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

taken place during our absence. As we stepped over the threshold, I could feel my heart rate increase tenfold. However, as we looked around, nothing seemed to be amiss. We put the baby, still in his car carrier, on the end of the couch near the front door (the same spot where Tony had been sitting when he got scratched). After taking a minute to figure out how I was going to go about this one-sided conversation, I called out in a controlled voice. “Sallie, we are very angry and need to talk with you, so you better get in here right now.” I hoped I hadn’t been too harsh, but then I remembered something Barbara had said. “She needs to feel loved and know she’s cared about, just like any young child does.” Barbara had also expressed the idea that children need and desire the strong upper hand of a parent.
    A few minutes later, Tony and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders, wondering whether she was in the room with us, let alone the house. How would we have known? On the other hand, what if she was in the room, waiting for us to talk to her? If she was, I certainly didn’t want to lose her attention, so I continued with my half-planned lecture. I started out by firmly telling her that what she had done to Tony was bad and we wouldn’t stand for that kind of behavior. I explained that Taylor was our baby, not hers, and she could play with him nicely, but she was not to interfere with what we needed to do for him. I also informed her we were his mommy and daddy, we loved him very much, and we would never do anything to hurt him.
    I kept looking around the room for some sign of her presence, but found none. Usually when a person talks to someone, eye contact is made. I felt really odd not knowing where to look as I continued speaking to her. I also felt strange about reprimanding someone who was probably floating above me or, worse, not there at all. After a short pause, I informed her that the house she lived in was now ours and even though she may have been there first, it was still ours, which meant we were the bosses. “If you want to stay, it’s okay with us, but you will have to follow our rules.” Then I listed the rules she would have to follow: No hurting people, no playing with the pictures on the wall, no waking the baby, and after she played with the toys, she would have to put them back so no one would trip over them and get hurt.
    As I talked, Tony began to notice a few odd things, especially the behavior of our cats. He had been watching them for several minutes and finally caught my eye to get me to notice them, too. Usually they roamed around whatever room we were in, contemplating trouble they could get into or searching for something to play with. However, this time all three of them were sitting on the floor of the dining room about ten feet in front of us. Silence fell as we observed the back and forth movements of their heads. Their movements were perfectly synchronized with each other as they watched something in the air above. They looked as if they were following each volley of the ball in a tennis game. Apparently the cats were watching something we just couldn’t see. Perhaps this meant that Sallie was in the room.
    A few minutes passed, and not wanting to lose my audience of one, I resumed my talk while Tony kept an eye on the curious movements of the cats. He noticed that their attention was now focused on the ceiling fan above us. Again, he gently nudged me and motioned for me to look. From the fan hung two separate balls on separate chains. One ball was brass and controlled the light, and the other was wooden and controlled the fan speed. What had caught Tony’s attention was the fact that the wooden one was steadily swinging in a six-inch circle.
    Tony and I glanced at each other. We had not turned the ceiling fan on when we got home, nor was there a draft from an open window or door because were all closed. On top of that, we had never seen the wooden ball on our fan