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The Ghost Stone
- The Ghost Stone -
A true story of the supernatural, from my childhood.
Chapter One: The Haunted Fairgrounds
(An old country road in the summer)
The year was 1980, and it was summertime…
I still remember the day, when I was about six years old, and my grandfather took me to a fair in the tiny town of Blandford in Massachusetts. Back when I was a little kid, things seemed so much simpler, but on that day, in that tiny town, I was about to have my first experience with death. It all began when we were riding down an old road past some thickly wooded rural parts. Here and there, farmland was of a want to stretch out for miles and miles upon end. Our little Volkswagen beetle had been to a lot of out of the way places before, and it would take us to many such places again. But today, it took us on our way through Blandford… and as we passed a spot of the road where the occasional house was perched upon raised ground to our right, I looked to our left and saw part of the fairgrounds. The parts I noticed were located beyond a thin string of old willow trees, where a rough road wound down into the left-hand part of the grounds themselves. The part of the fair in question was set up amidst the more natural contours of the woodlands that lay beyond those willows and down into a sort of large square depression of land… although down the street, across it to the right, and up on the much higher ground where the houses I spotted earlier loomed, was the main fair itself, upon some old farmlands where a Ferris wheel and the far more popular attractions were set up. I looked up that way and saw some old cattle barns and even older houses. But for now, we decided to take the left-hand road and enjoy that side of the fair before crossing the road further down to the main part with all of those slendid attractions that people think of when they think of these fairs. We drove down past the willows and into the square wooded area… and as we did so, I could see more than just modern people enjoying themselves. I could see people dressed in the attire of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s amongst them! Women in their long dresses with bustles, their pretty heads topped with long-brimmed hats decorated with pink ribbons and flowers mixed with the crowds, along with men in bowler hats and very prim and proper suits, decorated with gold chain pocket-watches. The younger men and all the teenagers wore white suits with white straw hats, the hatbands being red white and blue ribbons. Not surprisingly, my grandfather did not see those people from another era. That was how I came to realize that they were, in fact, ghosts of people long dead.
Chapter Two: The Children by the Stream
(The two children playing by the stream)
They were selling replica white straw hats of the sort I had seen on the ghosts earlier. Apparently, this was to celebrate part of the history and tradition of the Blandford fair. My grandfather bought one and wore it, never realizing why I might have found that so eerie. The smell of freshly cut summer grass was mixing with that of the concession stands, which sold hot dogs, hamburgers, and drinks of all kinds. My grandfather decided to go try his luck at some games of chance while I went off to look for some kids my own age to play with. Back then, it was a more innocent time and parents didn’t need to worry as much about their children’s safety as they need to now in the 21st century. Kids were always safe at the fair, and so I was. I ran along the booths with their attractions, and past the people both of this world and of the next… until at last I spotted a large stream that cut through thick woods on both sides of it. Some old stones made it possible to cross the stream in one spot, and an old dirt trail ran along that small ford, towards a distant field where some structures rose up out of a vast stretch of farmland. I saw two children playing next to a massive boulder set into the ground by time immemorial just on the other side of the stream, and to the left of the ford on their side. I crossed over the stream to them and asked them what they were playing. “Hide and seek!” said a little girl who was dressed in a white old-fashioned style gingham dress. She wore her brown hair in braids and had sparkling brown eyes, filled with life and wonder. The other child, her brother, was dressed in some denim overalls and he wore a straw hat, looking much like Tom Sawyer might. He had his sister’s brown hair and dark eyes, and he asked me: “So, do you want to play with us?” And I said: “Yeah, sure! Why not?” and so we played hide and seek amongst the trees, but never venturing too far from the old boulder. I began to wonder why this was, while we picked up some pebbles and skipped the stones across the stream. After a game of tag of “Tag, you’re it!” we returned to the boulder and the little girl produced a smooth white stone that she and her brother seemed to be in awe of. She showed it to me, and I touched it. It felt much as any other stone would, and other than its’ odd color and smoothness I though nothing of it. But far more was there to it!
