From an early age my childhood friend Elena and I were fascinated with the occult. Everything from witches & vampires, to cults interested us. Often my mother would take us to the public library where we would check out books on all of these subjects as well as ghost stories. I suppose my mother was just happy that we were taking an interest in some form of literature, as mine is a family of bookworms.
Elena's parents are Catholic and were very strict, so all of our extra-curricular reading was done at my house. I don't mean to portray us as Goth because we were not and are not. We didn't wear all black, listen to death metal, or write poetry about our miserable earthly existence, and we certainly didn't worship the devil! We laughed and enjoyed skipping and hide & go seek just like other little girls. We just happened to also enjoyed being spooked out.
I don't remember who learned of it first, but eventually we were introduced to the Ouija board. I bought one and we began playing with it all the time! We played at different friends' houses, my house, and her house until her mom forbade me from bringing it back. My parents took the Ouija board as a joke, or a game, not to be frightened of. So my house it was! And here my ghost story begins, or at least I believe it to be a ghost story. I'll let you, the reader, judge for yourself.
One day, in one of the summer months of 1995, when I was 11 and in grade 5, Elena and I were in my room playing the Ouija board. After yet another unsuccessful attempt at summoning spirits to communicate with us, we decided to give it a rest for the day. To set the mood I had lit a candle. It was a decorative Christmas candle in a tin. Being the safe fifth grader that I was, I had filled a plastic cup with water and placed it near by. Now for whatever reason instead if blowing out the candle
I decided to pour a little bit of water on it to extinguish the flame. As soon as the water touched the candle the flame shot up to at least 3 feet! The flame was also now as thick as the tin! I remember it sounded like a blow torch. I then remember both Elena and I jumping up and me telling her “Don't scream!”, because my parents were downstairs and I didn't want them to hear. I then proceed to scream myself (give me a break, I was 11) and dump the entire cup of water on the candle. It then went out.
Now this may not sound like anything particularly frightening to you, but if u actually envision a candle flame jumping to 3 feet high and sounding, and looking, like a blow torch, then I'm sure I don't have to explain why we are so convinced that it was a ghostly encounter. I am open to different interpretations as to what may have been the cause, but I have yet to think of a scientific explanation.
One might also find it interesting to know that shortly after this incident my Ouija board went missing, only to turn up when I was 19 (8 years later) out in the open and in plain view.
