The Thing Scaring My Sister

I am the oldest of 3 children, we grew up on a farm in North West, South Africa.

It's a lovely farm, lots of things to do, trees to climb, places to hide and wide open fields to run in.

Back then, when my dad bought the farm, I was 6, my sister was 4, and baby brother was about a year old.

The house was another thing. When we moved in, it was already about 100 years old. Built before the Anglo Boer War. To give more background, the original house had a kitchen, sitting room, dining room, 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. The rest of the house as I know it was built later on. The windows were made of wooden frames that slide up, (nothing like we get in SA today) sand bricks and had slate floors, and the most beautiful Oregon pine ceilings.

I remember walking down the hall and it being so cold, that I would run down the hall to get away from the cold. The odd feeling that something is watching us. I used to lie on my bed, looking at the roof, hearing a white noise and seeing the paint moving, consistent with the noise.

We were always scared. But parents being parents, they always told us that there is nothing to be scared of. Apart of being scared, and our family pets and some relatives not going into the "older" part of the house, nothing major happened. That is until my grandmother passed of cancer.

My sister and I shared a room, my bed was on the far side of the room, and her bed was right below the wooden window frame. Every single night since my Gran passed; my sister would wet her bed, and complain about a tummy ache. (She was about 6 or 7 then). The parents thought she had a bad time accepting my Gran's death, and she had to see a psychologist once a week. It didn't help.

At this time my Mom started getting pains in her hands, making nothing of it. (The parents' bed also set up below the window frame, as it makes a pretty headboard.)

Still wetting the bed, and now walking in her sleep, boiling the kettle and making everyone a hot cup of coffee at 1AM, my sister was not getting better. I don't know exactly how it came about, but my sister was sent to family friends, she spent the weekend with them and never ever wet the bed. Apparently that was the test, as their house was "cleansed" just a week or so back. (We as kids were never told, we only learned this couple of years ago, all grown up) We kids were sent away for another weekend, spending it with our other grandparents in town.

That's when my Mom and Dad went into a nearby town, and collect an old man - a clairvoyant homeopath - he actually helped my Gran before she died with her homeopathic meds. They brought the old man into our house; it apparently needed to be after dark. He said that there was a spell/thing placed on the house, the thing entering through the window above my sister's bed, doing his rounds in the house, and when he leaves he exits through the window above my mom's bed. The thing woke my sister every night, scaring her so bad she wets herself, the thing also caused my mother the pain in her hands when he left through her window. The old homeopath went out the backdoor, dug a hole and took some dirt out of the hole, placed it in a plastic bag (wish I knew what he did with it), and said that he was done. He told my parents that the thing was not "placed" on us as a family, but on the previous owner of the farm. My dad told the old man that the previous owner committed suicide shortly after he sold the farm, the old man said yes he knows, that's why the thing came "home", the thing did its job...

Well, after the dirt was taken away, my Mom's pain in her hands eased up and eventually cleared. The biggest turn was in my sister. She never wet the bed again, sleepwalked or complained about a tummy ache. She doesn't remember anything about it though. She can't tell what it looked like, or what happened when it woke her.

Today about 24 years later the old house has been demolished and a new home has been built. We still visit there weekends and my daughter is playing in the same trees and fields as we did.

Thanks for reading.