Philip was sitting in the living room – by now they had got a sofa and various other pieces of furniture – when he saw Sheila come down the stairs and turn into the kitchen. She was wearing a long white shift and her light brown hair was loose.
For a moment, he was convinced that she hadn’t actually opened the door.
“Shee, you couldn’t get me a drink while you’re in there, could you?” he called out.
No reply. He got up to investigate.
There was no one in the kitchen. Sheila called out from her bedroom.
“Did you want me?”
She came down the stairs wearing a brightly-coloured shirt and jeans. There was no one else around.
Sheila also had an experience. The sound of a beautiful choir suddenly filled the air. Had one of their neighbours all of a sudden developed a liking for choral music?
One evening, while walking through Paceville, Philip’s attention was caught by a rather strange-looking man, who was sitting on a doorstep, strumming a guitar.
He was dressed in layer upon layer of fringed garments, with long, fluffy hair, just sitting there on the ground. Philip was intrigued by his playing. They started talking and he eventually invited Scott back to the farmhouse for a barbecue that weekend.
He believed that a ghost is a sort of photograph, which also fades with time
When he arrived, about 20 of them were already in the courtyard, sitting around on cushions and mattresses. Before Philip even had a chance to introduce his new friend, Scott stopped dead in his tracks.
With eyes shut, he spread his arms out wide and started humming. His arms started moving in open circles. His friends watched in amazement, wondering who Philip had brought along.
Opening his eyes, Scott looked at Philip.
“Do you know that you have got a poltergeist?” he asked.
It turned out that he was in Malta to do research for a book on phenomena and that he was the head of parapsychology at a university in South Africa, one of the best known in his field.
He was shown around the house, reacting sharply to this area or that, pausing by a wall but always coming back to the courtyard. He was convinced that a young woman, aged in her 20s, had plunged to her death there, perhaps centuries earlier. The image he sensed was of a girl made pregnant by her master, who either threw herself − or was pushed − off the roof.
He quizzed Philip about the woman he had seen, the only time that any presence had actually been visible. He believed that a ghost is a sort of photograph, which also fades with time, and by describing the colour of the woman’s shift decided that it had been about 250 years since she had died.
He explained the current thought that he was outlining in his book: that when death occurs naturally the life-energy has time to dissipate gradually. But when the death is traumatic, the change was too rapid and the energy lingered far longer.
He also believed that the “ghostly” energy was trapped in the house, and that the reason the sightings were becoming less frequent was because Philip and his friends had changed so much in the house: doors, windows, corridors. The energy was literally getting lost.
The friends stayed on in the house for almost 12 years.
Philip and Sheila got married and had kids. There were more parties, more evenings playing guitar. But there were no more sightings and no more inexplicable phenomena.
When they look back on those months, Philip and Sheila do so with curiosity rather than fear. But they still wonder whether there was any rational explanation.
Concluded. The first part was published on September 13.
This is the 25th in a series of short stories The Sunday Times of Malta is running every Sunday. It is taken from The Unexplained Plus (Allied Publications) by Vanessa Macdonald. The first edition was published in 2001 and reprinted twice. It was republished, with added stories, as The Unexplained Plus. The Maltese version of the book, Ta’ Barra Minn Hawn (Klabb Kotba Maltin), is available from all leading bookstores and stationers and from www.bdlbooks.com.