
As a child we lived upstairs in a large house that had been turned into a duplex. There were 6 rooms. A living room, 3 bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. And being we lived upstairs the attic.
I loved our bathroom. It was totally tiled. The floor and the wall all the way up to the ceiling. And it was a big room, same size as our bedroom. Huge old claw foot tub.
As children we of course explored every inch of our new place. The attic was a great place to play and keep our pet raccoon. The stairs creaked and the huge space upstairs was scorched from a old fire. We played up there a lot.
Shortly after we moved in we started hearing the noises. Footsteps going upstairs and babies crying. My mother got up several times to check on us children when she heard the cries but we were all sleeping. But even it the daytime. Sitting at the kitchen table, the attic door right off the the side wall, we would hear steps going upstairs. No mistaking the sound. Slow steady tread on each stair. The 3rd step alway had a certain sound when you hit it. A distinctive pop.
My mother took to staying up at night. She kept finding the attic door open. Putting a chair in front of it at night she would fitfully doze to awake and find the chair was back at the table and the door was open. But us kids. It never seemed to bother us. It wasn't a scary sound to us.
My mom finally told a neighbor about the things she was hearing. Nervously laughing she said she thought the house was haunted. And we found out from our elderly neighbor a possible cause.
Our house used to be a birthing house. She had newpaper clippings on it. The delivery room was our bathroom. That was why it was all tiled. Downstairs in our neighbors living room it was long and L shaped like a waiting room. The mothers and babies stayed upstairs. And some stayed in the attic. The fire was in the night and by the time the alert was called they couldn't get all the mothers and babies out from the attic. The smoke got to them. 3 mothers and their babies had died.
For some reason that calmed my mother. She left the door open every night and started sleeping again. Because she said she could understand the mothers going to their babies. And it wasn't scary. They were calming sounds..
Years later, long after we moved out, I talked to someone who had lived in the house after we moved. They also heard the cries and footsteps and they also didn't find them frightening.
As an adult I have a hard time believing in ghosts. There has to be some logical explanation. Right? But I know what we heard. And I know it was real. And this is a absolutely true story. This happened to me. Now tell me yours.