It was close to 7:00 when the students arrived at Williams. They gathered downstairs in their situation room that William’s dad had set up for them. On a white board on the wall, William was just finishing writing a list of information they have on their current case. One column had a title “Investigation”, one had “Research” and one had “Other”. Under investigation he had written: Video, EVP, Photos. He then had drawn a line beneath this list and wrote “Personal Experiences”.
Samantha: “What’s EVP stand for again?”
William: “Electronic Voice Phenomena.”
Samantha: “Right, I keep forgetting that for some reason. That’s capturing sounds on a recorder or video that wasn’t heard at the time, right?”
William: “That’s correct.”
Matthew: “How can you forget what it stands for? Every show you watch on the paranormal will mention it at least once in every episode in such a way like it’s brand new or something.”
Sarah: “Isn’t that the truth. It gets annoying after a while.”
William: “Don’t forget that there could be someone who is seeing it for the first time, somewhere.”
William gave each member a piece of paper and pen and asked them to write down anything they could remember from the investigation. As they were trying to write down what they could remember, Sarah looked at Alexis and whispered “What if we’re not sure?”
Hearing this William responded “If you’re not positive about a recollection, then do not include it. You cannot risk tainting the investigation with false information.”
Jacob: “When in doubt through it out.”
William: “Exactly.”
The entire group was writing down what they could remember, except Jessica. William looked up and notices that Jessica was just sitting there with a frustrated look on her face. He continued writing for a bit and looked up again, and still Jessica just sat there looking frustrated.
William: “Is everything alright Jessica?”
Jessica: “I am having trouble concentrating. Every time I start to think back to the investigation, I get visions from my dream popping into my head.”
Matthew: “That’s just weird. You sure you’re really trying?”
William gave Matthew a very annoyed looked.
Matthew, noticing Williams disgust continued, “Sorry, Jessica. I just don’t understand how something that happened a couple days ago can be so hard to remember. Did you review your notes you made?”
Jessica cracks a smile, “Thanks Matt, I never even thought of that.”
As Jessica pulled out her smart phone to review her notes, William looked over at Matthew and gave him a little smile and nodded his approval. Matt acknowledges William and they continued with their writing. Matthew may not fear the unknown, but he really didn’t want to get on Williams bad side, as he was fairly large and muscular for his age, since he worked with his father on construction some weekends and during summer break.
After about another fifteen minutes, William began to talk, “Okay, let’s put our pens down and see what we’ve got so far for our list. Did anyone catch anything at the old mill itself?” Everyone simply relied “No”.
William: “Okay, neither did I. What about at the old house? Let’s start with you Matt, what do you have?”
Matthew: “Not much, I heard footsteps in the hallway going up the stairs, but when we went upstairs, we couldn’t find anyone or anything. I also heard whispering that we caught on tape.
Jacob: “I have the same things. Wish I would have found some real evidence.”
William: “That’s actually great evidence, Jacob. You not only heard things, but you caught it on tape and you have a corresponding witness.”
William wrote this information on the white board. As he was almost done, he said to the group, “whose next?”
Samantha: “I saw that freaky ghost in the sitting room. I also saw a man in the corner sitting at a table arguing by himself, but he never showed up on any of my photos.”
Jessica: “What man at a table? Why didn’t you mention that before?”
Samantha: “I don’t know? I guess since I didn’t get a photo of it I thought I was imagining it and didn’t want to look stupid.”
William: “Well, you do realize that very few people actually successfully photograph an apparition?”
Samantha: “I never thought of that.”
William: “Did anyone else see the man sitting at the table?”
The group just shook their heads saying “No”.
Sarah: “When Alexis, Jessica and I were walking up the stairs, we heard a door slam, but all doors were partially open when we walked the hall.”
Matthew: “Did you look into the rooms at the closets?”
Sarah: “No, we didn’t. Guess we were so freaked out that we forgot there are other doors upstairs.”
William: “Anything else?”
Alexis: “We also heard footsteps going upstairs.”
Jessica: “Looks like everything on my list is covered.”
William: “So let’s see what we have on our li...”
Jessica interrupted, “Samantha, the ghost you saw at the table could be that of Mr. Johnson. Remember I said Sherry-Anne saw her father arguing with an invisible person? Maybe that’s who you saw.”
William: “I usually get annoyed when I am interrupted, but that little revelation makes a lot of sense.”
Jessica: “Sorry William, it just came to me and I blurted it out.”
