We moved into a new apartment in August.  We are right outside the city and right near my job.  We have more room, a better location, and, of course, new spirits.

The first week we were in our new townhouse, Synthia made some new friends.  She would spend hours playing in her room by herself, which was new for her, and having long, detailed conversations with them.  When we questioned her about it she would simply say she was talking to herself.  Typical.  Shortly thereafter she began asking Jeremiah questions about death and dying.  She asked him where we go when we die and why some people do not leave.  I must admit I was feeling a bit jealous at this point.  All of my background on this subject and she asks him about it instead of me.  Granted she isn’t exactly in the know about this sort of thing, so I took the liberty of having a chat with her myself about it.  Of course I made her bring it up first.  I asked her why she is so interested all of a sudden about where you go when you die.  She said she is just curious.  I then asked about her new friends.  Some sounded like normal kid fantasy, though some sounded quite convincing.  I was about ready to end the conversation when she looked at me with a very serious, pensive face and told me that my mom is very nice and she is sorry that she died.  I wasn’t quite expecting that.  I asked her how she knows my mom was nice.  She said she has seen her and talked to her and that she is very pretty.  She described her exactly as I remember her.  She also said she was dressed all in white and had a “light circle over her head.”  I could not believe what I was hearing.  She had seen my mother… as an angel.

Ghosts I can handle.  The concept of demons?  I’ve got that covered.  Angels, well, I haven’t encountered much of.  To know that my daughter has actually been visited my mother and that Synthia described her as angelic truly astounded me.  It also put into perspective that good really does exist and that life after death is not limited purely to ghostly apparitions.

Slowly the conversations subdued.  She was spending more time downstairs with Jeremiah and me and less time with her new acquaintances.  That was fine by me.  I don’t care how educated I am about the subject, spirits having conversations with children, no matter how harmless, really bothers me.  She has not mentioned anything in some time.  I, on the other hand, have been experiencing more and more activity lately.

It started with the shadows.  I would be in the living room and they would dart here and there across the room.  Occasionally our cats would notice and stare.  It does still happen from time to time but nothing more than a quick glace from my peripheral vision.  Most recently have been the strange noises I occasionally hear: knocking, whispering, rustling.  This mostly happens in our bedroom upstairs.   Jeremiah hears it from time to time as well, though not nearly as often.  That is not all.  Then the other night I was lying awake in bed.  I found I could not fall asleep, which is all too common nowadays, and so I was staring at the window.  Our window faces a road.  Even late at night there will be the occasional car driving by causing lights and shadows to chase around the room.  I am very familiar with what that looks like considering I have been staring at them for weeks now.  That night though something was different.  I kept seeing a white light flash to the right of the window just outside the frame.  I kept thinking it was my imagination at work as it was late and I was tired.  I dismissed it for a bit.  It kept reappearing; an unreasonably slow pulsating light.  Just before I closed my eyes and rolled over, it bolted clear across the room.  At that point I was convinced I was seeing things.  I rubbed my eyes and rolled over, thinking it was just the cars passing by.  I peeked one last time around the room just to make sure.  The light came from the same spot in the room and moved right over to the other side without hesitation.  It darted from wall to wall all over the room until it disappeared into thin air.

I can not tell if these things follow me or I am just aware of them where ever I happen to be.  The great thing I have discovered about Richmond is that the vast majority of people who hear about my “abilities,” “senses,” “intuition,” or whatever they would like to call it, actually find it fascinating and validating instead of creepy or crazy.  As it turns out I fit in here rather well.  Here’s to years of paranormal good times.

Fred started acting up again.  Being so involved in the situation, and seriously lacking in equipment, I contacted CVAPI for a little help with our resident ghost.  I’ve never worked with an official paranormal investigation group before but Jackie and her team were fantastic.  They showed up on time, set up quickly, and were very professional.  Each member had their own story and contributed their own talents.  After all was said and done, they compiled a video showcasing the results, which can be viewed here.  Hooray for technology.

By the way, I was right.  His name really is Fred.

