Halloween seems like the perfect time for a ghost story, don’t you think? Trick or treating, creepy houses, haunted forests, and spirit walks – all part of our Aurora experience. So, I thought I’d hop on the bandwagon and share my own spooky tale.

I’m sure everyone has a story about what I like to call the unknown. It’s unknown to me, and honestly, I don’t want to know what it is. There’s something unsettling about certain feelings, and they really scare me. I don’t like them. For now, I’ll stick to real people, but the unknown seems to have a way of hanging around me.

I’m not sure if this is the best story to share, but it’s the only one I have that’s tied to Aurora and fits the Halloween spirit.

On July 29, 2011, just a few days before the Petch House was set to be dismantled, I stopped by to check on the progress. I had visited the site multiple times, especially as it neared its final moments before restoration. That day felt different. The weather was comfortable, and for some reason, I didn’t take as many pictures as I usually did. I just wanted to be there. I think I had developed a personal attachment to that house. I could feel something.

Around 11:25 am, I decided to head home. I was about 0.5 km away when I pulled over. I figured I’d take a few more photos of the house before its new journey, as it sat alone in the field, and I did.

Later that afternoon, when I went through the pictures, one in particular caught my attention. There was a strange grey streak in the top left corner of one of the photos. I went back and examined it, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It got me wondering how it ended up there.

I had taken four photos in 2 seconds with my Canon 7D, and the second one showed the streak. I tried to make sense of it. Maybe it was some kind of light distortion. Maybe a bug had flown by. Perhaps an airplane had left smoke behind (there was a flying club nearby). Maybe there was dirt on my lens. Maybe the wind had blown something. Maybe it was my hair—but no, I had it tied up in a ponytail.

None of these explanations seemed to fit. “Oh well, I’ll never know,” I thought. That afternoon, I left it as an unsolved mystery.

Hours later that same night, around 2 am, Matthew woke up terrified. He was moving strangely, pushing something away from his body. He screamed for the light to be turned on, kept crying, and then when he stopped, he started pushing again. He was stiff, spooked, and definitely not himself.

He definitely wanted it to go away. I was getting spooked myself, and my husband was like, “Just let me sleep, please.“

The last time I saw him like that was when his grandfather passed away, and Matthew was only three months old. That day, for about 10 minutes, he was crying on and off, stiff and spooked, just like now. I couldn’t even comfort him.

It happened again. This time, Matthew was older, and it seemed like he was feeling or seeing something. He was looking past us, almost as if he was focused on something we couldn’t see. We moved to another room, and he continued pushing away whatever it was. We tried to get under the covers, as it was chilly, but he moved so much that we just decided to wait it out. The lights stayed on, and we stayed like that for about 45 minutes until he finally relaxed, snuggled up, and—just in time—fell asleep.

It never happened again. Just that one night. Coincidentally, it happened just hours apart from the strange “something” in the photo, and then Matthew’s nightmare. Kids sometimes seem to sense more than we do, and maybe he did.

But what? I don’t know. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was something. I’ll leave it up to you, the readers, to decide.

Happy Halloween!

COMMENTS

Bob Bushell said: October 31, 2011 at 14:41

“Strange stuff, do you want me to go to asleep?”

Marvin said: October 31, 2011 at 23:34

“Poor Matthew! I hope whatever it is continues to leave you two alone!”