The team was going over what was written on the board when they came to the conclusion that although they had some consistencies in their personal experiences, they had very little tangible evidence of anything.
Jessica: “If we were to take what we’ve found to anyone, they’d say we were just imagining everything. Even the picture they’d just say it’s a trick of the light.”
Matthew: “She’s right. I don’t even know if Miss Waters is going to believe us.”
Jessica: “I would love to get her opinion on what we saw. Do you think we could move the meeting up to tomorrow?”
Matthew: “It’s only a couple more days, I’m sure we can wait to see what she thinks.
William: “Matthew’s right. A couple days will give us a chance to do a bit more investigating on our own as to what other people have found at haunted house and what their conclusions were to what it was, whether paranormal or something that was being misinterpreted.”
Alexis: “Sounds like a great idea, so let’s get started.
The team all broke into groups and started surfing the internet for sites that could shed some light on what they experienced. As usual, they kept finding sites that were full of garbage information or faked stuff that people were trying to pass off as real. Some sites that were coming up had nothing to do with the paranormal at all. After a little while of searching, Alexis happened upon a site with tangible information to do with the paranormal. She shared the site name with the others and they all went to it. It was agreed that it was the most relevant website anyone had found. It had different categories of paranormal activity that would open a new page with an even greater break down of what you were searching for. There was even a page for people to submit their own photos and stories to.
After each group logged on to the same web site, they started looking over the different subsections. Matthew and Alexis were searching through the different photos that other people had submitted under the heading “Ghost Photos”. Sarah, Samantha and Jacob were looking through the different photos that other people had submitted under the heading “Orbs”. William and Jessica were each searching through the written descriptions of different hauntings and of photo anomalies to try to determine if there was a known reason for the image the caught of the “traveller”.
Although the web site was very informative it did little to answer any of their questions from their investigation. And most of the photos of orbs were what looked like dust, and the ghost photos looked like reflections, or even just a streak of light. The team decided the best thing they could do is wait until they talked to Miss Waters about what they experienced.
William realized that he had not let the group hear some of the cleaned up audio he had from the night before. He opened up the folder he had saved the new sound files to. He asked the group to listen to what he was able to pull from the audio recordings. The first recording was of footsteps. When he clicked on “play”, everyone agreed it was definitely the sound of footsteps on the stairs. You not only heard the footstep, but also the steps creak as if someone was walking up to the second floor. You knew this wasn’t any of the group members because Jessica is clearly heard telling the girls to stop, just before the footsteps are heard on the tape. Next he played another sound clip of footsteps. This clip was from Matthew and Jacobs’s experience of what they heard upstairs. You could clearly hear the footsteps and floor boards creaking, then Matthew is heard saying, “Come on Jacob. We need to catch whoever is playing tricks on us.” William reminded the group that they found nothing at all on the second floor when they went to investigate.
William: “I’ve saved the best for last.”
Sarah: “What is it?”
William: “Just listen. It’s from the audio tape in the sitting room.”
He clicks on the play button, and clear as day is heard the phrase “Gold’s mine, don’t take it”. William loops the clip to replay over and over, as some of the group still were not sure what it was saying. As the message was replaying itself, everyone was in agreement as to what it said.
William looked at Jessica: “It’s a weird coincidence, so maybe there is a bit of truth to that dream you had?”
Due to a large amount of homework both William and Jessica had to do that night, the team decided to call it quits a little earlier than usual. Everyone left Williams together. After he walked them to the door, he went back to his recreation room and he shut down the systems. He plugged his mp3 player into his stereo. He clicked play and started doing his home work as “Can't Stop It” from Toque started playing in his ears.
While walking home, Matthew asked Jessica if she had any other strange dreams or sensations of being watched. Jessica looked at him; a little puzzled by him showing interest, and responded “Actually no I haven’t. It’s weird that the one day I just couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched, but today nothing. And as far as the dreams, I don’t even remember what I dreamt about last night.”
Matthew smiled at her, saying “Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t think I’d want to see other people’s memories like they were my own.”Jessica smiled back, “I guess you’re right. I have enough of my own crazy memories to keep track of, without trying to remember a memory that isn’t a memory.”
The next day at school was like a typical day for the group. No fantastic stories to share, no wild dreams, no new evidence of their investigation, just a typical go to class, do your work and go home kind of school day. That is except for Miss Waters’s class.
When the students arrived in the morning to class, Brenda was about to begin the lesson for the morning when one student shouted, “I thought you were going to liven up the class today?”
