JAN'S TALES
Little Wet Ghost
I can't recall the year
exactly, but it was in the late 1970's in St. Louis, MO, at a duplex owned by
my grandmother Lola, where I lived at the time. My bedroom was in the basement,
which had been finished on one end to make it more livable. This basement wasn't
like the one in the Oakwood Home stories, it was more modern, with plenty of
windows to let the light in, along with paneled and sheet rock walls instead of
bare stone. This is the home we moved into after we left the Oakwood home so
hastily. Before we moved we had to find Lou, my German Shepherd, a new home as
she became too violently protective around anyone else except my mother and I.
It was as if she had a total mental breakdown from all the traumatic activities
at the house on Oakwood. We found her a nice quiet home with one owner that she
lived her last days with in comfort and peace. She was replaced by a scruffy
poodle we saved from the pound whom we named Netta. After the move, just a
matter of months in fact, paranormal activity began at the duplex also. There
will be several stories I will share about this particular abode in the future.
Tonight I've choose to write about a small visitor that came to me one night in
my dreams, or so I believed it to be at the time.
It was my dog that made me open my eyes that night. She was whining and cowering
very close to my chest as she was watching something coming through the door
frame into my bedroom. From my pillow I saw what appeared to be a silhouette of
a small child slowly coming towards my bed, pausing after a few steps then
continuing in a confused pattern. There was a night light on in the other room
facing mine that lit the area where the washer and dryer were and also shined
enough light into my room by several feet. As the figure got closer, the dog
jumped off the bed, ran around it and into the other part of the basement. There
were muted sounds of whimpering, crying, human sounds, not like that from my
dog, Netta. I leaned up on one elbow and with my other hand I wiped my eyes to
see more clearly, although I didn't need to for what was in front of me was
beginning to materialize into a more solid form, there had been nothing wrong
with my eyesight after all.
The hazy dark shadow that had slowly zig-zagged
to the edge of my bed had transposed into a small girl around the age of four or
five, with extremely pale white flesh, long, dark, dripping wet hair, with small
barrettes tangled among the twisted curls that lay haggardly across her
shoulders on her muddy wet dress. Pallid tiny fingers clinched a drenched ragged
Teddy Bear tight against her chest, with a grip that made the veins in her hands
strain through her milky skin. Her porcelain face gleamed in the pale light with
rivulets of water streaming down her face, a continuous flow of trickling water
that fell along her shivering body and unto the floor where I could hear it hit
my carpeted floor in diminutive splashes. She stood there, staring, crying, with
eyes that didn't understand. Lost, huge eyes of hopelessness, sadness and death.
Black eyes, the pupil dilated beyond revealing the color of their true hue, and
stretching over the white almost touching the corners. Her bottom lip trembled
violently, out of fear, out of confusion, as she gazed with those unblinking
raven eyes into my own. Her breathing became spasmodic as she tried to inhale,
in sudden spurts, like that of a child who has cried so long and hard that their
breaths become jerky movements, stuttering motions of uncontrollable gasps of
air.
I sat up in the bed, moving
my legs over the edge and pushing the blankets aside, the air that suddenly
surrounded me was musty, dank and icy, with the odor of fish. The little girl
stood only a couple of feet from me, the pitiful plea of emotion in her face and
quavering body moved me to an extreme sadness, it was a begging silent prayer
for comfort, for warmth, for safety. I reached out my hand to her face, touching
her cheek and cupping her chin. A blast of cold tremors ran up through my arm,
encompassing my body in seconds. Her flesh was like touching the chilly
underbelly of a catfish filled with eggs, puffy but firm, slimy and smooth. The
inky black emptiness inside her tried to draw me in, wanting solstice, demanding
my presence. From that moment a threatening alarm went off inside me, not a fear
of of panic, but a more sedated uneasiness, a warning to my own soul to seek
safety. Deep within my heart the answer came giving me immediate relief from the
anxiety I felt, along with a gentle smile across my lips.