Chapter Three: The Secret of the Stone
(The white stone sitting on the boulder)
“You can touch the stone? Really?” said the little boy to me as I held the smooth white stone in my hand. The boy and his sister had passed it to me, and seemed genuinely surprised by this. “Of course I can!” I said. “It’s just a stone, isn’t it?” and the little girl told me this: “But you are alive! It isn’t normally possible for a living human being to be able to touch the white stone.” And I asked the little girl: “But, aren’t you two human beings?” and the little boy said: “No, not any more. We used to be, though, a long time ago.” And the girl pointed towards the structures I had noticed earlier in the farmlands not far from where we played by that massive boulder. She then, ever so hauntingly, explained: “Something fell out of the sky and there was a fire. It got really hot, and we went to sleep. We’ve been like this ever since. Come on… follow me!” and she and her brother ran towards those structures. I followed them, running just as fast as I could for a six year old, and soon I saw all too clearly what those structures were. One was an old barn, burnt black and falling apart with a massive hole torn into the side of it. The other was once a farmhouse, but it has been gutted by the same fire that must have destroyed the barn… parts of the house still were intact though, and the white paint was flaking off in places. Out of the ruined house came a man who was dressed in blue denim overalls, a white shirt with puffy sleeves, and a pointy hat with a wide circular brim. The man had brown curly hair and eyes that were white and gray with not a hint of color in them. He was clean-shaven, and looked like an old-fashioned farmer. The little girl and her brother ran into the man’s arms calling: “Daddy!” and the man asked them who their new friend was. I introduced myself, and the man said: “You seem like a nice boy, playing with my kids like that and making them smile and laugh like they used to! My little girl tells me you can touch the stone too. Human beings can’t do that, unless they’re dead. But you aren’t dead, so you must be more than just a regular, normal human being.” I changed the subject asked the man: “What happened to your house?” and he told me the tragic story: “One night, I was out in the field tending to my cows when this big thing all made of metal came crashing down out of the sky, all on fire. It crashed into my barn, and I went to see what it was… but the fire was too hot and it spread too fast across the field unto the house, where the kids were sleeping. I tried to get back to reach them, but the fire caught me first! Everything got real hazy to try and remember after that. I recall that after a spell, some important looking types came by and took the metal thing away. That white stone fell out of it, and I picked it up. Other memories are harder to think of, like our kin coming by and crying about us being gone… even though me and my kids were right there, it was like our kin couldn’t see us no more! They went away and never came by to visit us again. Since then, you’re the first person to treat us decently. Thank you, boy! Thank you.”
Chapter Four: The Summertime Spirit
(The Blandford Fair's main attractions)
Right about then, my grandfather showed up and the farmer put his finger up to lips, calling for silence. “What are you doing way out here?” my grandfather jovilally asked me. “Playing with these two kids.” I said, pointing to the boy and girl. My grandfather said: “Oh, you made some friends here? They must have gone home by now.” And I realized he just couldn’t see them. I remarked: “Yeah, I made some new friends. They were really nice, and we playing with this neat white stone.” And I went to show it to him, but he couldn’t see the smooth white stone either. Instead, he noticed an old baseball nearby and had assumed that was what I was referring to. “You mean that white ball?” and I explained: “No, it was a really small white rock… totally smooth… that you can fit in the palm of your hand. It’s sitting right on that big boulder over there, where we left it!” But when we walked over there, the stone was gone. I saw it in the little girl’s hand, as she, her brother and their father walked away. Back up to their burned house near their burned barn. I yelled out: “Goodbye! I had fun!” and they waved back before they disappeared as though they had never existed at all. My grandfather said: “Oh, they live up past there? Hmmm, I didn’t know that anybody did. Not these days, anyway.” And he seemed to have that look on his face that adults will get when they are trying to figure out what kids are talking about. “Oh well! Come on: let’s go over to the other part of the fair down and across the street. Maybe you’ll win a new stuffed toy at one of the chance games there!” and I happily agreed, thinking little about my experience with the ghostly family from a long time ago. I asked my grandfather: “Do you think I’ll see them again the next time we come?” and he said to me: “You never know. But next year I think we’ll go to some new place. Don’t worry… wherever it is, it will be fun! I promise.” And so after a full day at the other part of the fair, where I saw the famous White Church where fiddlers held a contest... and I won a stuffed whale at a game of chance before riding on the Ferris wheel (which got stuck at the top for a long time, scaring me within an inch of my life), then afterward going to see a local cattle auction… we decided to call it a day and head on home. All the way back, though, I could not help thinking about the ghostly family and what they told me. When I got home, I would have to ask my grandmother about it. She was the expert in our family on stuff like ghosts and other paranormal things. Yes… I would ask her!