Brenda put down the marker and turned to the class, “You’re right, I almost forgot about that.” As Brenda was looking around the room, she realized that some desks were squished together, She asked the class to move their desks apart so they were not touching anyone else’s and to make sure they had room to stretch out.
Brenda: “OK, I want everyone to close your eyes, and raise your left arm. In your mind’s eye I want you to picture a movie or projector screen.”
Student: “In my minds what?”
Brenda: “Sorry, in the centre of your forehead, with your eyes closed, I want you to picture a movie or projector screen. Once you see it, I want you to put your arm down in a comfortable position.”
As Brenda looked around the room, she noticed most of the girls arms were down almost instantly as well as a few of the boys. As she watched for another twenty seconds, all students’ arms were down.
Brenda: “On the screen in your mind, I want you to picture the color RED. It could be a flash of light, a ball, a car or anything that is red. Don’t just see an object, see the color of it. You must see the color red appear for at least a second.”
As she was looking around the room, she could tell by the expressions on the students faces which ones had already seen the color red, and which ones were struggling. She waited until she was pretty sure most of the class had achieved this task.
Brenda: “Now I want you to see the color ORANGE. Actual see the color on the screen. You can use any object, you just need to make sure you actually see the color orange inside your mind.”
She assumed most students were catching on pretty well so she decided to continue with each instruction every couple minutes so as to help the students get through the entire session and allow time to get through the days lessons as well. She was a big fan of making learning fun, but more concerned with the learning portion.
Brenda:”See the color YELLOW.” (She pauses for a couple minutes.) ”Now that you’ve seen the color yellow, I want you to see the color GREEN.” (She takes another pause.) “Now after you’ve seen the color green, I want you to see the color BLUE.” (Pause) “Now I want you to picture the last color, VIOLET.”
She waits a couple minutes so most kids can accomplish all the colors she’s asked them to visualize. Brenda:”Now that you’ve visualized all the colors of a rainbow, I want you to picture a light in the center of the screen. Now I want you to imagine you are walking towards the light and it is starting to get a little larger. Keep walking towards it until you are right in front of it. Look down at the floor below the light, and you will see a glowing pathway that leads to a forest. Follow the pathway, one step at a time. Look down and see your feet as you are walking along the path. Look up and see the path split into two as it goes around a large tree then joins back up on the other side. Take either pathway around the tree. See a squirrel or rabbit run across the path. Eventually the path leads to a field. Stay on the path as you walk through a field of wild flowers. Feel the breeze from the wind on your face. Smell the fragrance of the wild flowers. The path stops at the base of a hill. When you get to where the path seems to go under the rocks, look up and you will see a door. Look closely at the door so you can remember it later. Now reach in your pocket and pull out a key. This key will open the door. You are the only person able to unlock this door. It is the door to your own paradise. Open the door and walk inside. Look around at what you see, and if you don’t like something, change it. Remember, this is your personal paradise and you can make it be whatever you want it to be. Now I am going to be quiet and let you just hang out in your own special place.”
Brenda just looked around the room for the next ten minutes at the different expressions on the students faces. She decided it was time to get some actual work done so she decided to bring the students out of their special place.
Brenda: “Okay class, it’s time to leave your special place. You can return any time you want just by going through the visualization on your own. Walk out the door and watch it close behind you, it will lock automatically so nobody else can ever enter. Now walk back up the path, across the field, and back through the forest. Go past the large tree and stay on the path until you are back at the start, right below the light. As you approach the light, its color changes to violet, and now I want you to watch it change to other colors. I want you to see it change to blue, then watch it change to green, now it changes to yellow, and then it changes to orange, and then finally it change to red. Once the light turns red I want you to open our eyes.”
As the students all started opening their eyes, some were stretching while others yawned. All felt like they were suddenly full of energy. Brenda handed out papers to each student and instructed them to give a detailed description of the door to their secret place, and a brief description of what was behind the door. As the students were beginning to write, one asked, “What was that?” Brenda responded, “It’s a form of hypnosis that allows your mind and body to recharge. You can do it on your own anytime you’re feeling drained. It also gives you a place you can go to and live in a bit of a fantasy world. Just remember that if you are doing it while lying down there’s a good chance you’ll fall asleep because it is a relaxation exercise.”
After allowing the students ten minutes to write out their report, Brenda collected them all then went to the front of the class and began to write on the board saying, “Now back down to business. We will continue were we left off yesterday with our lesson.”