THE GOLD IS MINE PART II: SHE'S JUST TRYING TO COMMUNICATE WITH DEAD BLACKBIRDS

The Gold is Mine Part II: She’s just trying to Communicate 
Told by Robert Royal. 
Recorded by T. Fox Dunham
Denton, Texas. 1970s

“It’s all right children. It’s all right.”

Tonight's tale is the continuation of Robert Royal's experience as a child. Part I can be found earlier in this blog.

CLICK THIS TO READ PART I

 
Rob is sitting with me at Molly Maguire’s in Lansdale. He’s just moved Royal Comics and Gaming, his business into a smaller store, and it looks fantastic. He is a skilled decorator and always knows how to utilize a space. Lee, his husband is watching the store while he steals away a few moments to tell me more of the story about his experiences as a child in the old antebellum house in Denton, Texas.

Shortly after the voice experience with his mother as told in part I, his family would hear footsteps in the house, walking in the halls or up the stairs to the level with their bedrooms. The floorboards would creak. The house came alive with activity. Young Robert heard people ascending to the next level, yet no one was on the stairs. Other strange incidents started to happen in the house, building as they resided over the months. The family would sit in the den, and they heard cabinet doors in the kitchen slam shut. He’d walk into the kitchen, and every single door would be flat-out opened. She was letting them know her presence.

This is a pretty common phenomenon in a haunting, usually starting with footsteps. The cabinets open and shut, letting know the living aren’t alone. They’ll sound footfalls or open doors. It’s how the activity usually begins and generates. –Fox

All of this happened while the voices continued. Rob and his sisters would hear their mother’s voice calling from different parts of the house but find those wings vacant when they’d go to find out what their mother wanted. It was always the mother’s voice calling to them.

* * *

Then, building up energy, she manifested to the children.

Rob’s parents were avid ballroom dancers, and once a month they’d go out dancing. So the family would have a babysitter in the evening. This particular babysitter was sixteen years old, very nice. And Rob’s younger sister Darlene who was seven at the time noticed a woman in the backyard. So the four of them stared at the woman through the plate glass window, and the apparition moved from one spot to the other in blink of the eye. The ghost was a brunette, hair to the shoulders with a ruffled blouse and a matron’s skirt—a wardrobe from another time. You’d blink, and she’d teleport around the yard. The third time she did this, she appeared partially in and out of the grand oak, at which point they looked at each other and noticed that their babysitter was no longer there. The kids looked behind them and found the front door wide open. The babysitter had fled, terrified. When they looked back, the apparition had moved close to the house, standing but a foot from the window. This scared the hell out of the kids, and as they ran to hide upstairs, they heard spoken in their mother’s voice:

“It’s all right children. It’s all right.”

They hid in their mother’s grand bedroom in the closet until they heard their father’s voice calling to them. They couldn’t be certain of their mother’s voice, since the ghost stole it. That was the only time they saw the ghost. And that was enough for a nine year-old-boy.

His mother tried to reassure them that the ghostly matron was just trying to communicate. It played its mischief until the end, when it turned hostile.

Every so often, they’d find a dead blackbird in the odd room. They had no idea how the bird got into the rooms, with the flumes sealed and windows shut. The bird would be freshly dead and didn’t even have a chance to decompose.

It didn’t get bad until the family decided to build a pool in the backyard. That’ll be part III.

Stay tuned Fox Kids.