Epilogue: The Mystery Revealed
(The fallen angel appears to me at the park)
We got home, and I told my grandmother and mother all about my adventure with the two children and their father. My grandmother brought out an old book all about the paranormal, and then she skimmed to a page in it that told about a U.F.O. that had crashed into a barn in Blandford back in the early 1900’s. The article went on to explain that the story of the crash was covered up and never put into any history books… and that people even tried to pretend that it had never happened at all. However, the part that held my attention the most was a minor passage that told of the death of the small family that lived there: two children and their father, a divorced local farmer. All of who burned to death in the fire… which locally was blamed on other, less cosmic causes than a U.F.O. My eyes went wide with that dark revelation, and I nervously said to my grandmother: “Grandma… I truly think, that I can see ghosts.” She then replied: “Don’t worry, my dear. In our family, we all can. Except for your grandpa. But he’s seen other things in his time than ghosts so don’t you worry about him believing you. He does.” But one mystery would continue to haunt me always… had I touched an alien stone from another world? Today I am thirty-six years old, and although I have studied the paranormal extensively since then, only an elusive passage from the Bible ever came close to explaining what I had once held in my hand when I was a child: 'To him who overcomes, I will give... a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it' (Revelation 2:17). When I was sixteen years old… I even encountered my guardian angel at a local park near my home! She then revealed to me my “True Name” and told me hers, explaining that she was my sister, and that she was a fallen angel with I myself being one in human form. Just as foretold by the Book of Revelation, I was given a new name… exactly ten years after touching the white stone. A name known only to me, to my guardian angel, and to God! A name I have never told to anyone. Some say angels are spiritual beings, whilst others claim they are human-like aliens. All I know is that I am as human as anyone else, in body. But in spirit, I have always been different. The words of the ghostly farmer seem to hold an explanation all their own: “My little girl tells me you can touch the stone too. Human beings can’t do that, unless they’re dead. But you aren’t dead, so you must be more than just a regular, normal human being.” You don’t choose to awaken, but once you do it is hard to sleep again. For oft at night, what dreams may come of which we cannot speak!
A true story of the supernatural, from my childhood.
Chapter One: The Haunted Fairgrounds
(An old country road in the summer)
The year was 1980, and it was summertime…
I still remember the day, when I was about six years old, and my grandfather took me to a fair in the tiny town of Blandford in Massachusetts. Back when I was a little kid, things seemed so much simpler, but on that day, in that tiny town, I was about to have my first experience with death. It all began when we were riding down an old road past some thickly wooded rural parts. Here and there, farmland was of a want to stretch out for miles and miles upon end. Our little Volkswagen beetle had been to a lot of out of the way places before, and it would take us to many such places again. But today, it took us on our way through Blandford… and as we passed a spot of the road where the occasional house was perched upon raised ground to our right, I looked to our left and saw part of the fairgrounds. The parts I noticed were located beyond a thin string of old willow trees, where a rough road wound down into the left-hand part of the grounds themselves. The part of the fair in question was set up amidst the more natural contours of the woodlands that lay beyond those willows and down into a sort of large square depression of land… although down the street, across it to the right, and up on the much higher ground where the houses I spotted earlier loomed, was the main fair itself, upon some old farmlands where a Ferris wheel and the far more popular attractions were set up. I looked up that way and saw some old cattle barns and even older houses. But for now, we decided to take the left-hand road and enjoy that side of the fair before crossing the road further down to the main part with all of those slendid attractions that people think of when they think of these fairs. We drove down past the willows and into the square wooded area… and as we did so, I could see more than just modern people enjoying themselves. I could see people dressed in the attire of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s amongst them! Women in their long dresses with bustles, their pretty heads topped with long-brimmed hats decorated with pink ribbons and flowers mixed with the crowds, along with men in bowler hats and very prim and proper suits, decorated with gold chain pocket-watches. The younger men and all the teenagers wore white suits with white straw hats, the hatbands being red white and blue ribbons. Not surprisingly, my grandfather did not see those people from another era. That was how I came to realize that they were, in fact, ghosts of people long dead.
