Happy Samhain, everyone! I hope you’ll be celebrating every witch’s favourite holiday – here are my suggested ways to feel close to your ancestors today.
I’ve been a believer in the paranormal since I barely had the words for it.
When I was around six or seven, I started to see “Molly”.
I grew up in a 1930s mid-terrace close to Liverpool that had its own special set of creaks and burbles, which you kind of got used to over time, but were never 100% comfortable with.
Little Jennifer was a terrible sleeper and I had convinced myself that I actually never slept at all. My poor mum had to take a picture of me asleep (on our old late-80s film camera) to prove to me that I did catch zzzs occasionally.
One night while lying awake into the early hours, I saw movement in the hall outside my bedroom door. With the covers pulled up mostly over my head, I squinted out and saw the hazy outline of a little girl – maybe three or four years old. Not a corporeal form, but the white and wispy outline of her. There was nothing nefarious about her presence – she was just watching me, looking out for me with her hand on the doorframe. I watched her for some time before drifting off. In my dreams that night, a dark-haired, ringleted little girl in old-fashioned clothing told me her name was Molly and that she’d like to hold my hand.
I saw her several times over the years.
It was only 28 years later that my sister told me she used to see her there too.
Molly isn’t the only ghost I’ve had contact with over the years, and their visits from the other side have never stopped in frequency.
As we have now arrived at the festival of Samhain – Halloween – when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its thinnest, I’d love to hear your own ghost stories. Drop them in the comments below.
Here are the ones from my own past that I’ll never forget – from the scary to the sentimental.
Originally published on Substack
