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She sees…dead people?

spookygirl

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!

February 11, 2009 — 8:42 pm
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