I probably have mentioned that I live in a hundred-plus-year-old farmhouse out in the country. The cool thing about old farmhouses is that they are old farmhouses, with their own charm and vintage characteristics. But one of the challenging things about an old farmhouse is that generally, all of the plumbing was placed in the back of the house. So, the bathrooms and kitchen are found at the very back of the house. So, no fancy ensuite for me. Nope, if I have to use the facilities in the middle of the night, a little bit of a walk is necessary.
Normally, that’s not a big deal, but lately, the middle room on the upstairs floor is being occupied by my adorable two-year-old granddaughter. In our house, to get from the front bedroom to the back bedrooms (and the bathroom), you have to go through the middle room. So, in the middle of the night, that’s not an option. So now, when I have that in-the-middle-of-the-night call to use the bathroom, I have to go down the front staircase, through the living room, dining room, and mudroom to the downstairs bathroom at the back of the house. I generally don’t turn on lights; I just use the glow from my phone to guide my way. And it works just fine.
However, the other night, after I had walked through all of those rooms, used the bathroom, and was on my way back through the rooms, I heard a low moan.
I admit I was a little distracted at the time because I had been perusing Facebook and listening to a video as I walked back to the front stairs. The low moan competed with the sound from my phone, and I wasn’t sure I had actually heard it. So, I paused the video, stopped next to the dining room table in the dark room, and listened. I heard it again. A low moan, coming from the darkness in front of me.
In this situation, I think you have a couple of choices.
You can turn your video back on and pretend you didn’t hear anything, then dash up the stairs for all you’re worth.
You can turn on all the lights in the house and then try to see if you can determine where the noise came from.
You can listen to see if perhaps you actually heard an owl or some coyotes from outside.
Or, you can investigate…in the dark and see if you can find who or what was moaning.
I did listen again, hoping to blame some nocturnal animal for the sound, but no such luck. I admit that I thought about diverting and dashing, but there was that little two-year-old asleep in the room at the top of the stairs, and someone needed to be sure there was no danger. So, I decided to move into the dark room and find the source of the moan on my own.
I walked around the dining room table, the dim glow from my phone guiding me around tripping hazards. (That’s the last thing I needed, tripping and landing in the lap of a ghostly presence.) I moved forward slowly, step by step, foot by foot, and then I raised my phone and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
My husband had fallen asleep on the couch, and he was making the moaning sound. No other worldly specter, although if you had heard the sound he was making, you would have been convinced that at least one of Dickens’ spirits was paying us a visit. But it was just my sleeping sweetheart, his iPad sprawled out next to him on the couch.
I gently woke him and suggested that he would be much more comfortable in bed. And then I went back upstairs myself, pleased that I had faced my fears and not ignored them.
I know that in my books, I never suggest that the heroine go down into the scary basement all by herself. I mean, we’ve all seen those movies, right? And, if the moaning had been coming from the basement, I would have simply locked the basement door, awakened everyone from their sound sleep, moved them out of the house, and burned the whole thing down.
Okay, perhaps that’s a little extreme.
I have a friend who often hears bumps and groans in the middle of the night. She’s decided to blame it on her cat.
Another friend just pulls up the blankets and covers her head.
Whatever your solution to those little twilight disturbances, let me leave you with one of my favorite Celtic prayers.
From ghoulies and ghosties,
And long-legged beasties,
And things that go bump in the night,
Dear Lord, protect us.
Happy Friday!!!
If you want to read more of Terri Reid’s writings – check out her Amazon author’s page.