For a long time, when someone said they didn’t believe in ghosts, I would tell them to come to my house for dinner.

We have lived in our family home for about 20 years, and the paranormal activity still never ceases to amaze me. I was never one to be afraid of ghosts, growing up in a house where spirituality, afterlife as well as religion, was part of life. I was never scared.

When we first moved into the house, we were taken with its Victorian exterior and its location right in the center of town. My mother has always said that she was struck by an eerie feeling the minute she entered the house. She felt the presences here were something to be embraced.

The incidences started off small—smoke detectors going off randomly without explanation, doors being opened and closed continuously without any human interaction.

Like most little kids, I had some strange habits. I would sleep on the floor of my bedroom, using my Minnie Mouse comforter like a sleeping bag. And I used to tell my mother that I had nightmares about a blue creature with yellow eyes, who was always on the staircase. My mother brushed it off, children have imaginations, after all. I would also have nightmares about a puppy being locked in the basement and forgotten. These nightmares were terrifying, and I could feel all the puppy’s emotions I told my mother about this, and she said it was my brain trying to process the fact that I was going to have a sibling and I didn’t want people to forget me. I was a teenager before my mother told me that she would occasionally see a little white puppy down in the basement when she did laundry.

When my sister was old enough to talk, she would she would tell my mother about two little boys that she would play with. They would play games together, and the guardian of the two little boys was a lady. My sister told my mother that the old lady could remove her legs. You can occasionally hear children’s laughter—my sister and I are both in our 20s, but neither of us have children. There have also been sightings of a little boy on the staircase.

Today, my sister and I were talking about strange feelings we have of discomfort while making our way to our bedrooms at any time of day. My sister confided in me, “I’ve always thought it was just me who gets a very unsettling vibe. I still pray when I’m making my way to my bedroom at night.”

We occasionally see a man in a hat standing at the top of the stairs, as well. He seems to be watching us as we leave the house. He has inspired many of my short stories. Giving those things purpose is comforting.