I want to preface this by saying that yes, I believe in ghosts and spirits (yup, fun fact, those are two different things. For the sake of this tale, we are dealing with ghosts, which are tied to the location of their death and often have unfinished business). With that being said, let’s get to my first (and only) ghostly encounter.
For the past 4 years, I have had a summer job working at a local museum. This museum is the oldest building in the town, dating back to the mid-1700s. The family that lived in the house were middle to upper-class family, and while they had many children, none married and eventually died within the home (in a peaceful death, nothing gruesome). When I had my first day on the job, the curator often told us tales of her ghostly encounters, including hearing the footsteps and voices of children, music playing, and figures standing in windows. Really anything that you can think of, she has had it happen to her. Like me and many of the other staff members, we brushed it off, but were still wary and ensured that the upkeep of the museum is how it was supposed to be.
With this knowledge, our curator enjoys hosting “ghost tours” during September and October. Guests are taken on a tour of the house, stopping in every room, and being told what occurrences have happened there, or what local paranormal investigator groups have sighted. The “ghost hosts” preface the tour by stating that people are to touch NOTHING, as the family members are very particular about how their house is laid out.
On this specific evening, my brother and I volunteered to be the greeters to the guests, as I would never do this alone being the scaredy-cat that I am. As we welcomed the last tour of the night, we decided to sit in the lobby while the group wandered through the house, mostly to avoid the rain that had started. Sitting by a dimly lit lantern, we could hear the repeated stories that we had been hearing all night. As with all the groups, they first start in the hallway and then are led into the dining room. During the dining room explanation, the ghost hosts state that the table must be set up perfectly, nothing is to be out of place. I already knew this from working there, and we would have to constantly ensure that forks and napkins were straight in case anyone had knocked it from a previous daytime tour.
However, someone from the ghost tour felt the need to “test” this theory. But my brother and I didn’t know this at the time, and neither did the ghost hosts. As the group continued to the parlour, my brother and I heard a glass chime 3 times from within the house. In the dining room to be exact. I thought I had misheard, or someone had run into something (which is often the case), but when my brother turned and asked me if I heard that as well, I knew something was wrong. I could hear one of the ghost hosts mention something about hearing a noise, but it was hard to hear over the shuffling of feet moving from room to room.
For the remainder of the tour, my brother and I sat on the bench furthest from the dining room, waiting for the tour to end and I could speak with the curator. Once the tour had finally left, the curator asked if I had moved something in the staff room. I told her that neither my brother nor I had left the lobby, let alone move very much as the house shifted and creaked under a person’s foot. She looked at the other host, and both of them entered into the dining room, casting a phone flashlight to see what could have been the noise. I followed closely behind them, trying to find a logical answer to the noise. As we cast the flashlight across the table, we saw what the issue was: a fork was turned 90 degrees. As stated previously, the woman of the house, Caroline, did not like it when people touched her stuff or when things were out of place.
To this day, this night still gives me the shivers. While some may just brush it off as an “accident” or “old house noises,” I know that what I heard was because Caroline was upset with someone disturbing her dining room table. While I continue to work at this museum, I always make sure that there is someone else in the house with me, day or night.