Embracing the Spirits: True Stories of My Encounters With the Other Side by Barbara Parks (bill gates best books TXT) 📕

weren’t there at the time, no harm done. But if your loved one was indeed paying you a visit, you would have just given them

the greatest gift imaginable.

Fire!

It seems that my friend Nikki is by no means alone with her

spiritual experiences, as evidenced by the story she told me

about her good friends, the St Clair’s …

For the most part, the spirit world is subtly enmeshed

within our own; its occupants mingling unobtrusively among

us. There are times however that spirits see fit to manifest, or produce physical effects which leave no doubt as to their presence.

Their motivations for tangibly interacting with the living

vary as widely as the spirits themselves. Some spirits may be

The Interactions of Others 165

trying to offer comfort by showing themselves to their loved

ones. Or perhaps they are simply providing proof of their

survival. Less benevolent presences may have more sinister

motives; and create disturbances to deliberately incite fear. In these instances, the ghostly manifestation may be an expression of unhappiness, confusion or in extreme cases, rage.

And as was the case with the St Clair family, a spirit may

appear in order to deliver a well-intentioned warning. You’d

have thought that living in a three hundred and fifty year old house, one would expect it to have its ghosts. Despite the

unexplained noises and disembodied footsteps, Vincent and

Anouk refused to acknowledge that their house could be

haunted. They were grounded by their busy home and work

lives, with little time left to entertain the possibility of ghosts.

Their three children however were more sensitive to the

presences which lingered within its walls, particularly young

Camille. The St Clairs’ youngest daughter had no doubt that

their home was haunted.

In addition to the unexplained noises, Camille was pro-

vided with further proof of the ghostly presence. One evening

during dinner, she saw a figure materialise across the room. It peered at the family through the glass of their large aquarium, scrutinising them as they ate. By the time Camille was able to absorb the vision before her, the ghostly presence had gone.

Despite her insistence that she had just seen a ghost,

Camille’s parents remained skeptical. It would take more than

a child’s supposed glimpse of an apparition to convince them

to think otherwise.

Not long after the dinner-time visit, the St Clairs awoke

to find a candle mysteriously burning in the kitchen. Since

the old house was largely constructed of wood, Vincent had

166The Interactions of Others

banned the children from using candles in the house. He was

paranoid that their beautiful home would burn down.

The children were rounded up and quizzed as to who had

broken the cardinal house rule, but they all insisted that they would never have been so irresponsible. They were well versed

in the risks of living in an old wooden house.

Over the course of the next two weeks lit candles began

appearing all over the house, usually first thing in the morn-

ing. Even more unnervingly, the St Clair’s were also frequently greeted by the burning candles when returning home after an

outing.

Unable to comprehend the mysteriously appearing can-

dles, and deeply anxious about the associated fire risk, the St Clairs spoke to their neighbours. They wondered if they had

been playing tricks on them. Or perhaps someone was trying

to scare them and had been sneaking into their house.

The neighbours insisted they knew nothing and the mys-

tery deepened.

Of some comfort amongst the disturbing, inexplicable

events, was the fact that the candles always seemed to be carefully placed out of harm’s way. They would most commonly

appear in the upstairs bathroom, well away from anything

that could possibly catch light. On many occasions the can-

dles were placed in the bathtub. It all began to feel increasingly odd.

By now the candles had spontaneously appeared no less

than twenty times over the course of two weeks, and the fam-

ily were beginning to feel frightened. Whilst the energy in

their home didn’t feel negative, there was an unmistakeable

heaviness which seemed to be pervading their home. Antic-

The Interactions of Others 167

ipating the next burning candle seemed to have put them

increasingly on edge.

As much as the St Clairs longed for peace and normality,

further strangeness was on it’s way.

Whilst running a few errands in the city, Anouk was

approached by an dishevelled-looking vagrant. He insisted on

giving her a playing card, which happened to be the nine of

Spades. Uncomprehending, Anouk looked up at the man as he

spoke.

“You will be in luck,” he told her. “The nine of spades

brings luck and good fortune.”

He looked at Anouk meaningfully and then hurriedly

walked away.

Anouk dismissed the man as an oddball and swiftly forgot

about the card.

The following day was a Sunday, and the St Clairs were

uncharacteristically going out. Sundays were usually reserved

for quiet family time; a peaceful respite from the chaos of the working week. But friends had invited them out for dinner, so

they decided to break their stringent Sunday routine and enjoy a family outing.

What happened next would change their lives forever.

Neighbours told them that no more than ten minutes after

they left, a massive explosion tore through their house. In no time at all, the St Clairs beloved home was engulfed in ever-mounting flames. There was no chance of saving their beauti-

ful old house; it was razed within minutes.

Had the St Clair’s been home, they would have undoubt-

edly perished.

Of course their first thought was that their fears had been

realised and that the randomly appearing candles had been

168The Interactions of Others

responsible for the fire. The family’s devastating sense of loss was intensified by a feeling of dread. It seemed as though the presences in their home had been hell-bent on destroying

them.

It was only once the source of the fire was determined that

they were forced to think otherwise. The subsequent investi-

gation confirmed that the fire was the result of a faulty heater in the upstairs bathroom. It appeared that an electrical short circuit had caused the devastating explosion. Interestingly, the lit candles had most often appeared in this very bathroom,

prompting the St Clairs to radically change their way of thinking.

The way the candles had been placed out of harm’s way

was particularly telling; they had never been left