OTHERPLANE

When I was pregnant with my first son, I went apartment-hunting in the oldest part of the city where we live, Richmond, Virginia. I found a beautiful, and inexpensive two bedroom walking distance from my nursing school. I immediately got my husband to look it over. The first thing he did when he walked in was to stop dead in his tracks and say, "No way! There is something wrong with this place, something bad!" He had told me several times before that he was slightly psychic, that it was a family gift passed from his grandfather, and that he and his older sister both have it. I told him he was crazy, of course, and I felt that he was just trying to keep from moving to this part of town. The move would mean he would have to drive to work instead of walk, something he had been doing for years.

I was determined that we would move there, and since I am a strong willed person (i.e. b****h) we got the apartment. It was built on the first floor of a Victorian mansion, and had crystal chandeliers and huge working stone fireplaces. I loved it. He hated it.

Then, we found out that the previous tenant, a gay lawyer, was brutally, and I mean brutally, murdered in the back bedroom, the same bedroom that we planned to use for a nursery. I felt a little nervous, but since I really did not believe in paranormal things(yet), I shook it off.

About two months after we moved in, I was asleep in bed, alone, while my husband was at work. I was dreaming an odd dream when I felt myself half-awaken. I realized that there was someone in the bed with me, pressed up against my body. I panicked and tried to scream, but I was too frightened. I could not even open my eyes because I was afraid I would see something there. Finally, whatever it was went away. I stayed awake for a long time.

It happened again much later, after Will was born. I was breastfeeding and would keep his bassinet next to the bed. One night, I felt a small body pressed up against me. I woke up suddenly, afraid I had fallen asleep with the baby in the bed. Once again, nothing was there, but I still had the lingering sensation of something pressed up against me. This happened again, three more times over the next year.

My husband was starting to notice things too. He would come home late at night and see a man standing at the top of the front hall stairs. He said he felt an ominous presence, but the man did not move toward him. We compared notes many times, and it seemed to us that there were two spirits in the house. The one that got in bed with me seemed to be a little girl. My theory is that she may have died in the house during the thirties or forties, when many of the big mansions on our street were turned into whorehouses and gambling halls. We think that her mother was a prostitute, and that the child was looking for warmth and comfort from me. The man, we don't know, but other people who lived in the building saw him too, so he was not just ours.

I tried not to let all this bother me too much, and the visits were infrequent enough that I would forget about them in the intervals. It was a rental property anyways, and we knew it was temporary. We were only there two years. We had a lot of problems with the landlord and other tenants in the building. Then I got pregnant again and we decided to buy a house.

We found a nice one that my husband says is clean. My son was soon old enough to talk. He would tell me about the little girl who would visit him at night. He is now three and obsessed with ghosts. He talks about them incessantly. Is this because of what happened? Or do you suppose he overheard us talking about it?

Nobody in my family believes me when I tell about what happened, but they think it is peculiar when Will acts like a ghost all the time, or asks if there will be any ghosts there when we say we are going someplace. Should I be worried or just ignore the whole thing, since he will probably forget it with time? Is he psychic like my husband? Should I warn him about his gift if he is? I don't want him to grow up frightened.