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Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com
This is a true story written by one of the 'kids' who experienced the hauntings.
To protect the identities of these people, names and locations have been changed. The rest of the story remains unchanged
Time period:
1960s
Reason we moved to that House:
My dad was given appointment as a high ranking government official and had to relocate to Gozo. Gozo is a tiny island, about 1.35 sq miles. At the time we were there the population was around 28,000 with about one fifth living in the capital city. Gozitans were and still are a very close-knit group of people and in the individual towns and villages everybody knew each other and was related in some way. There was very little crime in Gozo at that time so there wasn’t much going on. He used to say he felt like he was retired especially after his hectic life in his pervious employment.
Location:
House in Gozitan Village
When we first learned we would be going to Gozo, my dad went there to try and find us a place to live. He didn’t like any of the apartments and houses he was shown so the agent told him there was another property available but it wasn’t exactly for rent. It was believed to be haunted and people who rented it left in a hurry after a very little time. The place had been empty for years. My dad said he did not believe in ghosts and insisted on seeing this property. The agent finally showed it to him and he loved it. It really was a very nice property, with large airy and well lit rooms, plenty of balconies, and on the main street of the village in Gozo – an excellent location. Also, because it was thought to be haunted, the rent was very cheap! But when the landlord heard that someone with four children wanted to rent his property he asked to talk to my dad and he tried very strongly to discourage him from renting the place. He told him about two events which had happened in that house. I’m not sure which happened first.
1. A maid was cleaning the windows (floor to ceiling and wall to wall) of the top floor landing. She fell off the ladder, toppled over the banisters, and dropped down the staircase well with the bucket of water tumbling around her. She died as she hit the ground.
2. Around the late 1700s, a child living in that house had an illness which left him severely disfigured. Apparently, in those days, disfigured children were hidden from public view. The family built an extension to the top floor, like a small apartment, and the boy was kept there. The door that led to this extension had a small window in it with a shutter that was fitted with iron bars. Both the door and the shutter were kept locked and the shutter was only opened to pass food and drink to the child. The disease was not fatal and he lived there for the rest of his life. For some reason the extension they build was at a lower level than the rest of that floor. Six steep, narrow, rickety wooden steps led from the door to the lower level. Before we moved into the property my dad had the offending door removed and the steps replaced with a wooden staircase (eight steps).
These stories did not dissuade my dad from renting this property nor did the landlord’s entreaty not to take his children to live there. My dad was convinced ghosts did not exist. While we were in Gozo my dad never breathed a word to us about these stories that the landlord had disclosed to him, not even to my mum. He only told us about them when we moved back to Malta three and a half years later
My Siblings:
Jane is a year older than me. She was, and still is a very serious, religious, kind of person. She doesn’t play jokes or tricks on people. She was 12 when we went to Gozo.
Sarah is two years younger than me. We were very close as kids and played, laughed, cried, quarreled, and did everything else together. We also played a lot of tricks on each other and on our serious sister J
Rachael was only three and a half years old when we went to Gozo.
Haunting:
After we moved in we started having weird experiences right away.
Items disappeared from were we put them down and reappeared later somewhere else. Usually this would happen at night. I’m almost blind without my glasses and I always put them on my nightstand where I can find them in the morning. But many times they weren’t there when I woke up and someone would have to hunt for them for me because I could not see to search for them. But I was not the only one who “lost” things; all of us did, including mum and dad. Usually all items lost would be grouped together in one spot when we eventually found them. Even though Sarah liked to play tricks, I knew she wasn’t the one doing it. She would have been too scared to get up at night, in the dark, pick some items and take them to another room. She didn’t even go to the bathroom alone at night but would wake up one of us to go with her.