Chapter Two: The Children by the Stream
(The two children playing by the stream)
They were selling replica white straw hats of the sort I had seen on the ghosts earlier. Apparently, this was to celebrate part of the history and tradition of the Blandford fair. My grandfather bought one and wore it, never realizing why I might have found that so eerie. The smell of freshly cut summer grass was mixing with that of the concession stands, which sold hot dogs, hamburgers, and drinks of all kinds. My grandfather decided to go try his luck at some games of chance while I went off to look for some kids my own age to play with. Back then, it was a more innocent time and parents didn’t need to worry as much about their children’s safety as they need to now in the 21st century. Kids were always safe at the fair, and so I was. I ran along the booths with their attractions, and past the people both of this world and of the next… until at last I spotted a large stream that cut through thick woods on both sides of it. Some old stones made it possible to cross the stream in one spot, and an old dirt trail ran along that small ford, towards a distant field where some structures rose up out of a vast stretch of farmland. I saw two children playing next to a massive boulder set into the ground by time immemorial just on the other side of the stream, and to the left of the ford on their side. I crossed over the stream to them and asked them what they were playing. “Hide and seek!” said a little girl who was dressed in a white old-fashioned style gingham dress. She wore her brown hair in braids and had sparkling brown eyes, filled with life and wonder. The other child, her brother, was dressed in some denim overalls and he wore a straw hat, looking much like Tom Sawyer might. He had his sister’s brown hair and dark eyes, and he asked me: “So, do you want to play with us?” And I said: “Yeah, sure! Why not?” and so we played hide and seek amongst the trees, but never venturing too far from the old boulder. I began to wonder why this was, while we picked up some pebbles and skipped the stones across the stream. After a game of tag of “Tag, you’re it!” we returned to the boulder and the little girl produced a smooth white stone that she and her brother seemed to be in awe of. She showed it to me, and I touched it. It felt much as any other stone would, and other than its’ odd color and smoothness I though nothing of it. But far more was there to it!
Chapter Three: The Secret of the Stone
(The white stone sitting on the boulder)
“You can touch the stone? Really?” said the little boy to me as I held the smooth white stone in my hand. The boy and his sister had passed it to me, and seemed genuinely surprised by this. “Of course I can!” I said. “It’s just a stone, isn’t it?” and the little girl told me this: “But you are alive! It isn’t normally possible for a living human being to be able to touch the white stone.” And I asked the little girl: “But, aren’t you two human beings?” and the little boy said: “No, not any more. We used to be, though, a long time ago.” And the girl pointed towards the structures I had noticed earlier in the farmlands not far from where we played by that massive boulder. She then, ever so hauntingly, explained: “Something fell out of the sky and there was a fire. It got really hot, and we went to sleep. We’ve been like this ever since. Come on… follow me!” and she and her brother ran towards those structures. I followed them, running just as fast as I could for a six year old, and soon I saw all too clearly what those structures were. One was an old barn, burnt black and falling apart with a massive hole torn into the side of it. The other was once a farmhouse, but it has been gutted by the same fire that must have destroyed the barn… parts of the house still were intact though, and the white paint was flaking off in places. Out of the ruined house came a man who was dressed in blue denim overalls, a white shirt with puffy sleeves, and a pointy hat with a wide circular brim. The man had brown curly hair and eyes that were white and gray with not a hint of color in them. He was clean-shaven, and looked like an old-fashioned farmer. The little girl and her brother ran into the man’s arms calling: “Daddy!” and the man asked them who their new friend was. I introduced myself, and the man said: “You seem like a nice boy, playing with my kids like that and making them smile and laugh like they used to! My little girl tells me you can touch the stone too. Human beings can’t do that, unless they’re dead. But you aren’t dead, so you must be more than just a regular, normal human being.” I changed the subject asked the man: “What happened to your house?” and he told me the tragic story: “One night, I was out in the field tending to my cows when this big thing all made of metal came crashing down out of the sky, all on fire. It crashed into my barn, and I went to see what it was… but the fire was too hot and it spread too fast across the field unto the house, where the kids were sleeping. I tried to get back to reach them, but the fire caught me first! Everything got real hazy to try and remember after that. I recall that after a spell, some important looking types came by and took the metal thing away. That white stone fell out of it, and I picked it up. Other memories are harder to think of, like our kin coming by and crying about us being gone… even though me and my kids were right there, it was like our kin couldn’t see us no more! They went away and never came by to visit us again. Since then, you’re the first person to treat us decently. Thank you, boy! Thank you.”
