This post is the conclusion to last week’s story. To read
the beginning of the story go to the archives at the right of this page and
find the post entitled “201”.
The idea of a spirit dwelling in our home was a difficult
thing to manage; especially since this spirit was both uninvited and unwelcome.
We had attempted to deal with the problem of our intruder; even going as far as
to have it banished by a local priest. We had tried to remain calm in the face
of something that at times was truly terrifying, but now we faced a new set of
challenges and emotions. Colon had just said that the spirits in our home were
receiving mixed messages.
I looked at my wife and saw on her face the look of
confusion that must have been on my face as well. What messages were these
spirits receiving and how could they be mixed? I knew one thing for sure; we
had sent them a message that was loud and clear. Simply stated it was this,
“Get out”. I began to realize that the only conflicting message they could have
received was to “Come on in.”
My wife glanced at me from the corner of her eyes, and at
the same time our looks of confusion turned to looks of anger and accusation.
She pointed at my chest, raising her arm very slowly, and seemed to say with
her eyes, “What did you do?” I cut her off before she could utter the words,
and diverted her accusation elsewhere, “There’s got to be someone these ghosts
are getting messages from.”
Colon cleared his
throat, appearing suddenly to come back to life. “How well do you know your
neighbors?” he asked.
The truth was that we had only seen our neighbors in
passing, either in the parking lot or on the stairs. The couple who lives the
farthest from us in apartment 104 managed the property, so we knew them as the
people who collected the rent check. The couple on the far end of the second
floor, apartment 204, seemed nice enough. They had come by to drop off a letter
once when it had been placed in their mail box by accident. Other than that we hadn't met anybody, but those that we had met certainly didn't seem like the
type that would welcome hauntings into the apartment.
We waited on Colon, hoping he could come up with more
direction from the spirits, and luckily for us he did. Colon seemed to be
certain that the messages were coming from the apartment directly below ours,
apartment 101. How he was certain we could not tell, but we began to realize
one unsettling thing; we were going to have to approach the occupants of our
apartment who were summoning spirits and ask them kindly to stop.
It took a lot of back and forth debate, but eventually we
decided to pay a friendly visit downstairs, and Colon agreed to accompany us.
Why wouldn't he, we were paying him by the hour? My wife decided to make her
oatmeal, white chocolate and cranberry cookies to bring as a peace offering. We
loved them, why wouldn't they?
I have to admit I was nervous at the proposition of what we
might discover in the downstairs apartment. We knew someone lived there because
we had often heard muffled voices through the floor, but we had never actually
seen anyone come in or go out. With a fresh batch of warm cookies and a few
uncomfortably fake smiles we knocked on the door to apartment 101. The door
cracked a half an inch and we heard a soft voice inside questioning what we
wanted. We replied that we were the new neighbors from upstairs and wanted to
pay a visit to introduce ourselves. I fully expected a witch like character
with a wart on her face to scream at us and tell us to leave, but the door
opened wide and a soft voice invited us in.
Sofia was her name. She was short, about five feet, and had reddish
brown hair and olive colored skin. She smiled broadly as we introduced
ourselves by name, and asked us to sit down. The apartment was well organized
and clean. It appeared in all respects to be a perfectly normal home for a
single grad student. I thought to myself that Colon must have been wrong; there
was no evidence of any sorcery or spirit summoning. No brooms for flying, no
crystal balls for viewing, no black cats, and no toads. But then I saw it, the
one thing in the apartment that seemed a bit out of place.
In the middle of the room sat an old coffee table with a large,
brown book that must have been over a hundred years old. I couldn't make out
the title on the cover, and as I leaned over to see it Sofia snatched it up and
quickly tucked it under her arm. I smiled awkwardly and began to ask about the
book, but my wife cut me off by offering her plate of cookies to Sofia.
We made small talk
for the next 15 minutes or so. We learned that Sofia was from the East Coast,
and that she was here studying anthropology. She lived alone and didn't have
much of a social life. We had not fully introduced Colon, only mentioning his
name and not his purpose for being there. She hadn't asked what our
relationship with him was, so we didn't bring it up.
We attempted to break
the ice about the haunting experiences we were having by asking Sofia if she
had noticed anything strange in the apartment. She responded negatively and
then changed the subject. Each time we tried to bring up the topic of spirits
she would divert the conversation to something else. She was very quick with
her words, but seemed to be growing increasingly nervous. We didn't want to ask
her directly if she was inviting the spirits into our building; that kind of
direct accusation was well outside of our comfort zones.
Colon had sat quietly through the entire conversation,
simply nodding his head occasionally. Sofia hadn't even looked in his direction
for quite some time. It was almost as though he had been forgotten by the three
of us. Suddenly Colon cut into the conversation with the intrusive question we
had been struggling to ask, “How long have you been trying to communicate with
those of the spiritual realm?”
My heart skipped a beat. I saw the color in my wife’s face
quickly change to a pale white. Sofia looked at Colon with a surprised
expression but quickly gathered herself. She began to respond to his question,
but stopped herself as though she was unsure of what to say. “I’m what you
would call a Medium” she said. “I can speak to those who are gone on behalf of
those who are still here.”
“But how long have you been practicing your craft?” Colon
asked again.
“Honestly, I haven’t been doing it very long. I guess I’m
still a beginner.” Sofia said as she blushed.
Colon smiled and began to explain to her the situation we
were facing in the apartment directly above hers. He went on to explain his
role in trying to correct the problems we had been experiencing. Sofia appeared
very regretful that we had been through such tough times at the hands of the
spirits she had summoned. Colon felt that he had a good handle on what she must
be doing wrong and how she could correct it. He even offered to mentor her,
which she gratefully accepted. It was an entirely different experience than
what I had expected.
We left the apartment feeling relieved about what we had
accomplished. Sofia thanked us for stopping by and Colon assured her he would
be back the next day. From that day on we had no further experiences with
hauntings or ghosts. In fact we felt a change in our apartment over time that
was very refreshing.
After that experience we would see Colon occasionally when
he would stop by to mentor Sofia. What they were doing down stairs and who they
were talking to I do not know. It still made me feel a little uneasy knowing
that we lived above an apartment where such things were taking place, but at
least the spirits had learned to stay off the second floor.
A few months passed and we saw a moving truck parked in the
street in front of the apartment building; this was not an unusual sight due to
all of the college students who were constantly moving. From inside our
apartment we heard a knock on the door. It was Sofia, the moving truck was for
her, and she had come to give us something. She handed me a red envelope,
smiled, and walked away. I opened the envelope and read the title of the card
inside:
“You are cordially invited to the marriage of Sofia Marie Annese and
Colon Timothy Fitzgerald.”
And that’s how it really happened.
