The haunted cottage built circa 1800s
Do you believe in ghosts?
It’s the kind of question that surfaces two bottles of wine deep into the night – after you’ve waded through the holiday small talk, cried over old loves, and confessed your hopes for the future. The lights are low, the plates long cleared, and you’re so deep in conversation the waiter tops up your glass unnoticed.
The trust you’ve built with your dining companion – along with the shackles shed per glass of red – means you’re finally ready to flirt with the supernatural.
I’ll tell you this now, boo: I’m a big believer in ghosts.
It would appear that my family are too blessed with the gift of glimpsing beyond this realm. We’re not mediums or psychics, not by any stretch, but open and curious to stories that have no other logical explanation.
I grew up in the countryside, and on the family property, barely stands a rundown old cottage built in the early 1800s, somewhere around Van Dieman’s Land becoming a colony and the name change to Tasmania. Handmade convict nails hold down its red corrugated-iron roof. This place – it’s old. Real old. The kind of old where the walls have outlived generations. It’s now dilapidated, which only adds to the spooky factor, but in the ’90s it was still livable, and we’d often stay there on weekends before moving in full-time.
I’d often have a recurring nightmare where I was sitting on the old brown shagpile carpet beside the open fireplace – where we’d toast bread on a handmade iron toaster with wire prongs that pierced the corners of the slice. I was alone, playing cards – possibly Solitaire – when a log would tumble from the fire and the flames would circle me until I’d wake panicked in a cold sweat.
It was this same room – when awake – where I’d sit with my siblings watching TV. The television perched atop an old chest of drawers beside a smaller-than-average doorway, built back when people were shorter. I remember, more than once, seeing a little girl run past that doorway.
I’d yell out to my sister (aka Lark’s Favourite Aunty), asking why she was running, only to find her sitting calmly at my feet.
The little girl, it seemed, was not of this world.
The hallway she frequented was icy cold – even in the middle of summer. You’d step through the back door and feel the chill instantly. Strangely, only girls ever saw her; mostly younger ones.
Another time, a group of teenage girlfriends were staying in the cottage. They’d been having a screaming match over who-knows-what when, suddenly, a ghostly man came in through the window from the orchard and screeched at them to get out. Sightings of him were rare – much rarer than those of the little girl. I never saw him myself, but the girls were pale with terror and refused to step foot inside the cottage ever again.
Eventually, word got out about the haunted cottage, and paranormal investigators came knocking. They refused to hear our stories before entering the haunted cottage armed with Geiger counters and other ghostly gadgets, including a medium. After surveying the site, they identified two spirits:
A little girl in the hallway.
And an adult man in the orchard, just outside the lounge-room window.
The medium claimed the man was tormenting the girl, yelling her name Effie over and over again. The same scene, playing on a loop like a scratched record.
Years later, I went on a ghost tour at the Quarantine Station in Manly, NSW. The medium leading it told us that most hauntings aren’t souls trapped between worlds, but energy imprints – echoes of heightened emotion burned into the fabric of a place.
That thought brings me some comfort. Because if that’s true, then little Effie isn’t still there – she’s an echo of a story long finished.
Dear boo,
If you’ve ever had your own ghostly encounter, I’d love to hear it. Share your spooky story in the comments below.
