*****
The year...1991. A close friend is preparing for a month-long African Safari. She asks me to house-sit for her while she is away. It's a nice place. A condo in what used to be the Children's Museum on Jamaica Pond. Not only that, it would cut my commute to work by 30 minutes so naturally I said yes.
I had visited the place several times in the past. And although it was freshly painted and clean as a whistle, something about it seemed strange. And I didn't know why. I was about to find out.
I spent my first night in my new digs just getting comfortable, Fire in the fireplace. Made some dinner. Watched some TV. Occasionally hearing a child laughing or talking. I thought nothing of it, assuming one of my new neighbors had kids who weren't quite ready for bed.
It was time to call it a night. Wash up, jammies, and then off to my new oh-so-comfortable bed. I set the alarm clock and shut out the light. Immediately I felt a presence in the room. I laid there with my eyes open, scanning the room, but saw nothing. I closed my eyes for a minute and the presence felt stronger. When I opened my eyes, there at the foot of the bed stood and image of a school girl complete with kerchief, skirt, and arms folded across her chest to hold her books. It was not a solid image, more of a hazy bluish-grey image, but very distinct. I knew exactly what it was. In a bit of a panic, I turned on the lights and she was gone. With my heart racing, I covered my head with blankets and eventually dozed off.
In the morning I called my friend. She had made a stop at her parents house in California before heading on Safari. There was no answer so I left a message, "Everything is OK here. The plants are watered. The mail is in. And, the ghost and I will be getting along just fine". Within an hour she called back and asked "what ghost?" I explained what I saw and she responded with "you're crazy" and "how much did you have to drink?" Nonetheless, I saw what I saw.
It was about a year later. I was back in my own house and my friend had long returned from Safari. I got a call from her late one evening. She was all excited about a conversation she just had with some guy at a Charity Function. "You won't believe this" she said.
Apparently the person she was talking to turned out to be one of the developers of the condo project where she lived. He actually lived in one of the units for a while. He asked my friend which unit was hers and when she told him he said "Oh, you must have seen the ghost." She was in shock. She explained that while she never had, a friend (me) said he had and she thought he was crazy. The developer went on to explain that the spirit that resides in the condo was that of a girl who had got separated from her class while on a field trip to the Children's Museum. She had wondered off and somehow ended up in Jamaica Pond. This apparently happened on a cold January day because the girls froze in the pond. The girl was not found until ice cutters came to make blocks of ice, which they used to do back then. My friend offered up an apology. But, suggested I may still be crazy.
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