Some people have powers, although they may be loath to admit it to others. From an early age, it is clear that they are more sensitive to spirits and that they can perceive things – even things from the past – that the rest of us cannot.

Betty was definitely psychic. At the tender age of 16, she went on a school trip to a stately home. As soon as she walked in, she knew her way around, even though she assured her teachers that she had never been there before.

They all assumed that she may have seen the home on tele­vision or read about it, but she walked around, calmly telling them that furniture had been moved from its original place, pointing out to them where a secret passage was and how to get into it… Was this a vestige of a former life?

She once described to her mother a vision she had had of a garden, describing what her mother had been wearing, what her friend had been wearing; and the fact that her mother had been crying.

Betty’s mother had gone white: She remembered the episode clearly. She had been telling her friend about her unplanned pregnancy. At the time, Betty was the foetus in her womb. How could she possibly have “seen” it happen?

There were many other examples of Betty seeing things from the past or of knowing things about people and places encountered for the first time. There were also uncanny things that she saw or caused to happen. For example, she had been given a ring by her husband but lost it in the sea off Barbados while playing cards on floating tables. She and her friends scoured the sand but really held out little hope of finding it. They eventually gave up.

Around five hours later, she got a sudden urge to walk along the beach and as she strolled along, a wave rolled up, slightly larger than the rest. As the surf broke with a shushing sound at her bare feet, the ring rolled out of the water, tottered around on its edge in a circle and fell flat – just by her toes.

She and her husband were keen sailors, and in 1957 were heading across the Atlantic. She dreamed that two gaff schooners would appear off the port bow and that they would be called Gladern and Falcon. Sure enough, two boats did appear but they were much too far off to see their names. Two days later, she and her husband berthed in Antigua and found the two schooners there, easily recognisable because of their rig. It only took a quick chat to ascertain that they were the boats seen two days before. How could she have known?

Her powers came in useful – and might have saved lives.

Their boat was at Manoel Island, getting ready to set off to Greece to pick up a charter.

“We were already very late and my father was very anxious to get going,” her son John recalled.

“But she dreamed that there would be a gale soon after we set off to sea and that seven strands would come apart in the wire splice of the bobstay (a wire that supports the bowsprit). She wanted my father to check it but the splice was behind a metal plate and would have taken ages to check,” John said.

His mother would not take no for an answer. She warned that the splice would give way, taking part of the mast with it. His father knew better than to argue, and they loosened the rigging, took off the metal plate and found seven strands just about to break.

The repairs were made and they set off two weeks late, straight into a gale. John still remembers his father’s face when he saw the strands.

“You don’t even want to think what could have happened…”

Her powers came in useful – and might have saved lives

Betty also had to cope with unwanted contact. One “spirit”, if you could call it that, made its presence felt through a small, brass bowl. She was on her way to buy vegetables from the greengrocer that stopped in her street and noticed the bowl in a junk shop. There was nothing really special about it; you would see similar ones everywhere, their outer edges etched with designs and patterns. And yet, Betty knew that she wanted this one.

Even though it was not particu­larly expensive, she haggled over it – that was, after all, expected – and eventually took it home to the boat, where it took pride of place in the centre of the saloon table.

The bowl eventually started to get filled with the bits and pieces that have no home, the odd coins, sewing needles and thread, a rubber… No one really ever gave it any thought.

Until one day, a friend shuddered as she looked at it and said that the bowl was Indonesian. Apparently, they used to beat the bad spirits into the bowl and then bury it…

Betty picked up the bowl and peered at it. The figures engraved into it showed a man being gored to death by animals.

Soon after, they got back home to find that the bowl had thrown out all its contents, in the process knocking over a glass that had been on the table.

Strange things started to happen. One day, while an anchor in Corfu, the plastic butter dish disappeared from the boat’s galley and Betty could visualise exactly where it was. She went up above and could see it bobbing in the sea, about 100 metres away.

Things were often found out of place: the ashtray in which they burned the mosquito coils, a roll of kitchen towel.

The incidents became more bizarre. They woke one morning to find that the boat had been turned end to end at anchor, the kedge laid off the stern of the boat now near the beach… The dinghy ropes had also been turned around to the other end.

Betty was convinced that all these incidents were being caused by the bowl and she put it away in a cupboard. Her instinct was right. The incidents stopped.

Eventually she gave the bowl to her daughter-in-law Caroline, who hung it up on a nail. But it had a few more tricks left… She brought it down to tell her friends about it and it refused to hang up again. Over and over she tried but it would just slip off the nail. In the end she gave up and went to bed. When she woke up, curious, she tried one more time and it stayed on the nail at the first go.

Betty died not long ago but Caroline had one more story to tell about her. One night, some years ago, she and John took their boat crew out to the casino, and as they were on their way out, Betty suggested that she play the number 26. John was down to his last coin and decided there was nothing to lose – but 26 did not come up. But when Caroline put her last 50c down, it did.

She moved to another table, played the same number and again won. She was surprised and sheepish in equal measures. She did not dare play ‘26’ again, afraid that she would get herself – or the croupier – into trouble if they defied the odds yet again. The croupier suggested that she bet on four numbers – including 26 – and sure enough, it came up again. This time, she thought it best to quit while she was ahead but the croupier, the father of a friend, later told her that every time she passed near his table, 26 would come up again, six times in all.

“Imagine if I had carried on playing the same number over and over. I might have been rich, but then again, no one would ever have believed that it was not fixed!” she said, putting the bowl back into its place on the mantelpiece with a little fond pat.

This is the 41st 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.