When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [42]
Since we’d been having this conversation while the woman was in her car, I asked her to call me from her home so I could determine if there was a ghost there. In fact there was, and the woman immediately asked me to come over and find out what was going on.
When I arrived at her beautifully decorated modern home, I was not prepared for the tiny guest room tucked away on the third floor. The rest of the house was furnished with sleek pieces and bold colors. This guest room, with its sweet floral wallpaper, canopy bed, and ornate dresser and mirror, looked like it should have been in a 1920s home decorating magazine.
Though the style was a surprise, I wasn’t all that shocked to see the ghost of a petite woman with her white hair pulled up in a neat bun sitting in the rocking chair. The ghost gave me a satisfied smile and looked around the room with a proprietary air. “I just hate what she did to the rest of my house,” the ghost said. “But she’s managed to decorate my room perfectly.”
I asked the decorator if she knew anything about the history of her house. She explained that she and her husband had bought the home from the last surviving nephew of the woman who had been the previous owner. “We’re only the second family to live here,” she said. “You should have seen this place when we moved in . . . I had to gut the house and redo everything.”
The ghost sat up straighter, gripping the arms of the rocker and glaring. I thought it best to change the subject. “Do you remember what this room looked like?” I asked her.
“Oh, some kind of floral wallpaper,” she said thoughtfully. “You know, I think I have an old photo album that the workers found when they were clearing things out. It had some photos of the house from the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s.” She left the room to get the album, and the ghost and I made small talk. She had been born and raised in the house, where she’d also died. Her nephew had inherited the home. Much to her disappointment, he had not moved in; he’d finally put the house up for sale after leaving it empty for nearly five years. The decorator and her husband had bought it and spent almost two years renovating before they moved in.
I asked the ghost what she had been doing for the past seven years. She told me she’d been hanging out at the neighbors’ houses and visiting her own home as often as she could. She complained that those had been difficult years for her. She hadn’t felt really happy in any of the other houses, but she didn’t want to sit around in the shell of her former home.
“But after they started working on this house, I just felt so energetic again,” the ghost said. “I’d follow her around whenever she came back to check on the workers. Sometimes I even went out shopping with her.”
Once the new owners had finished their renovations and settled in, the ghost moved back in along with them. I realized that the constant stream of burly day workers and contractors had given this little old lady ghost some very strong energy—energy that she used to influence the homeowner whenever she could get near. Just like couples who’ve been together for decades begin to take on each other’s likes and dislikes, or finish each other’s sentences, ghosts who spend enough time with a person can use their energy to influence that person. This sweet little old lady ghost used all her energy to create the inexplicable decorating urges the homeowner had experienced.
The woman returned to the room with an old photo album. We flipped through the pages, with the woman pointing out what work had been done in various rooms. At about the same time, we both noticed one particular picture probably taken in 1940. The woman gasped. The ghost smiled. Even I was impressed. The photo was of the tiny bedroom—and I am not exaggerating when I tell you