The Ghost In Tant Selma's House

My great Aunt, Selma, was a feisty old woman who we called Tant (Tant means Aunt in Swedish). Tant Selma lived in this big old mansion in Sharon Hill, PA. The house was originally built sometime in the mid-1800’s and was a fascinating house full of all sorts of nifty things like a grand ball room with floors so slick with wax you could slide skate on them in your stocking feet. It had gables and a widow’s walk on the top of the room where you could see for miles! It also had hidden rooms and hallways just perfect for games of hide and seek.

The first time I remember visiting her I was about 7 years old. She put my sister and I in the same bedroom somewhere on the third floor. One day, while my mother and sister were shopping, I went upstairs to do something. While working at a desk with a mirror in front of it, I glanced up and saw my sister with her long dark blond hair parted in the middle. I assumed that she and my mother came back early from shopping. Or, so I thought…

I started to talk to her, asking her questions about how shopping was. She never answered me but every time I glanced up into the mirror I saw her sitting there on the bed looking at me. Finally, in a fit of frustration, I turned around to look at her directly and angrily demand to know why she was ignoring me. When I turned around, she wasn’t there!

I sat and looked at the bed. I was dumbfounded for a few moments. I wondered how she could have exited the room because the door was right next to me. As I sat there, looking between the bed and the door I felt this freezing cold chill run up my left arm. Like fingers stroking my arm. The sensation made me propel myself out of the room, tear down the stairs, screaming at every step.

As I flew into the kitchen, Tant Selma set calmly at the table, with her arms open to receive this hysterical child. After she calmed me down with some hugs and kisses, I asked her what it could have been. She looked at me and said, “There are things in old houses we just can’t explain”. As she got up to get me some milk and cookies she commented over her shoulder… “I don’t think we should tell your mother about this…”