beautifully carved wood beams and trims,walls of a soft golden yellow and a high peaked ceiling. The problem was you never felt alone in the building. It didn't look creepy but it felt it. My kids hated going into the building with me. The former church itself was the worst part. This was where our meetings were held. The social after meeting was in the basement which was dark and should have been creepy but wasn't!

One cool and windy October night we held a meeting and all through it I felt as if someone was right behind me standing or walking. There was such a feeling of presence that I was waiting for a hand to touch my shoulder at any moment. It bothered me so much that I did not stay for the social time after the meeting but left as fast as I possibly could.

I climbed into my little Mazda GLC and headed for home. I kept the vents closed as it was chilly and windy out. My engine was not warm enough to turn the heat on and not just make myself more cold. I had only driven one block from the former church when
suddenly the car reeked of Old Spice!( My grandfather used that scent and it is distinctive.) It was so strong I nearly choked on it! It was as if someone had opened the bottle right under my nose.
I said aloud: "Stop that!" Instantly the scent was gone.

I had a distinct feeling of a presence in the back seat but the rear view mirror showed nothing. I drove a bit faster!

I had driven a few miles and was on a long stretch of road beside the river when suddenly the smell of tobacco smoke wafted my way.
I said aloud " I don't allow smoking in this car!"
Hey-presto no more smoke!
I still had not opened the vents and there were no houses in that area...also the odor was tobacco not wood smoke.( both my parents were smokers. My husband smoked a pipe)

I continued driving and when I was about a block from my home I asked. "are you still there?" and was rewarded with the odor of old sweat socks. ( well, I had eliminated after shave and tobacco)

I never asked my ghostly friend what he wanted ( for some reason I have always felt it was a he) or why they followed me. I just pulled into my driveway and made a mad dash for the house( in high heels and an ankle length dress!)slamming the car door behind me. It was a good 75 feet from the driveway to the house and I ran every step of it!
I never met my ghostly friend again and never knew what prompted the visit or who it was.
Needless to say my family teased me about my haunted car for a long time!