In early 2002 following a divorce, I moved into the upstairs apartment of a house on Main St. I lived there with my son until 2008. For the first five years I lived there, I experienced random noises, items moved and cold spots, all things that could be explained away by living in an old house built in the 1840's, or the scatterbrained mind of a single mom trying to make it on her own.

Some things were quite unnerving, however, like coming home and finding blinds up or the blades slanted like someone had peeked out. Also, my son would talk while taking a bath and I would ask him whom he was talking to and he would reply, "that man". Once I heard him call "mom" from his room only to find him sound asleep. I also had an experience that someone had laid in bed beside me but as I had been asleep, I just counted it as a vivid dream.

I was beginning to suspect there was something going on when my sister moved in temporarily downstairs and told me about how she felt like she was being watched a lot and how her dog would stare or growl and bark at nothing. She and her husband moved after about a year. A man I had been seeing began staying the night on weekends and told me once that he heard footsteps crossing the kitchen floor. He was a skeptic if there ever was one so it gave me chills to hear him say that.

In 2008 a lot of things changed. We had bought a house and planned on moving soon and we were going to be married. One day my boyfriend was over as I was packing and I told my son to get something from his room. I glanced up and saw a boy that resembled him going towards the front door. I called his name to find out why he was leaving the house when to my surprise the boy disappeared and my son answered from behind me, he had already returned with the item. I asked my boyfriend if he had seen the boy but he had not. It was also strange that the "apparition" had passed my parrot’s cage but the parrot remained quiet. He would usually make lots of noise whenever anyone got close to his cage.

It was early May, 2008 when we bought our new home and I was trying to decide whether to move right away or stay so my son could finish the school year. I decided to stay and was getting ready for work around 3am one morning when I heard footsteps crossing the kitchen toward my room. Feeling scared, I grabbed the phone by my bed and called my boyfriend. The steps were quiet but my bedroom had become very cold. I wanted to leave but would have to pass thru the kitchen to the door. With my boyfriend on the phone I shakily crept across the kitchen in the dark to the light switch on the opposite wall. I reached out to flip the switch when suddenly all the lights in the house came on then just as suddenly the power to the entire house went off. I screamed and my phone line went dead because of the power loss. The house was completely dark and I had to go outside to the basement to reset the circuit breaker. I vowed then and there not to spend another night at the house.

Two weeks to the day I moved out, I was in Fort Scott and a friend asked me if I was ok. I said, yes, why? and she said my house had burned down that morning. I drove by my old place and found police tape up. The main structure of the house was fine, but the inside had been gutted. Ghost or guardian angel? I dont know but if I hadn’t moved I would have lost everything.