buoyant idol
When I was little (30 years ago) my family regularly attended church. This church is one of the oldest sandstone structures of its kind in Canada. Knox was (probably still is) extremely haunted. Legitimately, I witnessed some super inexplicable things, from phantom footsteps and books stacking themselves behind glass, to an apparently full body apparition.
I say apparently, because this story isn’t actually mine, but is more about me.
10 years ago I encountered one of my fellow pint sized church patrons. During our conversation, things inevitably turned ghostly as we ALL had weird, spooky things happen to us. His scariest story was about me. This is now my scariest story.
I remember a few times when the other youths would turn practically blue upon my entrance, saying I had literally just left, through a different door. I do not have a twin. But the scariest was when I’d play with and include the “shy girl”.
I remember her. She always wore the same black Sunday school frock, thick white leggings and very, very shiny black shoes. I am a touch face blind, always have been. Struggle to put a name and face together because most people look the same to me. I do remember she had thick rimmed glasses and symmetrical, shoulder length blonde hair. She usually just kinda hung around the back of the group and listened.
The third time she joined us and nobody invited her to join in, I did. She refused to join the group but agreed to play with me. She taught me a bit of tap-dance and how to play “somewhere over the rainbow” on the piano. I honestly don’t remember anything after that. She never joined in, but we’d occasionally play.
Imagine my complete horror, 20 years later, learning that the other kids thought I was mentally ill, talking to myself. Explains why they kept asking me to show them how to get the piano to play itself though.
To this day, I am someone else’s ghost story and I still can’t believe I never knew.