Is This a Ghost Story?

I have heard many ghost stories over the course of my life, but none of them can compare to the activities that occur at my relatives' house in suburban St. Louis. Since this house is still occupied, I will keep its location anonymous.

My mother, her parents and her brothers moved into a two-story house in the early seventies. Within a few months, my teenage mother began to witness strong paranormal activity.

With her bedroom on the second floor, my mother began having strange experiences. She would wake up in the middle of the night and her bed would be shaking. One night, she awoke terrified with the feeling that a face was staring at her through the darkness. A horrible rotten stench filled her bedroom. Even during the daytime, my mother had experiences. She would walk into the kitchen, only to find all of the cabinet doors open and no one home. Strange noises would echo from the basement, forcing my terrified mother to wait outside the house until my grandfather came home.

My grandparents didn't believe my mother when she began telling them about her experiences, until they witnessed the phenomenon themselves. One night, as they lay in bed, an invisible something sat on the edge of their bed. They watched in horror as the blankets crumpled and the bed sagged. My grandfather was getting dressed in his bedroom when something grabbed his hands and pushed them together in front of his chest as if he were praying. Cooking in the kitchen, my grandmother saw a teenage girl descend the staircase and walk into the living room. When my grandmother strolled into the living room, expecting to see her daughter, the room was empty. Pulling into the driveway with my mother in the car, friends of the family reported seeing a teenage girl wave to them from my mother's second floor window.

These occurrences pale in comparison to the personal encounter that I had when I was seven years old. I remember that morning as clearly as I remember today. My mother had dropped me off at my grandparents' house. My grandmother and I were alone that morning. I played while she did her perpetual cycle of cleaning. I followed my grandmother as she dragged the vacuum up the stairs to the second floor. As she cleaned one of the bedrooms, I went into my mother's old room and sat in front of her vanity mirror. I picked a hairbrush off the dresser. I watched my reflection in the mirror as I slowly brushed my hair.

"Do you wanna play with me?" the little girl asked suddenly.

Confused, I turned in my seat to face the little girl standing about two feet from me. "Ok," I replied. "But I have to ask my grandma first!" My first thought was that I didn't know that my grandmother was babysitting the neighbor's daughter. I wondered how I could've missed another child coming into the house and up the stairs. How come my grandma didn't say something to me? I rose from my chair and quickly left the room to ask my grandma who the little girl was. As I left, the little girl's head turned slowly as her eyes followed me. She seemed to be about my age. Her thin, blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a very average medium-length dress.

"Who's that little girl in my mom's room?" I asked my grandmother.

I can still remember the look of terror in her eyes as she turned off the vacuum, grabbed my hand and raced down the staircase. I never saw that little girl again.

My curiosity about this experience has led me to read many different paranormal accounts. I have yet to encounter a story in which the "ghost" spoke in front of a witness. Several sources insist that a true ghost is incapable of creating enough energy to manifest itself visually and audibly at the same time. This thing that I spoke with in my mother's bedroom appeared solid, normal and completely convinced me that I was looking at a real living person. Its voice was not distorted or strange. I didn't see it walk or move, other than turning its head as I left the room. I'm not really sure if it walked into the room or just suddenly appeared.

Another mystery is the entity's appearance. Why did my grandparents and mother's friends see a teenage girl and I spoke with a young girl? Does this thing manifest itself into the age of the witness? Also, my grandmother and my mother's friends described the girl as wearing a white dress. The girl who I spoke with was wearing a dark one.

The enigma behind this experience has haunted me for years. People continue to experience supernatural activity in this house. If what is haunting this house is not a ghost, then what is it? Perhaps this mystery will never be solved.