Truly, I think this may be my first repost on my blog. I'm not entirely sure that is correct, but as far as I can remember, this is it!!!

 I was working on a sort of gothicy lighthouse story for my blog. But it just isn't working out right. It doesn't exactly have enough detail and feeling that I want. Plus, unfortunately, it's beginning to sound like EVERY OTHER LIGHTHOUSE STORY..... and that's just no fun, is it???!!!

So, if you've been reading the Inner Fire long enough and you've heard this one before, I hate to be a bore.... Or, if you like to re-read I hope it's as enjoyable ( ) the second time around.... , and if it's your first time reading it, be a tiny bit gentle with the author, will you??? She's really sensitive towards her work... gentle comments on how better to improve the story works wonders....

 

The late afternoon sun was hidden behind dark stormy clouds. The cold hard wind drove the rain down on the mountain side. Had there been someone watching, they would have seen the couple, clinging to each other, the man leaning on his wife, favoring his right leg and she, desperate to find him some help. Finally, seeing possible shelter, they made their way through the wet slippery forest floor towards the rocky mountain side that poked up through the woods. It wasn’t exactly a cave, but the rocky ledge jetted out forming protection from above and the underbrush along the farther side lent some protection from the wind and rain leaving the area closest to the rock dry at least.

 

 Stephen and Anna huddled down together in the small space. They clung together instinctively, searching for warmth. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” Anna said in between the chattering of her teeth, “but I don’t think I ever want to go hiking again!”

 

Stephen laughed and pulled his wife closer. “I can’t believe the weather turned so quickly. I’m sure that as quickly as it turned bad is as quickly as it will turn back again. I’ve been hiking in these mountains for so many years, we’ll be fine. You can wipe the worried look off your face.”

 

Anna glanced up at him. If there was nothing to worry about, then why the strained expression on his face, why the worried look in his eye?, she wondered to herself. She snuggled closer and shivered. “How does your knee feel?” she asked.

 

“I can’t believe I went down like that,” he grumbled. “You’d think I would have learned a long time ago to avoid falling on it after I broke it all those years ago.”

 

“I’m sorry that you hurt it again.”

 

“Sorry? Why are you sorry? Did you do it? No! Actually I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry that we aren’t home naked in front of a roaring fire….”

 

“Stephen!” she exclaimed and then laughed as she reached up to kiss his cheek. He turned his head and caught her lips. He felt good and tasted good, and when she eventually broke the kiss, she said, “Yeah…I guess you’re right. You should be sorry.”

 

“Actually, we should get rid of some of these wet clothes. Our jackets are in my back pack. There’s an emergency blanket in the first aide kit as well.” Stephen shifted around and grabbed the pack. Soon they were warmer than they had been for the past few hours. They had buttoned both of their light weight jackets together in a make shift sleeping bag, and wrapped the blanket around their legs as best they could.

 

With the sun now down, the air had grown colder. He pulled her closer to him, her back to his chest and wrapped his arms tighter around her. She felt so cold. He rubbed her arm back and forth, trying to will the heat back into them. Please, please dear Divine, don’t take her away from me, he pleaded. Anna felt the tension in him. She tried to move closer to him, tried to give him comfort. At the same moment she prayed, Please, please Lord, don’t let me loose him.

 

As the night wore on they talked only of happy times. They talked about how they met, what they did on their first date. of how they were going to decorate their dream home. Even when they mumbled, even when they didn’t make much sense any more they continued to hold on to each other, needing each others presence. Eventually they stopped shivering; eventually the cold didn’t even seem to bother them any more. She tried to keep her eyes open, but she just couldn’t seem to do it.

 

Stephen shook her a little. “Anna, you should stay awake, sweetie. There are people probably looking for us and it will be morning soon.”

 

“Just for a few minutes, Stephen. I just have to close my eyes for a few minutes. You’ll stay with me, won’t you. Please? And hold me.”

 

“You don’t even half to ask. You know I will.”

 

Her eyes were closed, and Anna’s voice sounded far off. “Stephen? I love you.”

 

Surely a few minutes of sleep couldn’t hurt. He kissed her hair and snuggled down as close as he could get to her. “I love you, too, Anna.” And then he closed his eyes.

 

No one was there to feel their last heart beat. No one would hear the last breath taken in, and then out for the final time. Only the hooting of an owl as wise and old as the earth itself, proclaimed their passing. No one saw their souls lift from their bodies. No one saw their surprise, their joy, their embrace. No one saw their tears of happiness. No one heard their exclamation of praise that their prayers had been answered. No one saw as they walked on, hand in hand from this place.