In other news, there’s something looming in my apartment again.  Seems a bit curious, but nothing worrisome.  Tonight I was sitting on the couch with my *ahem* fiancé, Jeremiah, and BOOM!  Something crashed in the kitchen.  It sounded like the step stool smashing into the fridge.  Conveniently, it sits between the fridge and the wall in a space less than a foot wide and it is highly unlikely it could smash itself against the side of the fridge.  Of course, I suppose stranger things have happened.  I’ve sensed whomever it is has been watching me cautiously from a distance for a while, and he or she has been making a bit of noise in the last few days.  We’ll see how intentionally noticeable this one becomes.

While we’re on the subject of noisy ghosts, let me tell you that I always seem to find spirits in unexpected locations.  Actually, it would be more accurate to say they always seem to find me as I was not exactly looking this time.  It was Sunday morning.  I was standing in church (Yes, I’ve been attending church recently.  Ironic.), waiting for the band to start their next song when I felt someone standing behind my left shoulder.  Now, we’re in an auditorium.  Obviously there are other people there.  However, no one was standing directly there.  I ignored the feeling and went back to watching the people take communion up front when I felt the presence get stronger.  Then someone whispered in my ear a very distinct “hey there.”  Eyes wide, I turn to my left to see there is still no one even in the row behind me.  Then I felt the presence dissipate.  Interesting.  The church meets in a middle school auditorium so perhaps the spirit is linked to the school.  Perhaps not.  At any rate, I do enjoy a nice, friendly hello once in a while.

I’ll work on updating more often.  Terrible.

I was sitting in the theater waiting for Toy Story 3 to start.  Jeremiah had gone out into the lobby, Synthia was sitting to my right, and there were only 4 other people in the entire theater.  To my left I saw a man walk past us against the wall, then disappear.  As the door was right there, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought except for the fact that the theater had stadium seating and a railing impeding his path and he didn’t turn the corner to go out the door.  Interesting.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a full body apparition like that.  Nothing else happened; it was a simple occurrence, but a new one for me.

Ice cream shop update: I told Fred to let it be and leave us alone, and since that day nothing strange has happened.  Perhaps all he needed was a firm voice.

I was closing the store one night last week alone.  I was in the front cleaning the soft serve machine when out of no where this intense feeling of uneasiness and paranoia came over me.  I felt as if someone were watching me.  I took a quick look outside all the windows and around the shop, but of course I saw no one.  Despite that reassurance, the feeling didn’t go away.  It only grew and grew for what felt like hours, though of course it was only minutes.  I felt as if someone where there right next to me.  Then as quickly as it came, the feeling lifted away.

To add to that odd occurrence, there have been several instances where I was in the back and heard voices in the front when clearly there was no one else in the building.  I couldn’t make out what was being said but there was most certainly murmuring in the dining area of the shop.  There have also been a few times I’ve seen shadows out of the corner of my eye as I was closing up.

The event that validated to me that the shop is most definitely haunted occured Friday night.  I was at the shop with Jared, the owner’s son.  Jared left to drop someone off at home with intentions to return to help me close down and again I was left alone.  In the front I found a cap of some sort.  I wasn’t sure what it was but we weren’t closed yet so I placed it behind a standing sign on the novelties freezer which is next to the counter.  I walked into the back and heard a clinking sound as if the cap had fallen off the freezer.  I had a strange feeling so I turned around and walked back out to see if it had.  I couldn’t find it behind the counter anywhere.  I walked around to the dining area and there it was on the floor.  The cap had somehow gotten around the sign to fall to the floor on the other side of the freezer.  Interesting.

Oh, and by the way, the ghost’s name is Fred.

