The Ghost of Mill's Past (Part IV)...July 27, 1999

The Ghost of Mill's Past (Part IV)...July 27, 1999

.....I'll call her "Clair", as much as it is fitting as I simply cannot think up a better pseudonym at this late hour. It is just past midnight here on the east coast, and I long for some rest after suffering through high heat and humidity yet again today. Such weather is so taxing on the body, so numbing on the soul. However, if it were winter, I guess I'd be complaining of the bitter cold. I wish it could be fall all year around, complete with the milti-coloured foliage, abundant harvest, red-orange moons, and cool, breezy days.

It was numbing cold the night that Claire spent with The Goddess and me. It was December 23rd, the "Eve of Christmas Eve", as I used to say when I was an impatient child to whom Santa could never come fast enough. Joining us for the better part of the evening was Frieda, who wanted to meet The Goddess' friend, Claire, and who would have little time otherwise to see us. Knowing that Claire was clairvoyant, I believe that Frieda was also hoping for some insight into who Maude was.

As cold as it was outside, inside we were oblivious to the bitter freezing temperatures of Old Man Winter. Indeed, the scene was like something from a Norman Rockwell painting. Picture the cozy heart felt warmth of four good friends gathering over food, wine and gifts at the heart of the holiday season, bathed only in candle light so as to create a quiet, comfortable intimacy. Beyond the luminescence was the fade into cold darkness of another reality, from which nothing could penetrate into the glow of our spiritual connection. Nothing Earthly based, that is.

It started with the tapping. The Goddess and I heard it first, and one slight glance to each other was all the communication we needed. The cursory glance also told that we must not alert Claire to what we heard. Claire was forewarned about Maude, but we did not want to make her uncomfortable. We truly hoped that we could get through the night without any incidents. It was Christmas after all. Another glance, this time from Frieda, told me that perhaps we were not going to have a pleasant, quiet evening afterall. When Claire excused herself to go to the bathroom, the three of us exchanged notes, and determined that we all heard what we thought we heard: Maude was announcing her presence. As Claire came downstairs, she stated that she felt Maude was around. We could do nothing but verify her suspicions.

Then Maude, herself, decided to join us.

We were sitting in a square formation: I was in a lounge chair, The Goddess next to me in a hard chair, Claire next to her, and Frieda on the couch to my right. Maude was in the middle. She stayed there most of the night. While our energies seemed to form a tight circle of warmth, Maude's presence was in the form of an ice cold core. It floated in front of us each in turn, always in the center. We tried to communicate with her to no avail. Claire became so cold she needed a blanket, and even that did not help it seemed.

We carried on with our evening trying to ignore the ghostly presence. Our conversation invaritably ended up returning to the lost soul who would not accept our help. Frieda left just after midnight, and we all decided to try to rest. The Goddess and I secured Claire in the spare room, left her reading, and we then snuggled into the encompassing warmth of our waterbed. Sleep came swiftly for both of us. Claire was awake and tormented almost all night.

Claire's abilities come mostly in the form of lucid dreaming. In layman's terms, she is neither asleep or awake; she is in a state of suspended animation. In this state is where she receives her information, usually in the form of news headlines. That cold, late December evening, her information came in the form of an elderly, female, tormenting spirit I nicknamed Maude. The ghost appeared in the doorway of her room, and told Claire that she would not be leaving. Claire called out to The Goddess and me several times, but her cries fell on deep sleeping ears. Claire tried to leave the room, and Maude stood in front of her, terrifying Claire to the point where she could not move. Maude told her that The Goddess and I heard her cries, but were choosing to ignore them. Claire was awake for the rest of the night, hoping that we would hear her, while we slept peacefully and uninterrupted. Poor Claire was in a state by the time we finally arose, and needless to say, vowed never to stay here again. In all of Maude's communicating, she never once gave Claire the opportunity to help her. She seemed to take pleasure in using Claire's special abilities against her, instead of reaching out to Claire's gentle soul for help, for guidance to the other side, which Claire would have most readily given her. The only constructive part of Claire's evening with Maude was that she was able to validate our suspicion that it was the ghost of an elderly woman, but Claire was able to add that Maude had the spirit of a dog with her as well. This explained, to me at least, why the spirits disturbed Reekie so.

After recieving Maude's Christmas gift to us, she was fairly quiet once again. Through the holidays, and for most of the darkest days of winter, she remained at relative peace. Late in the winter, almost anti-climatically, she reappeared briefly to a male friend of mine while he was in the bathroom. He and Claire are the only two people I know to have actually seen her. Accompanying the vision was the sound of trains going by, despite the railroad being shut down seemingly aeons ago. Maude told my friend,

"My son used to work on the railroad".

Hence, I was finally able to connect Maude to the old mill. The rail system was built by the proprietor of the mill, and used to ship the cotton country wide. A train has not graced this neighbourhood for years. Recently, the tracks were torn up to make way for a cross country hiking trail.

I have given a lot of thought to researching the history of this house, and trying to find out once and for all who Maude really was, and why she remains on this spiritual plane. My motivation to do so increases with each haunting episode. But alas, thr task would be difficult and very time consuming. For the past few months, Maude has been relatively non-existent. Things may drastically change once The Goddess moves in. She has never liked my choice in life partner. In the meantime, I am quite content to let sleeping dogs (or ghosts of dogs and their former masters) at rest.

....Blessed Be