Her Last Breath

After enjoying a lovely dinner I had prepared for my children and their friends, we ended the evening with table chit chat about being at scary Halloween houses. The Deadmonton place on Jasper Ave. to be precise. This lead my eldest daughter, her friend, and I to talk about real ghost stories, which of course led us to the stories that are in my upcoming book Flight of the White Crow. It was a fun hour of do you remember that? Or ya, that was really freaky. But I also talked about some stories they have never heard about, particularly of a place that I lived in while in Toronto. While reminiscing my stories, I actually encountered one moment that I had totally forgotten about. I don’t know if it was a repressed memory, because it was strange that I would forget to include it in the draft of my book under the chapter “Some Other Really Strange Shit”.  Tonight I quickly wrote the tidbit of my experience and slipped it where it needed to be.

Since Halloween is coming up, I would like to share with you my first ever ghost story that happened to me when I was a little girl. This is from the chapter “Spirits Among Us”.

HER LAST BREATH

"Hey, will you two get to sleep. We can hear you all the way from in here." hollered my mother from the old part of the house. We referred to it as the old part of the house because that was exactly what it was. It was the original part of the house. Our home was on Carmel road, Centreton, the Northumberland county, Ontario. It was an old 1940's country house that was located in the middle of cattle ranches, tobacco farms, and forest.  

The old building had a new addition built onto the back of the original foundation. The new addition resembled a small apartment. As you walked in there was one large room that acted as a living area  space and an attached kitchenette. On either side facing the large room was a bedroom. There was also a full bathroom at the far end beside the kitchen. The door leading outside was beside the bathroom, but it was always locked as my parents didn't want us using it.

A large mud room separated the old part of the house from the newer part. The mud room was where my mother kept the large freezer, the washer and dryer, and a large coat rack. There was a step in front of the wooden door that led into the old house. The door opened into a short hallway. To the left was a bathroom. To the right the entrance to the kitchen and my parent's living quarters. Straight ahead from the door entrance was the dimly lit stairway leading up to the attic. Also straight ahead was the door that led to the basement. When ever I would enter the old house I would run straight into the kitchen to avoid having to look at the basement door. Behind it was creepy old stairs leading to a dirt floor basement.  

My brother and I had the bedrooms in the new half of the  house and our parent's bedroom was completely at the other end of the building. We couldn't be any further apart.

"Yes mother," we synchronized our voices for good effect and began to giggle some more. We were enjoying each other's company and the novelty of having to share a bedroom for the next few weeks. Our mother was in the middle of renovating my older brother's room and had installed a bunk bed in my room. We were glad for each others company because neither of us had felt very comfortable alone in the house. Especially at night. The strange thing was that although the old part was creepy with its spooky attic and the decaying dirt floor basement, it was the new part that sent shivers up our spine. 

Once again a voice of reason bellowed from the old part of the house. This time it was our father. We understood we had reached our limits at this point. Our giggles and small talk turned to hushed whispers. As I began to settle in, my brother quietly asked if I could hear 'that'?

"Hear what?" I asked."Shh, listen." he replied.

Lying in my bed I strained my ears to hear what my brother was referring to. Through the closed bedroom door, I could hear the faint sound of someone gently walking across the common room floor. "Sounds like Mom or Dad is checking in on us." I finally answered.

"Yeah, I guess." exhaled my brother from the bed above.

As we lay quietly in the dark, the sound of the light footsteps slowly made their way to my room. "Dad is that you?" my brother asked. The footsteps stopped but there was no reply. There was a deep silence.

"Mom is that you?" I giggled nervously. There was still no reply.

"Well one of them must be out there." my brother whispered to me.

For the next few moments we were content with the idea that one of our parents was merely checking on us to make sure we were going to sleep. Either that or our father was up to one of his tricks again. Although he was a man of discipline, he was also a bit of a trickster.

Then just as we were beginning to relax, a faint but detectable breathing came from the corridor. "Did you hear that!" Concern was rising in my brother's voice.

"Uh huh." I managed to whisper. "But I am sure it is probably just Dad trying to be funny. Maybe he is testing us to see if we are asleep?"

The breathing stopped. Our hearts raced as we hung onto the silence that filled the corridor. Not even our own breath could be felt or heard. Then it started again right outside the bedroom door. It wasn't a heavy breath such as someone gasping for air, but rather light and fluid. Regardless of it being a parental hoax or not, my brother and I were becoming very uncomfortable. I'm sure to this day that my eyes widen as I stared at the door expecting it to open. I could feel the bed above me shift as my brother sat upright. "Ok, they are taking this too far." my brother whispered in half annoyance, the other half fear.

"Okay Dad. You're not funny." growled my brother towards the closed door. "I'm scarred." I admitted.

For the next brief moment we sat frozen in our place, I with my soft blanket wrapped around me, and my brother positioned like a tiger ready to pounce from a tree limb. The light breathing commenced once more. And then the unthinkable happened. The breathing came through our closed door and into the bedroom.

"What the heck!" shouted my brother. Leaping from the top bunk, he flung open the door and ran out of the room. Too petrified to move, I pulled my blanket over my head and prayed to God to take away whatever it was that was in my room. Gathering courage, I unwrapped my head and listened. The only sound I could now hear was the clamber of feet coming from my brother and parents running towards my room. My father searched the room and the rest of the house but found nothing. Perhaps if it wasn't for the sheer look of terror on our faces, our parents would have passed it off as a child's prank. Instead our parents tried to rationalize it as the settling of the house. In the wisdom of my youth, I turned to them and announced, "Houses do not breathe."

Years later, I came across an Ouija board and inquired about the ghost of the old Carmel house. It revealed to me that the ghost was an old woman. I then asked my mother if she knew who the previous owners had been. She confirmed that the resident before us was an old woman that had passed away in a hospital. This made a lot of sense because the room that the ghost had walked to and entered had pretty wallpaper that was covered with tiny pink roses. This was my room at the time. It made me wonder if the old woman had passed away of a respiratory disease.

I also find it interesting that years ago, when we were living at the farm, while we were digging up our garden in behind the house, we came across old coins and one rusted out old handgun that had been long buried. From what our elderly neighbors had told us, back in the 1800's there was a military group had made camp in the area. Perhaps it wasn't just an old woman walking in our halls of our home.