Sunday night I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep and failing miserably.  It was Mother’s Day.  I missed my mom terribly and could not stop thinking about her.  I got out of bed and headed downstairs to sit on the couch and collect myself.  I did not have my glasses on and it was quite dark save for a bit of street light coming through the window draped across the staircase.  As I was staring blankly across the room, a shadow came across that bit of light.  Not thirty seconds later did a larger shadow follow suite.  As I said, I was not wearing my glasses and it didn’t seem to be anything ghostly so I assumed it was birds or something of the like flying across the light beam.  It probably was.  However, it was not long after I saw these shadows that the wall started to crumble.  Now mind you this is a fairly regular occurrence.  I counted four times we heard bits of brick and mortar fall to the cement floor Sunday alone.  That night was different, though.  Imagine a rumbling almost like an earthquake with bits of things falling to the ground.  It was like that, minus the rumbling.  On my left where the deteriorating wall stands I suddenly felt a strong energy unlike anything I’d ever experienced before even though only a moment ago there was nothing there.  I felt all at once myself and everything around me being pulled toward this point as if it were an open abyss, quite like I would imagine a black hole in space would feel.  This lasted for what seemed like forever but realistically probably only a moment or two before I felt it disappear, almost as if a hole closed up.  The wall stopped crumbling.  The room got significantly lighter for no reason I could see.  In the kitchen I heard a great deal of banging and movement.  I am hesitant to say this but I do believe I am dealing with a portal… a vortex to the “other side.”  I believe someone, or something, came from that extreme energy phenomenon and entered my apartment.  This certainly could explain a lot.

I remember this happened in my old apartment in Glenham as well at the apartment in Beacon.  It has only happened a handful of times but I find it strange that it still occurs no matter where I am.  I haven’t felt that same presence since I’ve moved, but perhaps it’s just that which is presenting as the shadows in the apartment.  Only time will tell.

Over the weekend I took another trip to Belle Isle with Jeremiah, Synthia and a couple friends from NY.  We hiked for a while  near the opposite side of the island I’d come from the last visit.  On our way out we walked a trail next to a fence and on the other side of the fence were railroad tracks.  Half way to the bridge off the island I got a slight ringing in my left ear, which was the ear closest to the tracks.  In my experience if my ears start to ring or my hearing is impaired suddenly for no reason I need to pay attention to what is going on around me as it’s normally a sign there is a spirit around.  I stopped for a moment and could feel a presence behind me on the other side of the fence.  Whomever was tagging along was walking at least 20 feet behind me.  I started to walk again, slowly, and the spirit kept up the pace at a distance.  It wasn’t until I started trying to communicate with it that it disappeared.  Could it have been a spirit from the prison that used to occupy the island?  Perhaps it was a Civil War soldier.  Whoever it was certainly was shy.

The thing about this whisper is that there is a very limited number of people who call me Catherine – my parents, random other relatives, and the sperm donor and all who know me through him.  It could have been my mother trying to get me out of bed like she used to.  Of course, it could be the something that seems to be hanging around the apartment.

There hasn’t been anything terribly eventful that has happened here lately, just quick shadows out of the corner of my eye from time to time.  I occasionally feel a presence, but it hasn’t really presented itself to me.  Whoever it is knows my full name without anyone speaking it.  Who actually calls me that anymore?

The stairs in my dream.

This is a picture of the stairs in my dream.  The only things that are different are that in my dream there was no graffiti and there were what appeared to be puddles gathered in the dirt area that you can see on the top right hand corner.

Even just looking at the picture now sends shivers down my spine.  I still can not seem to get over the fact that I had a dream about a place I had never been to and that place actually exists.

That poor girl…  I just hope everything turned out alright.

On a note completely unrelated to my dream, check out my EVPs section.  On the actual island of Belle Isle JJ and I caught something in the Civil War Storage Shed.

While I was there, I kept my mind open in hopes of answering the one question that drew me to the island in the first place – Why did that little girl in my dream not want to go to Belle Isle?  JJ and I wandered for a while when I was drawn toward the river.  We walked slowly along a gravel trail that seemed to wrap the whole way around the island until we came to an area where there were very large, smooth rocks peaking out of the rapids.  I stopped, staring at those rocks for a few moments when a very strong sense of sadness came over me.  It was at that moment that I sensed the presence of a woman in her 30′s.  I don’t believe it was an active spirit but a residual energy in that spot.  I felt a great deal of fear there, and overwhelming mournfulness.    That woman died there on those rocks.  She slipped and fell into the rapids as her two small children looked on in horror.

I believe that is the reason that little girl did not want to go to Belle Isle.  She did not want to spend the day playing in the river that killed her mother.

I will research this further and see if there is any reports of a woman dying in the river and post the results.