Life in a haunted house

Life is so strange sometimes. You think you have forgotten a haunted house you once lived in. Then suddenly, 40 years later, someone mentions names. They click in your mind. They were my landlords in the haunted house I once rented. Then the memories come flowing back.

My children and I had just moved in. I had just come back from a weekend in Vigan. They had made friends with the neighbors across the street who told them that our house was haunted. Of course, I didn’t believe them. But I invited our parish priest to lunch one Sunday. I met him at the gate and told him that the children had picked up the rumor that the house was haunted. Would he bless it? “I’m not an exorcist,” he said. 

Sunday was the day the children went out with their father but they stayed home that day and went out after the priest had left. I sat in the dining room downstairs quietly reading the newspapers. Then I heard a loud crash that shook the whole house. It was the sound of a lot of glass falling to the floor and breaking. 

My maids flew out of the house screaming. In a way I was grateful they did because I, too, was scared and they got me out of the house. But I realized I should not let them be afraid. So I stood and sternly said, “What are you screaming for? Something’s just broke. Go back inside.” But I stood at the doorway, trying not to show my fear, wondering what to do next.

Then I saw Ted, my neighbor across the street. I crossed over. “Ted,” I said, “please accompany me. I heard a loud crash, the sound of a lot of glass breaking, I’m afraid that all my mirrors, bottles off perfume, all the glass upstairs has broken. Come with me to check it out.”

He gave me a look that was sort of frightened. I think he feared I might try to seduce him. “Please,” I said, “just help me.” He reluctantly agreed. We went upstairs into my bedroom and the adjacent dressing room where I thought the big sound came from. Not a single bottle or mirror was broken. I felt like a fool. I know Ted has passed on and is probably laughing at me now.

Then, suddenly, there were the handmarks whiter than our white walls. A pair of hands positioned like they were saying stop just appeared in the girls’ room. I showed them to my mother. She said nothing. She covered them with a dress. But they didn’t go away. I showed them to my uncle, a Jesuit. “Hmmm, this looks weird,” he said. “I will talk to Father Bulatao about it.” The following week he said, “Father Bulatao says he can do something about it but you have to be the medium.”

Me? I panicked. I’m sorry, I can’t be the medium. I’m a large. 

I was just so afraid that the spirit who inhabited the house would never leave me; that I would carry her wherever I went and all our homes would be haunted afterwards.

Finally I remember Tessie Tomas. We used to work together at McCann-Erickson. One morning she dropped by and when I showed her the handmarks she shouted “P_____ina, nakakatakot iyan.” And that was the right phrase for that haunted house.

Almost every night I would hear a door open, then loud steps up the stairs, and the bathroom door in the hall would close loudly. Then there would be a toilet flushing, the bathroom door would open again, steps down the stairs and another door closing. I thought it was the maid using the bathroom. I always planned to talk to her about it but always forgot.

I had a brass bed and my children would almost always sleep with me. We would wake up because the bed was shaking. My heart would beat wildly. I convinced myself that I was having palpitations so strong I needed to see a cardiologist. So I went to see one. He said there was nothing wrong with my heart. 

 We had to move out for my children and admit to each other that, in fact, there was a ghost who lived with us in that house; yet we stayed around three years. I don’t think we were unusually brave. I think we might have been wonderful denial queens. We lived with it. And we brought with us wonderful memories of that house. We remember it until now. 

This account doesn’t give the full story but it tells enough of the hauntings. But look: we left the house behind, we brought our memories with us, and now almost 40 years later we remember our lives there with so much affection. Life is really strange, don’t you think?

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