As I shuffled my feet onto the cold, gray concrete, my heart began to beat tremendously. I felt like an ant, standing on a blade of grass studying the gigantic world. The house was decorated in a silent Victorian-French theme. It had a balcony with spiral stairs leading to it; french windows that sprang from the ground to the roof and pallid seashells that lead to the back of the house, but the beauty of the house could not cover the negative energy amassed in the house.

“So what do you think,” cheerfully asked Dad. He loved the house and he wished we’d love it as well. Originally, Mom scheduled us to move to New Orleans next year, because my dad worked as a professor at Xavier. It took him a year and a half to finally buy a “family house”. Mom pictured Joshua, Stella, Jasmine and I becoming “city kids”. She dreamed of us attending debutant balls and having picnics by the waters of Lake Pontchartrain every Saturday. But she didn’t picture this. Dad happened to buy this house on a limb. He loved the antique or the supernatural you could say. “Well Tracy, it’s original,” she finally answered, after two minutes. “Let’s go inside,” Dad exclaimed.

The first room was the family room and it was huge, and the floor was the color of amber in the setting sun. The kitchen was a continuation of the family room, which had bars and looked like it was decorated by a person who was obsessed with the fifties. The next room he brought us to was the salon, which was barren with a few pictures. This room felt so tense and so different than the rest of the house. The house didn’t seem normal but this room was anomalous. During the tour, he explained to us how this house had history, and it was built in the twenties. After the sermon of a lifetime, he showed us to our rooms. Josh bluntly closed the door and said, “I hate this house, and we have to stay here for the summer”. “And possibly forever,” Jasmine replied. She continued “This house has ghosts in it…can’t you feel it” she whispered. Jasmine was a firm believer and ghost and so was dad, but no one else believed. “Don’t’ talk like that around Stella and Taylor,” Josh shouted. I was seven and Stella was nine we could handle it. Dad rustled into the room like a bull in a china shop and exclaimed “There’s more”. “More of this weirdo house,” I thought. He then led us outside and led us up the spiral stairs. “I never saw stairs on the outside of a house,” I said. ‘Well, this is no regular house,” Dad replied.


He opened this section of the house and it was barren. “I’ll rent this out,” he said. As everyone entered the flat, the pastel sea shells caught my eyes. I trickled down the stair and followed the seashells into the back yard as Dorothy followed the yellow brick road to Oz. The grass was thick and emerald and the tree’s sprouted to the sky. And on one of those trees lay a tire swing. Just as I approached the tire swing, a man who resembled Danny Devito pooped up from the bordering fenced and shouted, “Get out of here, you’re trespassing”. As the tears poured from my softened heart, I replied “My father just bought this house”. He then said something that unraveled the fabric of my mind. “Bad things happen to good kids like you so I suggest you stay inside,” he calmly said. I don’t know of it was a warning or a hint but I never went outside by myself.


As I entered the front, I overhead my Dad talking to Mom, he explained to her how a picture he had in the salon always changed positions from the position he moved it. He also told her about when the lights flickered on and off and when he tried to sleep in the front room, something held his breath. Just as Mom began to argue, he told her the ghost agreed to leave while we were there. Upon hearing this she declared him crazy and stormed inside. So being ever so curious, I trotted into the salon. I couldn’t identify the picture right way but I found it. It was a watercolor portrait of a man. This picture was the only one faced at a ninety degree angle. Besides the strange feeling this was the only other strange content of the house to me.


The whole summer we did as mother pleased by picnicking at Lake Pontchartrain and touring the streets of The French Quarters. But no matter how much fun we had, the house seemed to drain all of our energy. I never saw a ghost or nothing really out of the ordinary happened. But I never sought after anything suspicious. This experience was significant to me because it determined faith. Would I live in New Orleans or in Mansura? Thankfully, Mom chose Mansura. We lived in Mansura while Dad worked in New Orleans and we returned every weekend and Dad eventually moved here. And this experience has also questioned my beliefs. Did ghost really exist? This continues to puzzle my mind. No, was my answer, because I chose not to believe; because I was afraid of what would have happened if I did believe.This summer not only determined my faith but it challenged it.