I am honoured to be part of the WOW! Women of Writing Blog Tour for Amy S. Cutler’s paranormal romance A Shadow of Love.
Today Amy is visiting my blog to share her wonderful guest post on the story behind the haunted house in her novel.
Welcome Amy!
The haunted house in A Shadow Love – a fictional story in a very real place
by Amy S Cutler
There is nothing quite like realizing that the house you are in is haunted. This realization came slowly for me, over years, since most of what I experienced came after using the Ouija, or watching a scary movie, or reading a scary book. It wasn’t until I was an adult did I realize it wasn’t just my overactive imagination.
My parents have an old farmhouse in upstate New York. It was mostly a weekend or summer house. Every weekend during the spring months when school was in session, my parents would pick my sister and I up at school and that is where we would spend the weekend, and then most of our summer. Even though I was always scared at night, sleeping with the light on, frozen many nights until the sun would rise and I could relax and get to sleep, I loved it there. Lots of woods to play in, adventures to be had on the quad.
There were a few little indicators that the house was haunted when I was young, like an indentation on the pillow in the bed next to me, a perfectly shaped head impression, like someone who wasn’t there was sleeping in my room. Footsteps coming up the stairs in the middle of the night. A woman softly calling out, “Amy …” to wake me from sleeping. Windows would fly open, the radio turned itself on, a rocking chair in the kitchen rocked on its own. I knew that ghosts existed, since I had seen the ghost of my dead dog many times in those days (that is a long story all on its own), but I could still chalk up most of what I heard and saw as my imagination. I liked scary stories, even as a child, so it wasn’t impossible to believe that I had invented all the scary stuff in my mind. Old houses creak, floors can be uneven, pillows can … well, pillows can’t smush themselves down.
It wasn’t until I was an adult, asleep in my room which was now the guest room, when I heard kittens crying downstairs. This was not alarming, because there were in fact the cutest kittens in the world right downstairs in the hallway next to my parents’ bedroom. After a while they got to be annoying, and so I was happy when I heard a woman – presumably my mom – shushing them back to sleep, saying, “shh, it’s okay, shh, time to sleep now.” Cooing to them until they drifted off.
The next morning, I said to her, “I was so happy when you got up with the kittens in the middle of the night.”
To this, I got a blank stare. She hadn’t gotten up, never even heard them.
It was that moment when I realized that all the subtle hints, the sounds and voices and creeks and bumps in the night were not my imagination at all. I had always known it, I suppose, but this was pretty concrete. Someone put those kittens to sleep, and it wasn’t my mother.
I talk to my parents about their house being haunted and they just shrug their shoulders, “they don’t bother us,” my dad will say.
I still love to visit my parents house, but I rarely sleep there. If I do, I leave a light on, look under the bed, and watch a movie on my laptop to cover any noises. When I set out to write a ghost story, I could think of no other more appropriate setting.
Of course, my own memories mix with the memories of my characters, so when I am there now, I am extra spooked. But my dad is right, they don’t bother anyone, not really, so I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thank you Amy. I hope everyone enjoyed your post as much as I did.
Be sure to check out here for details of the whole blog tour at WOW.
Beverley A Baird 