Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

Much is heard but not so much seen. In short, this house has me very tense. I have become very much on edge living here. I know that I said in the last book that I wasn’t afraid of the things going on, but lately I’m nervous and many times, have been scared.

I’m always hearing things. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night to bats flying around my bedroom. I see waves of movement rippling throughout different rooms. I witnessed a cloud of light misty haze move across the living room air.

The pictures of orbs are bigger and clearer. I feel tugging on my shirt and then there was that voice that called my name in the middle of my sleep.

Sometimes, I’m awakened by sounds of...I don’t even know what. Sounds that can’t be identified. I wake up in a panic. I jolt up from my bed short of breath gasping for air looking around the room for something to be there.

“Jonathan, Sarah? Is that you?

There is never a response.

I haven’t been sleeping. My eyes open at the slightest sound of noise or at anything that may look like movement around the bedroom.

Sometimes I’ll stay up as long as I can downstairs just so that when I do go to bed I’ll fall asleep quickly.

I know that they are listening to me. I know they are watching me, and I know they have communicated with me. It is up to me to pay attention to it.

It’s not so much lights going off and on now or things appearing or disappearing like it used to be. Things have changed, they’re a bit different now, almost as if they have risen to a new level.

And it’s not so much for me to be afraid of, it’s more of just a matter of shock. I never know what is going to happen next or when.

Many people have called my house haunted. That’s okay with me if that’s how they want to see it. I don’t see it that way. The spirits living here are friendly. They are not monsters or creatures of the night or anything that would be considered fear based. They are at peace and simply have a desire to have their presence known.

I see this experience as a gift that has been given to me. Not many people get the chance to have what I have in my home, and to experience the experience. And for now, I’d much rather deal with the shock, the surprises and the unexpected than to not have it at all. It is rare and I know not to take it for granite.

I’m not going to ask them to leave. They can stay as long as they would like to. I will continue to talk to them, invite them to go places with me and I will ask for their help if I feel I need it.

In this house they consider me part of their family and it only feels natural for me to consider them part of mine.

ELIZABETH AGNES JENSEN

1820-1898

The older woman living here with my son and I has the name Elizabeth Agnes Jensen. She was born January 3rd 1820 and died at seventy-eight years old in 1898.

She prefers that we call her by her middle name –Agnes. As a human, and having the name of Elizabeth, she was often called, “Lizzy” and she did not like that. Therefore, she asks that we refer to her as Agnes.

She has been with me for fourteen years. Agnes was drawn to me from spirit because I very much reminded her of herself and of a man that she knew who had proposed to her. She did not accept the proposal.

Agnes did marry at fourteen years old, and her husband worked in the newspaper business. They lived in the United States, in the area we now know as Chicago, and they had one son named Edward.

Agnes was seventeen years old at the beginning of the Victorian era in 1837, and had already been married for three years.

She remembers enjoying the clothing of that era. She very much enjoyed all of the hats, the lace, ribbons and pleating. She also had a great appreciation for the very fine needle work. She enjoyed dressing for special occasions when she was able to be dressed as she says, “like a peacock,” but complained that the shoes were too tight for her. They were designed and created to be very narrow which often hurt her feet.

In Agnes’ spare time she enjoyed writing, singing, needle point and baking, particularly the baking of breads.

She found great satisfaction in helping others who were sick or unable to care for themselves and she enjoyed assisting them in their time of need.

She became a widow at fifty-one and eventually had a woman come to live with her who would help her around her home. But most of Agnes’ later years were lonely ones. She created walls with her husband before he died and she also created walls with some friends. She regrets very much how she handled her marriage in creating those walls and she does not want to see me make the same mistake. This is why she came. She does not want me going down the same path as she.