When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [74]
I asked the kid if he’d been responsible for the missing paperwork and the various electrical malfunctions in the gym. He admitted that he had. At first he wanted to get Coach’s attention so he’d notice how he was helping the team. And then, after the incident on the cross-country course, he wanted to get his attention to apologize.
Meanwhile, the coach was still staring at me as if he was trying to figure out who on the team might have tipped me off. So I asked the ghost for more information. Personally, I wondered why he was hanging around with an adult, instead of with some kid from the team. I found out that he had been dead for nearly eight years and didn’t know any team members anymore. He’d been a runner himself on the track and cross-country teams at the school.
When I told the coach the ghost’s name, he immediately called up a teacher who’d recently retired from the high school. I listened to the one-sided conversation—which consisted mostly of the coach offering the kid’s name and then saying, “Uh-huh. Okay. Well, then. Hunh. Okay. Thanks.”
When he hung up, he just looked at me and said, “Okay, then. Ask him to please tell me where he put that missing paperwork.”
I got the answers, then offered to make the white Light for the ghost to cross over. I think that the poor kid was so embarrassed for making trouble for the team and for basically cheating to help them win over the past few years that he was happy to go. He was really a pretty good kid, I think.
The coach’s wife called me a few days later to let me know that the paperwork was exactly where the ghost had said it would be—and the team had won their meet that week.
Even though the ghosts involved may not mean to harm anyone, I cannot stress enough how dangerous it can be when teenage ghosts mix with living teens. A lot of car accidents that involve teenage drivers also involve the influence of teenage earthbound spirits. I’m not saying that joyriding teenage ghosts are going to grab the wheel or step on the gas pedal or brake, but if they’re in the car with you, they can be a distraction. It’s important to remember that these spirits are drawn to similar teens with high energy. These ghosts have the ability to do a little more than other earthbound spirits simply because they have so much energy to draw on.
It’s easy enough to protect vulnerable teenagers from the influence of spirits: Just have them carry a quince seed along when they leave the house. You can get charms with these seeds, or simply tuck one in a teen’s wallet or purse. The protection offered by these seeds (which are the same ones I put up in houses from which I’ve cleared spirits) can keep a teen—or anyone—from picking up one of the earthbound spirits who hang around malls, gyms, skate parks, movie theaters, or any other high-energy spot teens love to frequent.
8
ANIMALS
Loyal After Death
WHEN IT comes to the behavior of animal ghosts, I’m still learning new things. I do believe that anything living has a spirit, and that any creature with a spirit has a white Light that comes to it when it dies. Although my grandmother never talked to me about the spirits of animals, over the years I have seen the ghosts of both domesticated and wild creatures. As a pet owner, I’ve also seen the spirits of many of my own animals. And from these various encounters, I’ve begun to understand more about what can compel an animal spirit to either go into the Light or choose to stay earthbound.
After an animal dies, I suspect that its spirit has about the same amount of time in which to cross over as a human spirit, but I don’t know for sure. It may be that some have less. When my beloved African pygmy hedgehog Pinda died, I could see her spirit for the first few hours after her death. Actually, that’s how I knew she was dead. I walked into the room where I kept her aquarium and saw Pinda scurrying around on the carpeted floor. I wondered how she’d managed to knock the top off her home, but when I looked closely, I could see