She sees…dead people?
I must tell you — although I am as psychic as a potato — Badger House doesn’t feel the least little bit haunted to me. Despite its old bones (between 399 and 421 years old, depending on whether you believe our earliest property tax bill or the plaque on the front), it feels nothing but warm and happy. This place has been added to, taken from, patched up, mutilated, renovated and redecorated so many times, all the ghosteses must have packed their bindles and hit Ye Roadde centuries ago.
But Charlotte here is kind of freaking us out.
She’s a spooky girl. She was a feral kitten and she’s been a one-weasel cat ever since, but she did pretty okay the first few days. She explored the house, she cautiously interacted with Uncle B. She was acclimating faster than I expected.
Then she stopped coming downstairs one day. She’d hide in the closet with the water heater if I left it open. I had to move her food up. She slept twenty hours a day, only came down when I carried her and scooted back up the moment I let go. It was a cold week; I put it down to that.
Then she gradually calmed down. She began coming downstairs for a few minutes on her own. Accepting skritchies from Uncle B. She’ll still startle at the least noise, but after weeks and weeks she’s getting back where she was on day three.
But for one thing: she’s fixated on a particular spot on the wall. She’ll be grooming or snoozing or playing with string, and suddenly she’ll jump like she hears something and stare at That Place (this lucky shot catches her the very moment she stopped chewing toe and started the creepy stare). No doubt about it: she’s watching something.
The spot is in the short hall between the livingroom (with the fire) and the dining room (where Granny Weasel is hung). There is a small window. There’s nothing else there. Now.
But all the old geezers in the neighborhood tell us that’s where the front door was for hundreds of years, until the major renovation of 1970-something.
wwwwoooooOOOO0000OOOoooooo!
Posted: February 11th, 2009 under animals, badger house, cats, charlotte, personal.
Comments: 26
Comments
Comment from porknbean
Time: February 11, 2009, 9:41 pm
Wasn’t the custom to sacrifice a critter or miscreant and stuff them under the hearth for good luck or some such when a house was being built. Or is that Scottish custom I’m thinking of?
Maybe you have something buried in the wall or under the old threshold that wants out. Get your vicar to do an exorcism.
Comment from Fa Cube Itches
Time: February 11, 2009, 10:10 pm
I had a buddy who lived in a fairly old place (Civil War era). He had a rather pathetic yapdog – poor SOB had been run over *twice* but refused to go quietly into that flat night – that was well into advanced doggie years. It used to follow us down into the basement where he had a pingpong table. The dog would sleep under the table while we played.
One night, we’re down playing and my buddy says: “Does it feel like someone is watching you?” It definitely did. All of a sudden the dog runs out from under the table, stares into an empty corner gets down in a fighting crouch and starts growling like its about to commit serious war crimes. It kept edging forward and back like it was going to attack something.
We beat feet back upstairs, and the dog followed. It kept guard on the basement door for the rest of the night, too.
Never happened before or after, but that was weird.
Comment from Allen
Time: February 11, 2009, 10:32 pm
Ooooo, I love a good alternate view. Mine, when me wife died. Okay I was a tired pup, an absolute scoundrel, I went home to get some sleep.
So, I wake up at 4:00 AM with someone shouting in my ear (with no one else home) and bolt out of bed. 45 minutes later I get a phone call from the horsepital. She’s gone. I found out she died exactly at 4:00 AM.
My conundrum, was she yelling “I love you,” or “You asshole.” So, I’ve got the whole, no fucking idea what’s going on with my view of the universe. I suspect she was shouting, on the way out, I love you, asshole.
Hey, she used to greet me at the airport with a kiss, and a “welcome home asshole” comment.
Sweet
Comment from dfbaskwill
Time: February 12, 2009, 8:44 am
I thought taxes were bad here in The States. Over there you are apparently taxed 22 years before building your house! I wonder how long after you die they still extract “your fair share”?
Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: February 12, 2009, 10:53 am
Or is that Scottish custom I’m thinking of?
The only Scottish traditions I’m aware of are deep-fried Mars bars and electing socialists to head the British government.
Get your vicar to do an exorcism.
That I’d like to see. Instead of banishing spirits to whence they came, they’d probably talk about feelings and have group hugs and diversity training and try to understand the root causes of the spirit’s occupation.
Comment from Muslihoon
Time: February 12, 2009, 11:28 am
That I’d like to see. Instead of banishing spirits to whence they came, they’d probably talk about feelings and have group hugs and diversity training and try to understand the root causes of the spirit’s occupation.
LOL!
BTW, nice carpet, Your Ladyness.
Comment from memomachine
Time: February 12, 2009, 11:56 am
Hmmm.
Ghosts don’t creep me out too much. There’s a ghost, or -something-, here in my house that I see at times. Or two. Or more, who knows.
What really creeps me out is this Lincoln obsession by Obama.
