Part 2: (True Ghost Story) This Is How a Ghost Became My Best Friend
“What are these,
So wither’d, and so wild in their attire;
That look not like the inhabitants o’ th’ earth,
And yet are on ’t?”- William Shakespeare, Macbeth
In 1850, Lydia Atley disappeared from Ringstead, Northamptonshire, a village in England. Witnesses heard the young woman arguing with the married butcher and father of the baby she was about to deliver. The last anyone heard of Lydia were her screams on that fateful night.
Her ghost is said to haunt the village, where I lived for several years in a quirky stone cottage.
This is an introduction to several bizarre but true stories I will share in the coming days about my encounters with her in my cottage.
She was waiting for me. She must have known my own ghosts when we met. She must have seen inside my soul and understood the grief, the longing, the desperate need for healing — and for peace.
After all, she permeated every space in the cottage, every room, every quiet corner; she was everywhere — and nowhere.
So deep was my own pain, I hid most of it even from myself. I chose, instead, as I had always done, to focus on the joys in my new life. I shoved away the dark thoughts that invaded my soul. I delighted in having just moved into a quirky, 500-year-old stone cottage; it was a lifelong dream come true.
It was my fortress, my safe place to hide and heal after decades of trauma and its ugly fallout. It was my fresh start, my clean slate, a chance to begin again where no one knew anything about me. No one except my then-husband and my sweet daughter, Willow, the three of us eager to enjoy this adventure together.
We could never have imagined just what kind of an adventure it would be. It would become a parapsychologist’s dream, the perfect place for scientists to explore and confirm what I had known since I was a child and communicating with spirits…
I met her on the third morning. The cottage was still filled with boxes but gradually, we were making progress.
With my husband at work and my daughter at school, I could dive in and get a lot done. I unpacked a box in the bedroom, removing my small, black alarm clock and placing it on my nightstand beside the bed. I remember noticing how nice it looked with the new black lamp that stood next to it — part of a little redecorating we had done to celebrate our move.
Having emptied the box, I took it downstairs where I was busy for a while. An hour or two later, I returned to the bedroom with more goodies to put away. I happened to glance at a shelf on the wall a few feet away from the bed.
There stood my clock.
Instantly, waves of goosebumps rushed up and down my body. Busy with unpacking since moving in, I’d had no inkling of her until that moment. Immediately, her presence filled the room. It was warm and peaceful, surrounding me like a tingling blanket of kindness.
Although I had been communicating with spirits since I was a child, I had never encountered anything quite like this.
“Hello,” I said, hesitantly, taken aback by this sudden welcome from the Other Side.
Her presence intensified, as if in understanding that she was welcome, too. That beautiful warmth and peace flooded through my being, bringing me to tears with a nurturing quality that I needed so desperately.
And she needed to offer it — although it would be some time before I knew why. It would come when I learned her story.
As a few tears trickled down my cheeks, I glanced around the room and whispered, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I closed my eyes and stood motionless, enjoying her nurturing energy until her presence faded. In those moments, I didn’t feel lost anymore; I didn’t feel so alone.
I drew in a deep breath, wiped my eyes and headed back down to the kitchen.
“Who knew a ghost would be my new best friend?” I said under my breath, strangely connected to her already.
A Gift Like No Other
Shortly after this encounter, I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen. I was emptying a box of infrequently used items into the back of a corner cupboard — the kind that has space on one side that you can’t easily see.
As I tried shoving something into the corner, I heard a sort of “clink” as though it had hit an object that wasn’t the back of the cupboard.
I dug deeper and found a pretty antique vase with hand-painted flowers.
Photo courtesy of this author
Thinking the previous owners must have left it behind, I set it aside with plans to ring them later. I couldn’t help but notice that it didn’t seem remotely like their tastes for modern furniture and household items.
And it was exactly the sort of thing I adored. The older, the better.
That evening, I called Sally. She and her partner, Victor (not their real names), had lived in the cottage for ten years.
After the usual pleasantries, I said, “I guess you left a vase behind.”
“A vase? I don’t think so. We’ve unpacked and we’re not missing anything. Plus we both double-checked everywhere.”
I wasn’t surprised. She was super, over-the-top organised, and was an exceptional cleaner. Nonetheless, I was staring at the vase I’d found that day.
“It was way in the back of that corner cupboard to the left of the sink.”
“Even stranger! I didn’t keep vases there. I kept them in the cupboard over the cooker. And we both made sure we got everything out of that cupboard because it’s hard to see. This doesn’t make any sense. What does it look like?”
“Definitely an antique, old style, white with flowers around the top. To be honest, I was surprised because it’s so unlike everything else of yours.”
Silence.
And then, “I’ve never owned a vase like that in my life.”
A chill raced up and down my spine. There could only be one explanation.
Suddenly, there it was again, that warm and tingling presence. And as I hung up the phone, I smiled and thanked our unusual lodger for her housewarming gift. In all my years communicating with spirits, I’d never personally witnessed anything like this.
And she was just getting started.