 

"In sickness and in health,

To Love and to Cherish,

Even in Death, Forevermore..."

 

And with that, dear fellow bloggers, I'm off and running!

Cheers! ~MacKenzie

 

I admit, living in that house has been my only real experience with the possibility of ghosts. The only other time I’ve felt “spooked” is in the building where I work. Half of the staff say they, too, have felt a presence, the other half just sort of shrug their shoulders. I tell myself that there are logical reasons as to why I see and hear what I do in the old Brown’s Market that was destroyed in a huge fire that wiped out half the town only to be rebuilt again in the early 1900’s and is now turned into a facility that assists people with disabilities.

***************
We had our entertainment center against the wall with the staircase in the living room. We were constantly having to replace the electrical components because they would mysteriously just stop working. It was crazy!!!

One evening we had friends over (HI Cerelia, remember this one?) and we were all sitting around watching a movie and then suddenly the volume on the receiver started going up and up. We had to search around for the remote, and I joked around with the guys telling them that it was a funny joke, but to cut it out now. I thought it was Honey's friend who turned it up when it happened again so I grabbed the remote and threw it on the table away from his reach. When it did it a third time, you could actually see the knob on the dial moving. Okay, I know. I know... it sounds ridiculous, made up, an attention getter. Unfortunately, it is what I saw and I have to admit, I was pretty freaked out.

Even our animals changed when we moved into that place. Zoe, our dog was much more high strung. Often she would awake from a deep sleep and jump up and run to the stairs. Zee, our poor cat, was always hiding! If she maneuvered the stairs it was always at a full run up or down. When we got our second dog, Zeus, he hated going up and down stairs. In fact, more often than not, he’d stumble down the last half of them. Of course, he wasn’t the most brilliant of dogs either, but was absolutely as sweet as they came. Sometimes, if you were reading or doing something in the living room (where the stairs were), you’d feel that closed in feeling sweeping past you. Suddenly, both dogs would perk their ears up and stare, you got it, at the stair case.

One weekend, we asked Little Brother to watch our dogs for us as we went out of town. When we got home, he told us that he would never again enter the house at night. While he was there one evening, he felt the feeling of anger shoot through him. Both dogs, who had been eating, suddenly turned and ran towards the stairs. Little Brother said it was one of the scariest feelings he had ever had and darted out of the house not even looking back as he hopped in his car and drove off. From 3 in the afternoon to 8 the next morning, the dogs were on their own. Should he need to pick up messes, it was worth it to him because he was NOT doing THAT again!

I’ve admitted here on the Inner Fire that after the loss of our son, the only thing I wanted to do was to connect with him again. Until I could deal with my loss, I took several interesting side trips, all of which occurred in the house. In my grief, I was pretty stupid and there are things that I wish I hadn’t done and will never do it again. After a very scary incident, I learned my lesson, decided it was time I dealt with what I needed to and began my grieving process.

Everyone disliked the house, but me. I mean, there were times when I was uncomfortable after doing some research and coming to the realization that all was not as it seemed in the house. I got the feeling that the “ghost” for lack of better wording liked women (as indicated by an incident with my mom), probably was quite the flirt, actually, so I’m guessing the ghost was male. However, he wasn’t overly fond of men, and he didn’t like children.

We lived in the house for 10 months once Pumpkin was born. A lot of things happened. Suddenly, it became a guessing game as to what was normal and what was not. Utensils that seemed to be firmly on the counter would fall off. If what he wanted wasn’t attached to his person, Honey could loose things, sometimes up to two or three days. It was the middle of a cold winter and to save on heat, we moved downstairs and blocked off the second floor with plastic. We got the plastic as tight as we could, and if you went up and tried to make a noise with it, you couldn’t, but sometimes you could still hear it ripple. If you had two candles lit side by side, sometimes one would flicker, but the other would remain still.

What made me most nervous was when I heard whistling over the baby monitor. The first time it happened, Pumpkin was sleeping in her cradle in the living room, I was folding laundry and Honey was in the den. Honey was playing a game so at first I thought it was that, but then I noticed that the sounds from the game just didn’t match the whistling, I went to investigate. The whistling stopped for a bit, then as I was half way between rooms, I could hear the whistle over the monitor, but it didn’t seem to be coming from any other part of the house. I heard it twice more after that, and well… all I can say is that the sound didn’t invoke happy feelings.