Another favorite pastime of our little ghost was calling our names in each other’s voices. For a long time, when one of my sisters would call me and then insist she hadn’t, I would think it was a trick and they thought the same when it happened to them. We would say to each other, will you stop these stupid jokes! But when my parents began hearing their names called, or we thought they had called us, we realized there was something weird going on. One time Sarah heard “mum” tell her to go lay the table for dinner. A little while later mum went in the kitchen and was very surprised to see Sarah there, diligently setting the plates on the table. It turned out mum was not the one who had made that request! My dad would sometimes be working at his desk when he would hear my mother calling him to come and eat but when he came to the kitchen/dining room, mum would still be cooking. He would not understand why she would have interrupted him for no reason but my mother would insist that she had not called him. Sometimes one of us would be with her at the time he heard her calling and we could corroborate that indeed she had not called him. Occasionally he would be helping Jane with her school work when they would both hear “mum” announcing that dinner was served but of course it was not. Eventually he learned and would ask mum if she had called him before he got up from his desk. It looks like this ghost was a bit obsessed with food! I wonder if his family had sometimes forgotten to feed him L
Sarah had a frightening experience one day. She had just got in the bath-tub when she suddenly saw a huge black roach right in the middle of the white towel hanging on the rail by the sink. That roach had not been there a second before. At this point I need to add that we never saw any roaches in that property even though we kept the windows wide open in summer. They’re horribly ugly creatures so it’s not surprising that Sarah, uttering a shrill scream, leapt out of the tub and flew out of that bathroom without the least consideration that she was stark naked. Thankfully, she had gained the bedroom before dad and my uncle, who was visiting us at that time, came hurrying down the stairs to see what all the commotion was about. After the situation was explained, my uncle, who did not seem in the least afraid of roaches, calmly went into the bathroom, removed his shoe, and hit that roach hard enough to kill it ten times over. We were all looking on from a safe distance and we saw it falling but it never hit the ground. It just disappeared into thin air. My dad and my uncle looked all over for it but we never found it, dead or alive. Thank goodness, that boy never produced it again to scare the living daylights out of us once more. Another funny thing about that bathroom was that the light switch would turn itself on sometimes in the middle of the night. If left alone it would eventually turn itself back off but if my dad got up and switched it off it would go on again. My dad was good with electricity and he checked it out many times but it didn’t seem defective. He even got an electrician to look at it one time to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. Nothing wrong was ever found.
I don’t know what kind of wood was used to build those steps in the middle of the property but they sure creaked a lot. There was no way someone could go up or down them without everybody knowing it. They creaked so loud that we couldn’t use them when my dad was taking his afternoon nap because the noise woke him up . We’d walk as close to the wall as possible to try and make less noise but it made no difference, every step creaked !! In Malta, houses are built of stone (old houses) or concrete (modern buildings), including the ceilings. The only things made of wood in Maltese houses are doors, windows, and furniture. In our Gozo house we also had those wooden stairs we had put in. Jane was allowed to stay up longer than us in the evening. Sarah and I would be in bed but not asleep (we’re both insomniacs) when we'd hear her coming down the stairs. Creak, creak, creak…..eight times. Then one time we heard just six creaks. We assumed she had started down and mid-way went back up. When she eventually came down we asked her why she had gone back up earlier and she denied doing that. Even though we knew she was not the type to joke we went to ask my parents and they confirmed that she had not left the room and had been watching TV with them till that moment. Eventually, almost every time, about 10 minutes before Jane came down those stairs we’d hear those six footsteps. One day, Sarah and I plucked up courage and decided that as soon as we heard the footsteps we would run into the hall and catch my sister in the act of playing a trick on us. The footsteps started, we dashed in the hall, they continued – six steps, but there was nobody there. You’re probably thinking all wood creaks a bit even when you’re not stepping on it. In fact we’d hear it give a little sometimes but this was different. There is no mistaking six steady footsteps coming down the stairs – a very different sound from the occasional creaking of settling wood. Besides it would have been quite a coincidence for the wood to creak six times consistently and always about 10 minutes before my sister actually came down those stairs. It was only later that we realized that probably what we were hearing was the creaking of the six original stairs. That poor boy was still going up and down those rickety stairs! He hadn’t noticed the eight, spanking new, steps we had put in! Incidentally, that was not the only time Sarah and I dashed into the hall to see what was coming down the stairs but we never saw anything; just creak, creak, creak….for six times!
Besides the footsteps on these wooden stairs, we also heard footsteps on the internal spiral staircase (called garigor in Maltese). Though the neighbors used this garigor to get to the archives they were not supposed to go up to our floor or on the roof (roofs in Malta are flat and can be accessed). Sometimes my dad would heard those footsteps going past our door, which we always kept locked. One day he waited till the footsteps were right outside the door and then he flung it open to catch the offender red handed but there was no one there. He went down to the very bottom and then up to the roof but he didn’t find anybody. This happened many times and he would go through the same routine but nothing human materialized. Friends and family from Malta who spent the night on the sofa bed in that room would many times remark in the morning that someone had been going up and down the “garigor” all night long.