Seriously. Obama just helped reopen Ford’s Theater by standing beneath the box where Lincoln was shot dead and giving a speech.
Anybody else thinking that Obama might start wearing a stove-pipe hat and wearing a Lincoln beard?
Comment from steve
Time: February 12, 2009, 12:43 pm
I think you need to get your cat a companion of some sort…to sort of help with that feeling of dislocation and general nuttiness that she is experiencing….
Maybe you should get a puppy…
Cats love puppies….
Comment from Jill
Time: February 12, 2009, 1:06 pm
Obviously she’s seeing someone use the front door as they knew it. Makes perfect (or purrfect) sense to moi.
Comment from Mrs. Hill
Time: February 12, 2009, 2:19 pm
“She slept twenty hours a day”
I understand your concern — that’s clinical insomnia for a cat! Perhaps it’s the sleep deprivation that’s causing her auditory hallucinations?
Comment from Nicholas the Slide
Time: February 12, 2009, 2:22 pm
D’AAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!!!!
I miss my kitty. I had to give him up when I moved, back in October. 🙁
Comment from JuliaM
Time: February 12, 2009, 2:40 pm
“Wasn’t the custom to sacrifice a critter or miscreant and stuff them under the hearth for good luck or some such when a house was being built.”
It was indeed:
http://www.essexparanormal.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=338
My place of work once booked me into this hotel when I was running training courses. Brrrrr!
Comment from porknbean
Time: February 12, 2009, 2:49 pm
I suspect she was shouting, on the way out, I love you, asshole.
I think so too, Allen. She had to holler to wake you up to tell you goodbye. It’s very sweet you had that connection.
A good friend of mine, her mother died a few years back. I had spent a lot of time at their house as a teenager where we sat around and shot the bull in her kitchen. She was like a second mom to me.
I really didn’t get to see her much the few years prior to her illness, due to where we lived and my own health issues. Several months after her death, I had a dream that wasn’t the normal kind of dream and sort of odd because I really hadn’t fretted over her being dead because of how she suffered. I was suddenly in her kitchen, which was brightly lit up, and giving her a hug. She didn’t say anything but I knew she was all right. Then I abruptly woke up.
Comment from Mrs. Hill
Time: February 12, 2009, 3:25 pm
Julia,
That cat sounds like the opposite of St. Swithun; bad things happened when they moved him indoors! Wait, didn’t it just rain rather spectacularly there? Has something or someone been moved in or out recently?
do-de-oh-do, do-de-oh-do, do-de-oh-do
Gosh. And here I was, thinking it was the hairdo!
Comment from porknbean
Time: February 12, 2009, 6:16 pm
Anybody else thinking that Obama might start wearing a stove-pipe hat and wearing a Lincoln beard?
Obama is not fit to wipe Lincoln’s skeletal remain’s ass. Lincoln’s long gone turds have more class than Obama.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 12, 2009, 6:43 pm
Yeah, I posted about the Red Cat Hotel (and assorted other folk magic) ages ago on the old WordPress site. Which now looks like shit.
A cat burial turned up in the yard when they did the drains. They reburied the thing someplace — and much to my creepitude, nobody remembers exactly where.
Yeah. Just my luck to get haunted by the ghost of Fluffybutt or Mister Whiskers or something.
Comment from Scubafreak
Time: February 12, 2009, 7:10 pm
Hell, Stoatie, maybe you just have the Kitteh of the Baskervilles or something….. 😉
Comment from dfbaskwill
Time: February 12, 2009, 7:17 pm
Hey Scubafreak! You’re not dissing my ancestors, are you? (Descended from the Baskervilles of Plymouth.) We always had hounds anyway.
Comment from Scubafreak
Time: February 12, 2009, 7:27 pm
I dunno bask, I read somewhere that one or two were real……….
Um, maybe I should change the subject….. LOL
Comment from Shade of Fluffy McWhiskerbutt
Time: February 12, 2009, 7:32 pm
MeowoooOOOoooooOOOO! MEOoooWoooooo-coff! Coff! HACK! AACKK!!
**Spits ectoplasmic hairball in Sweasel’s shoe**
Comment from memomachine
Time: February 12, 2009, 8:26 pm
Hmmmm.
*laugh*
Or perhaps:
Meooooowwwwwoooooowwwwwww … A STRING!!
Comment from Lokki
Time: February 12, 2009, 10:32 pm
From above, her lover’s soul was looking on,
But his power of speech was long since gone
For when a body is separated from its soul
The muscles are no longer under its control
For ‘tis the soul’s energy that drives the heart
And all life stops after it departs
And what was a man is now something less
Just a cold and empty piece of flesh
But with the concentration of all his will
Focused toward that quiet, cold, so still
And lifeless body lying on the bed
her lover’s voice somehow softly said:
I will always love you….
Comment from Jill
Time: February 13, 2009, 12:38 am
There’s a store in Lancaster, PA called Basketville.
The GWC went in and asked to see their hounds.
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