- THE LOVE OF A LONG-DEAD GIRL -

- THE LOVE OF A LONG-DEAD GIRL - Lover from Another Time

The following true tale is one of the strangest paranormal accounts on record. The boy in the story is now a successful businessman, so I can't give his full name, even though his surname was once recklessly published by a sensational tabloid magazine which mis-reported the incident in the 1990s. The weird episode related here occurred at Allentown, Pennsylvania in the autumn of 1995. Ryan was classed as a loner. The 16-year-old Pennsylvanian had a few friends you could count on one hand at his high school, but outside the school gates, he was a lonely fellow. His parents and two older sisters were always urging him to unplug his PC and to get out and play sports like any other teenager. But Ryan wasn't into sports much. He liked tossing a basketball into his slamdunk in the yard now and then, but the kid was more of a thinker. He read a lot, especially books by Ray Bradbury. He had another avid interest, and that was a girl who lived down the street named Bethany; a shapely girl with long straight strawberry blonde hair, a peaches and cream complexion, and a pair of smouldering brown eyes that set many of the hearts of the male neighborhood alight. Bethany was loved by everyone it seemed, from garbage men to the local doctor. Ryan had never made it clear that he was interested in Bethany, and whenever she would walk to school, he was either a street behind or a street ahead. He couldn't even bring himself to talk to the girl. One Valentine's Day he decided to do something to rectify the sorry state of affairs and sent her an expensive heavily-embroidered Valentine card, and, against tradition, he signed his name on it. His full name. On the morning of February 14, 1995, Ryan was dreamily drifting along the streets to school, when a beautiful-sounding voice behind him said: "Are you Ryan?" He turned. It was Bethany, and she stood with a giant of a boy named Todd. In Bethany's hand she held Ryan's unmistakable old-fashioned-looking Valentine. And she was grinning. "Yep." Ryan said. He didn't like the way Todd was sneering at him, glancing him up and down, no doubt laughing at his clothes, which weren't that hip. "Well, here's your card back. Todd's my valentine." and Bethany handed the card to Ryan, whose heart felt as if it had just been injected with numbing cocaine. " 'kay." Ryan took hold of the card, and he folded it and threw it into a litter bin nearby, as the smiling couple walked on. Now all had been revealed to Ryan. Bethany was just a cruel, cold girl who had delighted in mocking his affection for her in front of him. Ryan felt no animosity towards Bethany and Todd, or any feelings of revenge. He was just thankful in a way that he had found her out. He knew in his broken heart that there was some girl out there who was right for him. He just had to cross her path, that's all. Well, nothing much romantic happened in Allentown for most of that year. Then, in October, Ryan and his family moved to another part of the town. The new residence was a very old house which dated back to 1900. From the moment Ryan stepped inside the hall of this house, he felt there was something which he could only describe as 'magical' about it. As the weeks went by, Ryan and his family learned from neighbors that the dwelling was allegedly haunted - by a ghostly girl. No one knew the identity of the alleged ghost, or anything about the history of the house, except for an old woman named Eleanor, who was currently in hospital after falling at her home. Ryan's father reassured his three children that all the talk about ghosts was ridiculous. He said he had once worked near a graveyard at a factory on nightshifts and had never once seen anything remotely supernatural. But one evening one of Ryan's sisters said she could smell a sweet scent in her room, and had felt something brush past her which felt like a soft silky veil. Her father said it had been her imagination. Then Ryan's mother was cooking supper late one evening, waiting for her husband to return from work, when she heard the sounds of a piano playing. It was a well-known piano piece she hadn't heard for years called Fur Elise by Beethoven. But Ryan's Mom was so scared to investigate, she woke up her children and asked them if they could hear the music. They could, and they were a bit spooked too. But Ryan loved a challenge, and he took his flashlight and decided to investigate the source of the phantom music. He realised it was coming from upstairs, and so he ascended the staircase, then hesitated outside the attic door. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open. He aimed the beam of the flashlight into the room and swept it about. There was just junk up there, and a large covered object. The music had suddenly stopped. The lightbulb was missing, but Ryan walked into the room anyway. He could hear the faint voices of his Mom and sisters calling him back. Ryan continued his investigation. He lifted the large canvas dust sheet off the object, and saw it was an old upright piano. A badly tuned one with several dead keys. That couldn't have been the source of the sweet music he had heard. Ryan suddenly got the intense feeling he was being watched. It gave him goosebumps, so he backed out of the room, whistling to himself, and closed the door. He went down and told his Mom and sisters what he had found. Suddenly the front door flew open and they all screamed. It was just Ryan's father, home from work. "What's up? Why are you all standing in the hall?" He laughed, and took off his coat. His wife told him about the phantom piano player and of the discovery in the attic, but Ryan's Dad just shook his head, then with an uneasy expression, he said:"That's been mice in that old piano. I'm starving." But that night, the first of the many visitations took place. Ryan was lying in the ink-black darkness of his bedroom, trying to get asleep, with the blankets almost over his head (to keep out the ghosts) when he noticed the smell of lavender. He just knew something was in his room. Then he heard a whisper."Ryan..." Ryan's heart skipped a beat. "Go away." he said, his voice muffled as he buried his head in the blankets. The voice was not that of his sisters playing a prank, He didn't know this voice. "Don't be scared