A tune from my
childhood came tenderly from my mouth, soothing words that instantly caused a
reversal in her frightened state. Her lips stopped quavering, the moist eyes
relaxed, the grip on her Teddy loosened, and the mysterious watery discharge
streaming down her face was suppressed to small trickles. My hand which was
still cupping her chin became warm, as I raised up her face to help her notice
the angelic light that had begun to shine above her as I continued singing the
old melody. Her eyes blinked several times against the golden illumination that
was reaching downward to enfold her in it's care, lifting her frail body from
the gravity of human reality. The solid form became fuzzy with miniature
explosions of tiny sparks that separated the image of the child, turning her
into a reflection of spiritual fireworks and then she faded upward and away,
along with the blissful light.
My alarm woke me with a startled jolt. Time to get ready for school. In a moment
after leaving the bed my feet stepped in a wet spot on the carpet. 'Dog pee,' I
thought at first, thinking Netta just couldn't hold her bladder, which was odd
because she had never had any accidents before. After taking a few more steps
though I realized the carpet was moist in spots all the way to the door way,
that's when the image of the little girl rushed through my mind. The little wet
girl that I had 'dreamed' of. Goose bumps covered my flesh briefly as I went to
get a towel to soak up some of the water. It smelled like fishy water, like from
a lake, a river or an unkept aquarium, definitely not dog urine.
During the day at school I pondered over the reverie from the night before. Had
the little visitor actually been a lost spirit, that was attracted to the light
around my own soul, not able to see or strong enough to notice the larger light
above her that was beckoning her home? Maybe the tremendous, confusing, grief
she was suffering kept her from 'looking up' at the enigmatic sublime radiance
that so many have spoke of seeing with Near Death Experiences. I had remembered
that long ago an elderly spiritual woman told me that I had a luminescence
around my soul, one that attracted other souls, and not only the living but also
the dead, especially those that were recently deceased. A metaphysical beacon,
like an ethereal lighthouse for earthbound spirits seeking for safety thru the
fog, of crossing over from life to the next world after death. She had warned me
that I would have encounters with such 'ghostly life forces' during the course
of my entire life because of it, from benevolent entities to wicked,
unscrupulous energies.
Upon returning home I stopped over at my grandma's for our daily afternoon visit
before I had to start homework. She had a plate of home made sugar cookies
ready, and even though I was a high schooler then, those cookies were always a
welcome sight, regardless if it was a 'kids' way of de-stressing. While munching
on the second one I picked up the daily paper she had already read thoroughly
and began reading various articles. After a few pages my mouth dropped open,
spilling out the contents of chewed crumbs, for I
was looking at a photo of the little girl. The same one who had come to me the
night before. It looked like the paper had used a kindergarten or first grade
school photo supplied to them from the family no doubt. She had been traveling
in the back seat of a car with her mother and father in the front, late the
night before. Something went wrong and the driver lost control of the vehicle
while crossing the bridge that went from St. Louis over to East St. Louis in
Illinois, a few miles from where I lived. During the accident as the car smashed
into one side of the bridge their little girl was thrown from the car, over the
edge and into the Mississippi River below. The authorities were still looking
for her body at the time of printing the article. ( Later that week it was
reported that her body had been recovered.)
I sat there quietly stunned, trying to absorb and make sense of all that had
transpired. Grandma noticed my trance like state and inquired as to what was
bothering me. Hesitantly, I began unfolding my story. Divulging all the
details:the 'dream' , the awakening in the morning to discover the wet carpet,
and the newspaper article with her photo. Grandma had known for many years that
I had a 'gift', as they called it in the family, still I felt slightly
apprehensive about telling her the whole story, thinking she wouldn't believe,
pass criticism or call it a bunch of nonsense, but she did none of these things.
Instead she asked one simple question, and after answering her she reached over
and gave me a hug that lasted a very long time.
"What song did you sing to her?" she asked.
I let out a deep sigh and replied, "Jesus loves me this I know..."
-Jan
Thompson.