901
The house nearly burnt down twice. Lovers and the few friends who were attuned to their Sight said similar versions of the same thing: they felt a presence both oniminous and pure. We were not alone.
A story of haunting of the spirit by both the paranormal and our own souls, I present a true story about possession and despair that I am still processing 4 years later. There will be ghosts both living and dead.
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
We’d all seen the ghosts. Different stages and moments in life, but one thing was certain. We all lied to each other. When you’re taught as a child to ignore every natural instinct you have, you never trust your sight. A face in a window….steps on the servant stairs..no one questioned my “imaginary” friend. As a teen, I ignored my peripheral and drowned myself in my laptop, unwilling to listen to the stories trying to be told. “wherever she goes she will only find the same hell she was running away from.”
Hill House
Adult me got the call 18 hours away…knowing the House was calling me to return. I was learning to start telling the truth in my stories and that meant acknowledging who/what was there.
“Nothing in this house moves until you look away, and then you just catch something from the corner of your eye.” Hill House
My hill house laid on Lenape land, the tension simmering underneath a placid green packasandra. Pottery excavated by my child hands told me many stories were not being shared. Good thing I love reading.
The house fostered my desire of hiding from the physical realm. It protected me through many storms, burglaries, floods, and my own family. But…it never left me alone either. There was a price to be paid, and I negotiate well.
Wrangling ghosts/entities on from multiple sides of the realm is a tightrope, but my balance and offerings stayed pristine. I learned if I didn’t give the little boy (poltergeist) attention, he’d harass my Dad the nights he drank. Which was every night. Mysterious acts would happen in the kitchen when he was displeased. Mom’s ashen face one early spring: “don’t go in the kitchen.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
On our respective lunch breaks she confided that the metal paper towel holder was no longer able to have the lid unscrewed to replace the roll. It was fused together. No line indicating it had ever been separate from the rest of the holder.
The house nearly burnt down twice. My lovers and the few friends who were attuned to their Sight said similar versions of the same thing: they felt a presence both oniminous and pure. We were not alone.
“It watches," he added suddenly. "The house. It watches every move you make.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
Time slipped by in golden pockets for each of us. Dad knew that when he bought it. Here, he can cosplay the American dream. The nuclear white family. He felt the polarity, his intuition saying: This will either be my dream, or my nightmare.
He was doomed to both.
“To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defies our boundaries and illuminates our souls.” Hill House
“Things go on in this damn house I just don’t understand".” Mom mutters as she slaps marbled steak on the cutting board.
“Well, SHE didn’t help matters throwing the voodoo doll out.” I grumbled to myself, trudging the stairs, knocking Grandma’s still life askew. Again. It’s one of the stickier summers of my life. 2021 is cautiously moving through half masked, half pretending life is still normal and NOT like a global pandemic condemns my country to a hit I doubt we will recover from. “At least I have my house…”. it’s older, the land is pulling it into it’s embrace a little more, but hey…when you’re 100 I feel you’re entitled to rot just a little. But someone else is rotting and it’s both my parents. 2020 created a cocoon you don’t exit from when you combine Dad + Fireball + his wife + child. The tension I used to be able to negotiate defied all expectations when generational curses came in to play with nowhere to run. Certainly not to New Orleans which was my father’s favorite tactic.
When I began telling the truth, it revealed a whole lot of ugly. Double lives, entangling with voodoo wannabees, dark corners with dark liquor, a hole money was thrown into…never to return like a drain takes my waste….circling slowly…ramping faster and faster.
“Ghosts are real, this much I know. There are things that tie them to a place, very much like they do us. Some remain tethered to a patch of land, a time and date, the spilling of blood, a terrible crime. But there are others...others that hold on to an emotion, a drive, loss, revenge, or love. Those...they never go away.” Hill House
Then, the House got mad.
Stuff and Things:
I was on a podcast! And it was great! Thank you to
for having me! If you love sagittarius mercuries, identify with being nonbinary/neurodivergent, southern, witchy and/or exvangelical we have got the goods for you:
I’m posting in our subscriber chat which you can find here:
Witchy Journaling Circle is Back! 📔
3rd Monday of every month, April 21st is our next one. Drop in when you can at 7pm EST.
Agenda:
Sensory Check in 🌀
Brief Astro Transit Report 🌟
Brief Card Pull 🎴
Work through journal prompts for the month ✍️
Wind down with a guided meditation. 🌬️
Important reminders:
Sometimes at 32 years old, you have to give your inner child something they weren’t allowed to have but you secretly listened to in your friends cd players anyway:
Full Moon in Libra Saturday April 12th.
Bye.
This one has been sitting in my backlog for a minute.
Every time I see 901, I think, "that's the zip code of my youth."