of me, please. My name is Alice." said the voice in the darkness. "Mom!" Ryan shouted. He closed his eyes tightly and threw himself out the bed. He clicked on the light and saw the room empty. But the smell was still lingering. Moments later, a voice outside said: "Ryan?" It was his sister. Ryan opened the door and told her about the eerie voice calling itself Alice, and the smell. "You okay?" his sister was sympathetic to him. She knew there was something supernatural at large in the house. "I dunno. Yeah, go back to bed." Ryan said, and his sister just nodded, then walked off. She yelled as she bumped into Ryan's other sister, who had come to see what the commotion was about. As Ryan was closing his door, he saw his sister telling her older sister: "The ghost was in Ryan's room." So Ryan slept with the light on. At 4 a.m. he woke up for some reason, then remembered the disembodied girlish voice. Then he felt something warm. He felt a hand holding his. A soft small hand clasping his outstretched hand which was dangling out the bed. Ryan pulled his hand back and held it to his chest. He felt a hot flush in his face as his heart pounded. "Who's there?" No reply came. Sleep gradually overtook him as the reassuring pale blue light of dawn crept through the curtains. He had the strangest dream. He met a beautiful, very old-fashioned girl named Alice. She was beautiful, and had an impish, mischievous face, and long plaided chestnut colored hair. The dream seemed to go on for hours and hours, and in the midst of this misty drama of Ryan's unconscious, there were glimpses of a strange house that stood where Ryan's house was. Stranger still, Ryan was besotted with Alice, and she loved him. He watched her playing the upright piano he had found in the attic. Then after playing, she said, "My picture is in this piano. When you wake up, go upstairs and you'll find it." "When I wake up?" Ryan said, dumbfounded, "But I'm not asleep." "Oh but you are." Alice told him, and as she kissed him, he awoke. His heart sank. The dream had been so real. Later that day, at noon, Ryan remembered the dream girl's intriguing claim about her picture being in the piano. He went up into the attic, and with sunlight from the noonday sun blazing through the skylight window, he didn't feel in the least scared. He opened the top flap of the old piano and shone his flashlight into the inner workings of the instrument. There was something down there in the thick dust, next to the piano wires. Ryan reached down and strained his shoulder. He finally retrieved the object. It was an old framed photograph. His heart jumped. The girl in that photograph was - Alice. Ryan showed the photograph to his Mom and Dad and to his sisters, and told them about the dreams. Ryan's sceptical father said: "It's all coincidence. If you believe in your dreams you might as well spend your life asleep." Old Eleanor, the neighbor who could throw some light on the history of the house, came out of hospital later that week, and was looked after by her niece. Ryan's mother took a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates round to the recuperating neighbor - and she also brought the photograph out the piano around too. Eleanor, who was such a sweet old lady, told Ryan's Mom: "That picture will be of Alice Hadley. My mother told me all about her. Alice died of fever in the 1880s. Her mother was very puritanical. Kept the girl from seeing boys and having friends. She used to play the piano. They took the piano out the house before it was demolished, then when they built the house you're in on the same spot, Alice's piano ended back there by a fluke. A man named Raymond Jones lived in your house around 1900, and he bought the piano from a store. My mother said it was the very piano Alice used to play. Mr Jones was just a magpie, and he never played that piano, he just had it put away in the attic." Ryan's mom asked Eleanor if she had heard about the ghost that haunted the house and the smells. Eleanor replied, "Yes, and I swear before Almighty God, I saw Alice looking out the window one day in your home. I hope I'm not scaring you?" "No, you're not. I am more intrigued." Ryan's mother replied with a smile. Ryan underwent a peculiar change. He spent most of his days up in attic, and sometimes his parents would hear beautiful music, even though they both knew their son couldn't play a note. Ryan would chat at the dinner table of how beautiful and talented Alice was. He said one day when he died he'd marry her in heaven. Ryan's father was becoming very concerned about his son's behaviour, and he contacted a local Catholic priest one morning on his way to work. The priest visited the family with a medium, which infuriated Ryan. "Mind your own business!" Ryan bawled at the priest. "Alice isn't some evil spirit! She's my girl!" The priest said it was possible the boy was becoming "obsessed and possessed with Alice" and recommended a 'cleansing' of the house. Ryan's father consented to this enthusiastically. One day, when Ryan returned from school, he found a strange silence in the house. His sisters never said a word as he came in, and his mother had a strange sad look in her eyes. Ryan went up into the attic, but came down about fifteen minutes later. He told his Mom: "She's gone." His mother hugged him as his sister's looked on with morose expressions. "Alice has gone. I don't understand." Ryan pushed his mother away. "The church sent these people..." his Mom started to say but trailed off and shook her head. "What people?" Ryan recoiled. "They cleansed the house." His Mom said. One of sister's added: "Two psychics carried out a sort of exorcism and made Alice go into the light." "And who let them in? You Mom?" Ryan asked with a disgusted look. Tears flowed down his cheeks, His Mother nodded, "Your Father's idea. He was worried about you." Ryan sobbed. "I loved her...I was in love with her. She was all I had and you did this." He ran up to the attic and told his sisters who followed to leave him alone. The ghost of Alice Hadley never did return. Ryan initially threatened he'd commit suicide so he could be with his lost love, but gradually got over the loss, and is now married to one of the living. He has named one of his children Alice, and strangely enough, that little girl wants to learn how to play the piano.