House of Spirits and Whispers:

House of Spirits and Whispers: The True Story of a Haunted House by Annie Wilder             Paperback Book: 192 pages                

Annie Wilder grew up in a family, many of which had psychic abilities, both on her mother’s side and on her father’s side of the family.    Her mother’s ancestors came from Ireland and were believers in the stories of fairy folk and often left little presents for the fairies as she was growing up.   Belief in haints (ghosts, ghostly spectres) was normal for them so Annie grew up knowing about ghosts, hearing lots of stories passed down through the generations along the supernatural line.    In 1994, Annie and her two teenage children moved into a century old Victorian style home.   It had always been her dream to live in such a wonderful old home but she never thought she could afford it until wham!  The house of her dreams was brought to her attention and while she knew it had to be out of her price range – it wasn’t.    Turns out it was a fixer upper, but it was glorious in Annie’s eyes when she toured the place with the realtor.   She thought it odd that they had to enter by the back door, but, hey, who cared?   It was divine in her eyes.    She couldn’t wait to sign the papers and move in.    There were pocket doors and secret rooms, doors that led to stairways that seemed to go nowhere though that could have been due to the remodeling done ages ago dividing the house into 3 separate apartments complete with kitchens in each separate apartment section of the house.    She and her son found a hidden dirt room in the basement along with other hidden rooms behind short, tiny doors.    She couldn’t imagine what the dirt room especially had been used for.   The last owner of the house lived in the back of the first floor and there was a distinctly different feeling to that part of the house.   It was darker, the air felt heavy in there, musky and it smelled of cigarettes and sweat.     The set-up of the house was strange feeling, too.   Sixteen doors opened into the main area.  After moving in, Annie began to hear voices whispering.   She later heard scratching in the walls.    She heard a woman scream and ran into her kids’ rooms to check on them but, it hadn’t awakened either of them.    She saw a woman at the foot of her bed,  her 3 cats started acting weird.   They would all stare at a wall for several minutes sometimes moving in tandem as if following something out of the room.    She came in a few times and saw one of her cats standing up on his hind feet in the middle of the room.   He would even walk on his two back feet until she called his name then he would seem like he was coming out of a trance and walk normally on all four feet.   That gives me goosebumps just the mental visual on that sight!   Even her son got to see the cat standing up walking around on two feet.   It didn’t scare him,  he just told his Mom he did see it, too.    Her son also found a few thousand dollars hid in a pipe in the dirt room one day when they were exploring the house.   After that they would go on adventures searching throughout the house looking for more money.   The house was located across the street from a funeral home so Annie thought maybe some of the ghosts that appeared over the years that hadn’t had a connection were maybe swinging by from over there.   One dark figure showed up one night scaring the crap out of Annie, he looked like a biker all in black , long greasy hair, his eyes shown sardonically.    Annie spent a lot of time being terrified but not enough to move.    She screamed and ran often when she first started seeing the former owner, Leon, materialize.    At first they didn’t get along but they came to terms when his antics started making her angry instead of scared.    She set terms with him, no reason why they couldn’t all live there together, but it was her house now.   However, she would like it very much if Leon would watch over them and keep the rowdy scary specters in line.   She met ghost buster Echo Bodine at a party once and they got to talking about her haunted house.   Echo came and did a clearing at the house but it didn’t last long till the lights, electrical devices in the house etc. started coming on and going off by themselves again.    She finally decided if you can’t beat them, join them and now with her kids grown up and moved out of the house, she and her 3 cats hold haunted tea parties for folks who want to pay to come have tea in a real haunted house in Minnesota.   If ya got it flaunt it, Girl!   Since she has so many ghosts and lots of bills at least that way her spectral boarders are pulling their weight.