One evening, around 9pm or so, I was waiting for Honey to get home from an outing with his friends. The CD player was on, set to soft instrumentals because Pumpkin was sleeping. I was moving through the den to the living room when I heard a whisper. I heard my name twice and every single hair stood up on my whole entire body. It sounded like it was coming from the top of the stairs. I was completely terrified and I ran to the phone to call my father in law and ask if he or even mom and he would come stay with me until Honey got home. How was I going to tell them I thought my house was haunted? I felt stupid and ridiculous that I was afraid to stay in my own house alone so I hung up the phone, went to the stairwell and I “announced” that I was not going upstairs, I was not going to be scared out of my home, I didn’t appreciate being scared and whatever was going on in the house had better knock it off. Then I gathered up my daughter and curled up into a ball with her on the couch surrounding us with the dogs because it made me feel better.

Honey had had enough. He hadn’t been comfortable in the house for a VERY long time and within the month of that incident, we moved into the trailer. After we got settled in again, my mom came to me and asked if anything…strange happened in the house. She proceeded to tell me that for years every evening as she sat reading in the kitchen, she would feel a coldness sweep up around her and raise the hair on her neck. She would feel heaviness settle on her shoulders. Once she woke in the middle of the night with the feeling that she was being smothered. On occasion, she felt “arms” slip around her. After Dad passed on, she made the den her bedroom and mainly stayed on the bottom floor. There were nights that she would wake up and look at the doorway next to the stairs and see a figure standing there, who wasn’t Dad, staring at her. No wonder she was ticked when we were joking at the dinner table that time… I asked her, knowing what she knew, why on earth wouldn’t she have told us when we moved in. She stated that first, she only thought it happened to her and secondly, I didn’t seem bothered by the house, third, she really, really wanted us home.

The house has long since been sold and the owner, who did some major renovations to the house, died a few years ago… in the house…. It’s since been sold again. Every time I pass that house I wonder if what I felt, and saw and experienced was real. Maybe I just let my imagination run away with me. Surely there are logical and reasonable explanations for what happened. Or, are there???

Have a great start to you work week, everyone!!!
Cheers! ~MacKenzie

Do you believe in ghosts???

Okay, I've been around the Stream enough to know that there are many who do, and that's okay. And to those of you who don’t, that’s fine too!

Me, personally??? I honestly don't know. Most of the time, I do, but sometimes questions leap through my mind. The video above depicts supposedly real images of ghosts. Unfortunately, Honey is very good at making a "ghost" appear in his pictures with orbs, ghost fog, and if he does his own developing, even ghostly hands. As fun as they are, pictures don't really make me believe one way or the other.

Honey believes, though. He spent some of his childhood in a home where things disappeared and then reappeared, the phones could be found off the hooks, and steps going up the stairs could be heard with no one there making them, sometimes even voices could be heard when there was no one else at home. One of his mom's friends, whom I've met and heard in her own words claims to have seen a form walking up the steps one evening.

When I was a little kid, I was terrified of anything supernatural. I remember playing at a friend's house and absolutely HATING to go past a certain bedroom. If someone started to tell a ghost story, I was out of the room in an instant. I was scared of the dark and I didn't want to watch anything remotely scary. I just didn't want to deal with any of it. In fact, I remember one night after eavesdropping on my sister and her friends who were telling ghost stories, being so scared to go to sleep because I knew I was going to have a nightmare. I had a LOT of nightmares as a kid.... I started praying and praying sooooo hard for the Divine to give me protection towards all that supernatural stuff--ghosts, the boogey man, monsters, demons and devils, the works.... I fell asleep praying that and when I work up in the morning, nightmare free, alert and refreshed, I felt that the Divine had answered my prayer.

My family had to move when I was in high school due to my father's job. We moved to an old house dating back to the mid to late 1800's. In high school I remember the occasional shiver that ran right up my spine during odd times. Sometimes there was a heaviness in the air. At times, my friends would jump and ask what that noise was. Everyone always hated the staircase. It felt as if the air changed sometimes when you got to the same spot (6 steps from the top), but I always passed it off as a house thing, not a paranormal thing. It happened all seasons, though, that certain heavy coolness that you would walk into usually in the late afternoon hours through the evening.

One evening when Honey was over having dinner with my parents and myself, we were in the kitchen which also held the dining table. You know how the kitchen is the heart of the home, well, it is true in this place because doors and hallways led off from the kitchen to all other parts of the house. Well, we were eating and chatting when suddenly the basement door opened for absolutely no reason. I joked it off by stating that apparently the ghost wanted dinner, too. After a few chuckles about no seating and everything, my mom, who always has been a quiet person, got extremely upset and told us all to knock it off. Honey got up, shut the basement door. He sat down, we all started eating again and then suddenly the door across the room to the back shed opened. Of course, we started joking again as I got up to shut the door and again, my mom got very upset.

