The Gothic Novel Book Club <Hiatus> discussion
Once upon a time a creepy/spooky/paranormal/gothic
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Many years ago when I was first getting into Wagner's Ring (opera) my family were going on holiday. We had recently been burgled and my wife had lost all but a few precious family jewellery, of sentimental value. Those few left I suggested we hide in my socks. Good idea but having done so we both forgot we had done so. A few months after our return my wife realised they were missing and after we both thought about it we recalled we had hidden them, but where? Searched our bedroom high and low for many weeks with no joy. Didn't make an insurance claim as they had to turn up one day.About six months later my wife had my socks' draw on the bed and was sorting out my tendency to put odd socks together. I was explaining that the Wagner's Ring symbol required the possessor to renunciate love to gain the reward of supreme power from the Ring. Literally at that exact moment my wife pulled a ring from a pair of socks. But this was no ordinary ring. It had a gold band with a one-inch long black domino type stone with a tiny diamond in the middle. It was a genuine very old funeral ring.
Absolute truth.
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Nice.My housemate lived in her family home when she was a teenager but was visiting their second home, where they went for vacations. She set down her ring, which she'd inherited from her murdered aunt, on the piano to play it more easily. When she finished playing, the ring was gone.
Years later, she was playing the different piano which was at the family home. She got the message, which felt as if it came from her aunt, to raise the lid.
There was the ring.
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I was about six or seven staying the night upstairs in one of the rooms. My grandparents were far away from me. It is a big house.
So, while I was drifting off to sleep that particular night the bed starts shaking. I think, oh it’s a cat. Then I remind myself I am not at home and the cats are put up at night. My mind leaps to the next logical thing. It’s a train. Sometimes when they come by it might move or shake things a bit. Well there was no train. The bed started shaking more violently.
Have people died in this house? The answer would yes. Yes. Quite a few.
I peeked a little and saw nothing but darkness. The bed kept shaking and all I couldn’t make a sound, so under the covers I went until it stopped. My grandparents didn’t come upstairs. It wasn’t them. No one was there when I looked.
I have no idea to this day why my bed was doing that. There was no noise in the street, no trains in the tracks and no animals in the house. It was just those two and me and they didn’t make the journey up the stairs unless they absolutely had to.
So. It was freaky for me.
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Shaina, interesting. I initially wondered about an earthquake. You might be right to dismiss it but we've had 3 minor quakes in the last few years, 2 of which I got to experience. They appeared to shake isolated doors rather than the whole house, but I accept that shaking the bed is a bit different.
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A friend of mine and her husband often felt movements on the bed and could both see indentation as if their dead cat was climbing in with them and settling in where he always did.
It is amazing how everyone has had something they can't explain happen to them. I'll move my experience over from the other thread. Working in a doctor's office I have heard a lot of odd things from people who have just had a loved one pass.
My one strange occurrence was with my nephew. I lived at the time in Halifax, North Carolina. Halifax had 1,000 residents in its heyday of 1700. Now it is down to less than 300 inhabitants. In the forest outside of the traditional cemetery was the African American cemetery. It is abandoned and neglected. All records of who is buried there is nonexistent. You have to walk through the woods with no path to get to the cemetery. There are only a couple of tombstones marking some plots but a lot of rectangle shaped depressions where to me it looks like caskets may have rotted and the ground around them collapsed. Well, anyway, we were there on a hot sunny day talking about how nice it would be to clean up the place and try to find some records on who was there. He was taking lots of pictures while we walked and talked. When he returned home to Pennsylvania, he emailed the pictures to me. Every one of the pictures from the cemetery showed fog from our waist down. Now could it be a natural phenomena, it was a hot sunny day? But there was no fog. In fact, I wouldn't have been out there in the fog because of poisonous snakes and the abundance of leaf cover.
Tantra wrote: "Nice.My housemate lived in her family home when she was a teenager but was visiting their second home, where they went for vacations. She set down her ring, which she'd inherited from her murdere..."
I love these kinds of things---I have also experienced things as well.
Shaina wrote: "My grandparents live in an old Victorian house. It used to be a boarding house. I’ve grown up in old spooky houses. My cousins would never go upstairs by themselves. Never. When I was little I was ..."Shaina, you should write about this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kathy wrote: "My one strange occurrence was with my nephew. I lived at the time in Halifax, North Carolina. Halifax had 1,000 residents in its heyday of 1700. Now it is down to less than 300 inhabitants. In the ..."How eery; Kathy!. I have never been South, other than Florida and no further than MD, but now I am getting a picture of why there are so many Southern gothic writers such as my favorite---Flannery O'Connor. These stories are amazing!
Laura Benedict writes Southern Gothic books.
My mother's family had a homestead in rural Alabama, a "town" of 900 people. The first church that was built was known to be haunted at one point, when it was no longer in use and sometimes the lights would turn on, though the electricity was cut off, the piano would play, a congregation singing hymns would be heard, and hymn books would fly across the room and hit people who were in the church.Finally, the church was used again by a new group and those things stopped completely.
Tantra. what a wonderful story---good grief; I have had my own encounters, too, but for some reason, it seems as if those in the South are really unusual. My parents built a new home ( they had builders), but the lot was all forest, and trees had to be cut down, the house was amazing, but it was HAUNTED----we all experienced things---auditory, tactile and visual.
The region where I live----the entire region has homes that are considered to be 'haunted.'
Skye, your development reminds me of the movie Poltergeist! I love the rural South, the more rural the better for me. Though sometimes the horror here is a little too real. Monday night I was down in the basement and saw something hanging from the water pipes in the ceiling. After closer inspection, it was the tail of a 6 ft black racer snake that died wrapped around the water pipes. That was fun pulling him down. We are down in the basement every day because it leads off into the backyard, pool, and veggie gardens. How many times have I walked under him? Just another pet!
YIKES, Kathy, what a story!!!! I imagine the rural South is beautiful, but also terrifying in its own way. WOW, a snake, huh????
A six foot snake that climbs! I have also seen a black panther walk through the back yard. We live at the southern edge of the Smoky mountains so it is beautiful and there is a ton of wildlife. The movie Deliverance was made a half hour north of here. My neighbors aren't as scary as those portrayed in the movie but the countryside is gorgeous, the music is great (if you like banjos!), and the food is fantastic.
Wow, loved reading all your encounters, everyone! A friend and I were physically attacked by a Shadow Being, once, OMG!! It scares and scars me to THIS DAY! Happend in 1994. It is a long and detailed story. Let me know if you want me to share the whole story!
Btw, all, found another Gothic Author on Amazon: Amanda DeWees. Check her out! :)
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Michelle wrote: "Wow, loved reading all your encounters, everyone! A friend and I were physically attacked by a Shadow Being, once, OMG!! It scares and scars me to THIS DAY! Happend in 1994. It is a long and detai..."
Loving reading all these stories.
Please do tell the whole story of the shadow attack, Michelle! Really want to hear about that.
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Great news! One of the members of this group and the other Gothic Group just released a new Thornhaven novel.Renee RossHer personal web site IS very eery, too.
renerossbooks. com.
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Share your experiences. We’ve probably all had them. Tantra suggested this, and I thought it was super awesome as a suggestion so how about it?! There is something that draws us to this. Sometimes it is our experiences. —slides off into shadow