Chapter Four: The Summertime Spirit
(The Blandford Fair's main attractions)
Right about then, my grandfather showed up and the farmer put his finger up to lips, calling for silence. “What are you doing way out here?” my grandfather jovilally asked me. “Playing with these two kids.” I said, pointing to the boy and girl. My grandfather said: “Oh, you made some friends here? They must have gone home by now.” And I realized he just couldn’t see them. I remarked: “Yeah, I made some new friends. They were really nice, and we playing with this neat white stone.” And I went to show it to him, but he couldn’t see the smooth white stone either. Instead, he noticed an old baseball nearby and had assumed that was what I was referring to. “You mean that white ball?” and I explained: “No, it was a really small white rock… totally smooth… that you can fit in the palm of your hand. It’s sitting right on that big boulder over there, where we left it!” But when we walked over there, the stone was gone. I saw it in the little girl’s hand, as she, her brother and their father walked away. Back up to their burned house near their burned barn. I yelled out: “Goodbye! I had fun!” and they waved back before they disappeared as though they had never existed at all. My grandfather said: “Oh, they live up past there? Hmmm, I didn’t know that anybody did. Not these days, anyway.” And he seemed to have that look on his face that adults will get when they are trying to figure out what kids are talking about. “Oh well! Come on: let’s go over to the other part of the fair down and across the street. Maybe you’ll win a new stuffed toy at one of the chance games there!” and I happily agreed, thinking little about my experience with the ghostly family from a long time ago. I asked my grandfather: “Do you think I’ll see them again the next time we come?” and he said to me: “You never know. But next year I think we’ll go to some new place. Don’t worry… wherever it is, it will be fun! I promise.” And so after a full day at the other part of the fair, where I saw the famous White Church where fiddlers held a contest... and I won a stuffed whale at a game of chance before riding on the Ferris wheel (which got stuck at the top for a long time, scaring me within an inch of my life), then afterward going to see a local cattle auction… we decided to call it a day and head on home. All the way back, though, I could not help thinking about the ghostly family and what they told me. When I got home, I would have to ask my grandmother about it. She was the expert in our family on stuff like ghosts and other paranormal things. Yes… I would ask her!
Epilogue: The Mystery Revealed
(The fallen angel appears to me at the park)
We got home, and I told my grandmother and mother all about my adventure with the two children and their father. My grandmother brought out an old book all about the paranormal, and then she skimmed to a page in it that told about a U.F.O. that had crashed into a barn in Blandford back in the early 1900’s. The article went on to explain that the story of the crash was covered up and never put into any history books… and that people even tried to pretend that it had never happened at all. However, the part that held my attention the most was a minor passage that told of the death of the small family that lived there: two children and their father, a divorced local farmer. All of who burned to death in the fire… which locally was blamed on other, less cosmic causes than a U.F.O. My eyes went wide with that dark revelation, and I nervously said to my grandmother: “Grandma… I truly think, that I can see ghosts.” She then replied: “Don’t worry, my dear. In our family, we all can. Except for your grandpa. But he’s seen other things in his time than ghosts so don’t you worry about him believing you. He does.” But one mystery would continue to haunt me always… had I touched an alien stone from another world? Today I am thirty-six years old, and although I have studied the paranormal extensively since then, only an elusive passage from the Bible ever came close to explaining what I had once held in my hand when I was a child: 'To him who overcomes, I will give... a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it' (Revelation 2:17). When I was sixteen years old… I even encountered my guardian angel at a local park near my home! She then revealed to me my “True Name” and told me hers, explaining that she was my sister, and that she was a fallen angel with I myself being one in human form. Just as foretold by the Book of Revelation, I was given a new name… exactly ten years after touching the white stone. A name known only to me, to my guardian angel, and to God! A name I have never told to anyone. Some say angels are spiritual beings, whilst others claim they are human-like aliens. All I know is that I am as human as anyone else, in body. But in spirit, I have always been different. The words of the ghostly farmer seem to hold an explanation all their own: “My little girl tells me you can touch the stone too. Human beings can’t do that, unless they’re dead. But you aren’t dead, so you must be more than just a regular, normal human being.” You don’t choose to awaken, but once you do it is hard to sleep again. For oft at night, what dreams may come of which we cannot speak!
Published 15th Jan 2012
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