Fast forward a few years and Honey and I, now married, moved home. As my mom was now living with my grandmother, we moved into the house. For whatever reason, the feeling of the house had changed. Was it because my father had died in the house??? Was I now more open in dealing with death? Was I more accepting that there was much, much more out there???? I can't say for certain. I do know it wasn’t my Dad. He always told me that he would never ever return. He went to the point of telling me that should that occur, I should turn around and pray very hard as I walked away because he believed firmly in demons. In my life so far, I’ve discovered that’s he’s been right 94% of the time. And if angels exist, it would stand to reason that demons exist also…. What better way for evil to hide than behind a face of goodness. I do see my dad in dreams, have spoken to him through a thick, misty fog, and whether it’s actually him or just a stream of my unconscious mind at work reminding me of something I need to remember, again, who can say with absolute certainty.

Anyway…. Getting back on track….

I do remember the conversation vividly with my mom. She was somewhat reluctant for us to move in there, but it's what we really wanted to do. We needed a place to live and she really needed someone in there to take care of the house. We weren't there for three months when I started joking with Honey that suddenly he could never take care of his stuff. He was always misplacing it, or so I thought. He would swear that he put his... jack knife on the table and then when he went to grab it again, it would be gone. When I would help him search, I'd find it... on the table... He swore that it wasn't there a moment ago and I admit, there were times at first when I didn't see it either.

Sometimes, if I was working on the computer in the den, I would feel as if I were being watched. As time in the house passed, if I was looking at the computer screen, I could see the hazy outline of a person in the door way in my peripheral line of sight. If I went to look right at the door way, it would be gone, but when that feeling came over you, towards the end of our stay there, it happened more often than not. That door way also led out to the stairwell....

I remember the first time I finally brought it up to Honey. “FINALLY!” he said. And then he told me how EVERYONE felt the house had a bad presence in it. Even back in high school, my friends would talk about the house behind my back, but because I never mentioned it, neither did they. His family didn’t like coming over because they always felt uncomfortable there. It was THAT bad??? And here I was thinking that they didn't really like me.... He told me that all along he had seen the shadowy figure of a man glaring at him from the den. Honey just ignored it. Sometimes just walking in the house, Honey said, he could feel a presence behind him.

You mean to tell me that I’ve lived in a haunted house for all that time and only THEN was I starting to figure it out…. I took it all in stride. And I wondered, really wondered about the possibility of ghosts. Because of that conversation, I started to research on my own about the possibility of the existence of ghosts.

pt 2, next post....

Isn't it amazing how you start off at one point in your head and end up in a COMPLETELY other place???



Dead Like Me, an original show aired on Showtime in 2003 & 2004 (and now being re-run on the Sci-Fi channel), explores the lives of your plain old every day--Grim Reaper--. It's dark humor also brings to light some really interesting thoughts on how we live our own life...

Opening Credits and brief show clip:


song -Don't Fear the Reaper:


All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
We can be like they are

Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby I'm your man...

Valentine is done
Here but now they're gone
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity...
Romeo and Juliet

40,000 men and women everyday... Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday... Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday...We can be like they are

Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper

Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby I'm your man...

Love of two is one
Here but now they're gone
Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't go on
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared
Saying don't be afraid

Come on baby... And she had no fear
And she ran to him... Then they started to fly
They looked backward and said goodbye
She had become like they are
She had taken his hand
She had become like they are

Come on baby...don't fear the reaper







Have a great evening! ~MacKenzie

Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

Very popular, one of you is not enough.

mmmm... YUMMY!!! I LOVE Reeses Peanut Butter Cups!!!! Sadly, I can't have them anymore. Once we learned that Parrot was extremely allergic to peanuts, we became a peanut free home.... Let's just say that as much fun as trick or treating is, it's nerve wracking with her!!! Every year we buy candy substitutes for a candy trade for whatever the girls don't want (we encourage all three girls to trade in their peanut candy because you know kids, they share!). But can you imagine having to give up something chocolatey for sweet tarts (not that sweet tarts aren't bad either... lol)??? Somehow, that just doesn't seem quite fair. We did find some chocolate this year that stated the equipment processed almonds instead of peanuts. She's allergic to those, too, but it isn't life threatening. The most she'll probably get is a rash. Even still, that's so sad. I had to buy a bigger shoulder bag so I can carry her epi-pen everywhere we go. I pray that we never, NEVER have to use it....

No worries today!!!!!! I think that I get to visit with my niece (and her wonderful parents) today and I'm so excited because I haven't see her (them ) for at least two weeks!!! I can't believe that she is three months old all ready!!! Yay!!!

Okay everyone, what sort of candy is lurking somewhere inside????

Cheers! ~MacKenzie