November 28, 2007

Hear the Storm

Rate this encounter:[an error occurred while processing this directive] Thomasena Leary, Sebago, Maine, Summer 1992

When I was 14, my family transferred from Danbury, Connecticut to Sebago, Maine for my mom's work. My parents bought a farmhouse with an attached barn so we could keep our horses on the property. I was a freshman in high school, and my sister was a few years behind me. Almost immediately, I began seeing, out of the corner of my eye, someone walk past the bathroom door and go down the stairs, but when I would look straight down the stairs, no one was there. This would happen every morning as I was getting ready to go to school.

As the months and even years progressed, I had witnessed voices having conversations that I couldn't quite make out. I heard banging and footsteps coming from the second floor when no one was up there, and a voice calling me by name and demanding that I come to it when I was the only person in the house (I did not have the courage to come to the voice so I stood there until my father came inside the house). There was also the time I was in the barn with the horses and was enveloped by the stench of decaying flesh (no dead animal could be found in the vicinity of the barn).

During the summer of 1992, I was 17 and working for a family camping resort in the general store. I remember being asleep and being woken up by a man's voice in my ear. He said, "Wake up and hear the storm." I can still remember feeling the vibration of his words in my ear and being puzzled by what I had just heard. I sat up in bed and was afraid that there was someone in my room with me. My father was the only man in the house, and I was positive that it was not his voice that I heard. Beside the fact that I didn't hear my door open or close, so I was sure that whoever had spoken to me hadn't left yet. Lightning was coming down outside and I could hear the horses whinnying, so I got out of bed and tried for the light but the power was out. I stumbled down the stairs and saw that my father was in bed sleeping. I took a flashlight with me to the barn and saw that the horses were outside loose (one horse had broken through the fencing and the others were running around, panicked by the storm). Thanks to the voice, I was able to gather up all of the horses and put them in their stall safe and sound. It was the only time that the spirits were helpful to me.