My dad was always the last to go to bed. My mum, Jane and Rachael were the type who would get sleepy around ten o’clock and drop off the minute their head hit the pillow. My dad, Sarah and I were insomniacs. Sometimes my dad would not go to bed before one or two in the morning and it was his custom to come in our room before retiring and go from bed to bed giving us a kiss and tucking us in. Normally I would still be awake and Sarah also. One time I saw him coming in and as usual he went to Jane first as she was closest to the door, then to Rachael, then he crossed the room and bent over Sarah and lastly he bent over me, kissed me on the forehead and since I was awake whispered goodnight. As he straightened up he began to turn transparent, then he started shrinking till “he” was a bright, oval shape, about two feet high, floating over the space between my bed and Sarah’s. The window by my bed was wide open because it was summer and though it was dark outside it suddenly lit up and the oval form floated across my bed and flowed out into the light. I was petrified!! I pulled the sheet over my head and did not budge all night though I didn’t get much sleep. In the morning, though the experience was still very fresh in my mind, I began to question if perhaps it had not been just a very vivid dream. Then I noticed that Sarah, who was still asleep, also had the sheet over her head. It was obvious that something had sacred her. When she woke up I asked her if she had noticed something weird that night and she said yes and told me what she saw. It was exactly what I had seen except that “dad” had turned into a ball of light that froze over Rachael. She said she had seen that vision many times before but had been too scared to mention it to anybody. The ghost always stopped at Rachael’s bed, stared down at her for a long time and then turned into a ball of light. She never waited to see what happened next but would dig her head deep under her bed covers and not emerge till the light of day had crept through the window.
Most of these hauntings happened in the part of the house where the boy had been kept locked up. Though we were frightened, naturally, by these manifestations, we didn’t feel threatened; at least I didn’t. But the haunting that occurred in the other part of the house had a different character to it, a bit more menacing. This was probably the ghost of the maid who fell so tragically to her death.
One time we were going out and were waiting for my dad by the front door. On her finger, Rachael was wearing a pretty charm ring with a pink butterfly that she had found in a cereal box. She was very happy with it and was showing it off to us. As we were all looking at this ring it fell from her finger. We all saw it falling but it never landed. Just like the roach it seemed to vanish in mid air. Rachael was very upset that her ring had disappeared and was crying her heart out. Floors in Malta are marble or ceramic tiles, stuck together smooth as glass with no joints where this ring could have fallen. The furniture in that room was one large desk (Jane’s) and two smaller ones (Sarah’s and mine). It wasn’t under any of them. Jane’s desk went down to the floor and nothing could get under it and our desks were light and we lifted them up to make sure it wasn’t there. The only other furniture in the room was an armchair which we searched thoroughly even though the ring would have had to fly to get on it. It wasn’t under it either. We all searched our clothes to make sure it hadn’t got caught in a fold. But even while we were searching we knew we wouldn’t find the ring because we had seen it disappear before our very eyes. That ring was never found even in some other part of the property. So unlike the boy, who always returned our stuff, this ghost kept the ring for itself.
Another time, Sarah and I were reading on the sofa in the living room with our feet tucked under us. The sofa was arranged at an angle for the best view of the TV. Suddenly, without any warning, the sofa swung around about 30 degrees becoming parallel with the wall. We both swiveled around to look behind the sofa thinking Jane had pulled it back to scare us (even though it was not in her character to do something like that – but it was easier to believe that than the alternative). It was summer and the carpets were off so it was feasible to move a sofa on the polished floor. Still, this sofa was chunky and heavy and the way it pivoted, with my end remaining in the same spot and Sarah’s end swinging backwards, it would have been awkward for someone to pull it back toward themselves, much less to do it in one single movement – the sofa had swung around in a split second. But in any case, there was no one behind it or in the rest of the room. Sarah and I shot out of the sofa and ran to find Jane, still convinced it was her doing. We found her chatting with my mother who assured us Jane had been with her all along.
Sarah had an experience in the living room which I did not share. The room had a covered balcony with windows that opened out from hinges at the top. Hooks secured them at an angle of about 45 degrees. In the glass you could see a reflection of the room behind you. One time we were in the balcony looking out when Sarah saw, reflected in this glass, a bright blob of light, shaped like a small person, running across the room behind her but when she turned around she could not see it. Still, every time she looked in the glass there would be the shadow running across the room and smiling impishly at her. She saw this at various times while we lived there but nobody else ever saw it.
