The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story by Debra Pickman Read Free Book Online Page B

information that his mother and Barbara just revealed to us.
    The probability that we had a ghost had just increased greatly. It was like finding out that the adoption went through and there was a new baby waiting for you. Now how would we deal with it? To be perfectly honest, denial would have been a lot easier. I still wasn’t sure I was ready to accept the existence of a ghost in our home; I knew Tony wasn’t.
    I brought up what I felt were obvious concerns and questions. How will we communicate with her? How old is she? When is her birthday? Had she ever lived in the house? Did she die in the house? Why had she chosen to make herself known while my sister was visiting? Was night her only active time? Most importantly, was the baby in any danger ?
    We found ourselves wondering about Taylor seeing Sallie. Did she scare him with her antics or did he like her gentle playfulness? This brought to mind Taylor’s disturbed sleeping patterns. Was Sallie responsible for this? When we first brought Taylor home, he slept the entire first day. As a result, he was up every hour through the night. We chalked it up to the fact that he was simply trying to make the adjustment from the womb and would soon realize daytime was for being awake and nighttime was for sleeping. Everything we had read had described this transitional phase and said that it would only last a few days. Taylor’s adjustment period was going on three weeks long.
    During my sister’s visit, Taylor seemed to sleep just fine. Had Sallie decided not to wake the baby while he slept near my sister? Had Karen’s visit and her being a stranger in the house made Sallie uneasy? Still, the question of why she had been waking him in the first place kept coming back. Had Sallie just wanted to play with him, or was there a more important reason for her actions?
    Before long, I found myself worrying about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and I wondered if our son had fallen victim to SIDS several times; perhaps Sallie’s waking him had actually been her way of reminding him to breathe. If this were true, we were greatly indebted to her. Of course, we had no way of knowing the answers to our questions and decided to move forward one day at a time.
    Around 10:30 p.m., realizing we had talked through the entire evening, Tony and I decided to go to bed. Having just walked upstairs, Tony reached to turn out the hall light. His hand was on the light switch, but he hadn’t flipped it and I noticed his blank stare. He was absolutely motionless. I asked him what was wrong and with one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding expressions, he said, “Do you see anything odd?”
    I gave him a questioning look as he extended his right arm and pointed to the wall of the stairwell. There, where we had hung a variety of family pictures, I noticed the odd thing that had captured his attention. The photo of Tony and me, although perfectly straight and centered, had been turned upside down. “What do you think it means?” he asked. I shrugged, not wanting to scare him with what was really on my mind, and said, “Maybe she likes us.”
    “Good night Sallie,” I added as I entered the bedroom. Tony did a great job of ignoring what he’d seen along with the fear hammering at his heart. He turned out the light and came to bed.

six

    July 27, 1994
    Although we were shaken up by this new development and the idea that more unexplainable things could happen at any moment, the remainder of the night passed without incident.
    The next day was uneventful until about 5:00 p.m., when Tony’s younger brother George stopped in to visit with the baby—something he did daily since he lived just next door. George, who was just as terrified of ghosts and ghost stories as Tony, showed more interest than I’d expected. His curiosity had been piqued and he wanted to know more.
    Tony took him up to the nursery and described how the stuffed animals had been arranged the night before my sister left. George