My younger sister used to live in Ohio, in a small town outside of Columbus. It was her paranormal experience in a house she was remodeling that gave me the idea for the Mary O’Reilly stories. My sister, whose name is also Mary, was working with her husband to flip houses. They would buy a…
Category: Freaky Friday
Haints
A couple of days ago, my sister, Maureen Tan, posted a story from Atlas Obscura about the color called “haint blue” on her Facebook page. If you follow the link, the subtitle reads, “In the Lowcountry, the unique shade is both protective talisman and source of unspeakable suffering.” The word “haint” referred to evil spirits….
Remodeling with Ghosts
During the first few days of the New Year, I like to sit down and put together my list of goals for the upcoming twelve months. Part of that list are the things we need to get accomplished around the house. You know, things like painting the bedroom, cleaning out the attic, organizing the basement,…
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
This week we had both a full moon on 12/12 at 12:12 EST, (the last full moon of this decade) and the last Friday the 13th of this decade. That has to mean something, right? That’s a lot of cool numbers falling in the right places. They have to be a sign, a harbinger, or…
Can Your Pet See Ghosts?
Earlier this week, one of my delightful readers sent me a video of her cute, little dog growling and barking at the wall in her bedroom. She had mentioned this reoccurring phenomenon before but happened to have her phone handy, so she could record it for me. I’ve got to say, it freaked me out…
Pleasant Dreams
One night, several years ago, as I lay awake in my bed telling myself to go fall asleep, something odd happened. I felt pressure on the bed behind me. It felt like someone – an adult – had just sat on the edge of the bed. I could feel the dip in the mattress behind…
Kids Say the Darndest Things
Recently, on a Facebook forum I belong to, one parent posted that his daughter said something that really freaked him out. He said, “She woke up from a bad dream literally minutes after we laid her down this evening. She got up extremely upset saying Daddy told her to follow the sparkles to the tower…
The Cherokee Devil
I have a confession to make – and it’s one that I’m not particularly proud of – I watch Mountain Monsters. What, you may ask, is Mountain Monsters? It’s a show that used to be on Destination America and now, in its sixth season, has been moved to the Travel Channel for the show to…
Thin Places
A “thin place” is a place where the veil between this world and the next is thin. A place where you can feel the energy and the magic of the area. The Wild Geese website describes these places like this: “In Irish mythology, a “thin place” was a divider between the physical, tangible world and the…
Child’s Play
Another Halloween treat – a story from the second Tales Around the Jack O’Lantern, one of my favorites because it’s based on a true story. This time, Margaret O’Reilly is telling the tale. “When your father and I were just a young couple and Sean was a wee boy we lived in a small apartment…