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Ghost Story:
This isn't really my story, but my step-daughter's. This would have started back in 1994, when she was just turned six. I had met her father (now my ex-husband), and moved in with them within a period of just a few months. He was in the midst of a very nasty divorce, and when the divorce was final we moved from the farm which was part of his ex wife's settlement, and went to live in another home he owned, which was in the town of Union. The house in Union was a 6,000 square foot 200 year old teamser stop/tavern. It had been built in 1797 as a hip roof center chimney federal, then remodeled in 1836 into a three story gable end. The main house contained 19 rooms, and the two story ell connecting the house and barn contained six more, including a 'great room' that was some 38 feet long by 16 feet wide. The barn was a huge three story affair. When my ex acquired the house, it was completely derelict. It had not only been badly neglected, it had been badly abused. The last residents had been of an extremely unpleasant quality, and had apparently lived in a room until it filled up with garbage, then closed the door on it and moved to another room. The only rooms not filled hip-deep in garbage were on the third floor, presumably because they hadn't wanted to climb the steep narrow stair.
From the very first time I entered the house, I knew there was something there. I've been 'sensitive' ever since I can remember, and have on several occasions actually seen what can only be termed 'ghosts'. But I got no feeling of ill will from the house. Just the sense that there was something there beyond the normal. I didn't say anything to either my ex or Kat, not wanting him to think I was nuts, and not wanting to make her nervous.
My ex had remodeled the ell into a spacious two-story apartment, and it was rented out at the time we needed to move, so we made shift to make a couple rooms of the main house at least livable - ripping down paper, painting over peeling paint and plaster. The only room that we seriously restored was the second floor one that Kat wanted as a bedroom. My ex and I chose a first floor room that wasn't in too bad a shape as ours.
Now please understand, the rest of the house was like a stage set for a ghost story. Paper was peeling from the walls, plaster was falling, floors dipped and sagged, stair and balcony railings were missing or unstable, broken and cobweb festooned light fixtures dangled from rotted cables in the ceilings, critters scurried in the ceilings and walls, some doors were shattered, others either wouldn't close or wouldn't stay open, and most rooms were fairly filled with bits and pieces of antiques/junk that nobody had yet had time to sort through. But despite all this, Kat was not afraid of the house, the dark, or the fact that she was the only one on the second floor at night.
It couldn't have been more than just a few days after we moved in, because Kat was still sleeping on a mattress on the floor because her bunkbeds hadn't arrived yet. It was probably about 10:00 pm, Kat was upstairs and had been asleep when last checked, my ex and I were watching TV. I heard a sound from the stair hallway. It was a lound wooden RAP!, followed by the sound of something rolling down the wooden hallway floor (upstair hallway), then the creak of one of the upstairs doors. I immediately thought that Kat must have gotten out of bed for some reason, and went to the foot of the stairs to listen, but heard nothing more. I went back to the couch. Shortly, I heard the sound repeated. RAP! Followed by the rolling noise on the floor. My ex and I looked at each other, then went to investigate. There being no light in the hall, I grabbed the flashlight we kept on a table by the door for just this purpose.
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