Our neighbors were very friendly to us and would often invite us to go to their house as their kids were about our own age. Many times we would go to their houses but these kids never came to our house. We would invite them but they always found some excuse not to come. We realized later that they knew about the ghosts and were too scared to come. However, one time we managed to persuade our next door neighbor, Carmen, to come stay with Sarah and me while my parents were out. Since dad must have quickly realized that the place was indeed haunted, he made it a point never to leave us kids in the house alone but that day, for some reason, he decided to risk it. Some friends of theirs who had a daughter the same age as Jane invited them over and they went, also taking Rachael with them. Sarah and I were thrilled that we would have the house to ourselves and that we had finally convinced Carmen to come over. Before my parents left, my dad made sure to give us their friends’ phone number, insisting that we call if we had the least problem. When they were gone, the three of us had a lot of fun playing cards and board games. Then we had the idea of playing hide and seek. While Carmen and I went to hide, Sarah was counting to ten, standing with her face to the wall right outside the front door, on the top landing. Carmen and I had just found a hiding place and Sarah was counting when suddenly there was pandemonium! An unbelievably loud noise was coming out of the staircase well. It sounded like a mixture of horrible screams and banging noises at a superhuman volume. It was so loud the whole house seemed permeated with it. I almost collided with Sarah as I dashed out of my hiding place and ran towards the landing thinking something horrible had happened to her. She came streaking into our study room, white as a sheet, her mouth wide open. If a scream was coming out of it I couldn’t hear it because the noise drowned it out. I banged the front door shut and then we all ran like maniacs to our bedroom which was the farthest room from that horrifying noise. Even at that distance the noise was deafening. Then suddenly, after about 10 minutes, it stopped, like a switch had been turned off. For a long time we lay huddled together in Jane’s bed where we had sought refuge after running away from that menacing noise. My parents had been gone less than an hour and I knew they’d be gone another hour for sure, perhaps more. Carmen was crying, wanting to go home. I had to call them but to get to the phone (we only had the one in dad’s office) we had to pass by the dreaded front door. Sarah absolutely would not budge at first but finally we persuaded her, after promising that we would go one behind the other and she would be in the middle. Luckily Carmen wanted to go last. I much preferred to face whatever might be waiting for us than have someone grab me from behind, so we were all in agreement as we set off! We were a sad sight as we made our slow, seemingly interminable way, to the other side of the property, Sarah grabbing me from behind like a vice with Carmen, no doubt, clinging to her just as tightly. That “journey” is stamped in my memory for ever but we finally made it and we called my dad. Hardly had I started telling him what had happened than he said they’d be over right away. He must have broken every speed limit that night because in no time at all we heard the street door open and they called out to us that they were home. Dad accompanied Carmen to her house and that was the last time she ever spoke to us or even acknowledged our existence.
Afterwards, Sarah told me that for her, the noise did not start suddenly. At first it seemed to her that a group of people had come in through the street door and then they started coming upstairs chatting and laughing. She stopped counting and leaned over the banisters thinking my parents had come back but she could not see anybody. The voices and laughter continued however with the laughter taking over and becoming more and more shrill and crazy sounding till it became ear splitting. By then of course she had run terrified inside.
It was not the last time we heard that noise. About six months later we were all watching TV when that unearthly shriek started up again. I have to admire my dad for his courage. He immediately went down those stairs, with that horrible noise swelling around him, to make sure nobody was down there. Though no one but us had the key to the front door he wanted to rule out foul play. Because the last time we heard the noise Sarah had heard people entering the property downstairs and coming up the stairs he was not sure if someone was playing a trick on us. Anybody living in the property downstairs could have gone to the second floor from the garigor and from there got out to the main staircase and put a radio or record player somewhere. But the door of the second floor was locked and everything seemed to be in place. He checked everywhere downstairs, even the internal yard. He had to use a flashlight as it was dark outside. He looked under the stairs and everywhere that someone could be hiding. The next day, early in the morning he called at the neighbors and was given a tour of both floors. There was not the remotest evidence of a radio or recorder or of speakers (if they even existed at that time) anywhere in either property or the 2nd floor. But my dad could not have heard that unearthly noise without being sure that search as he might he would never find “physical” evidence of its source. Besides, I have no doubt that every Gozitan in that town knew Carmen was going to take the plunge and visit our home that first time. Nobody would have played a trick on us on the day she came over, knowing they would be scaring one of their own to death. But even if they didn’t know she was coming, nobody would have been crazy enough to do such a thing to a high ranting official on the island, especially knowing he had four young girls.
In my opinion, what Sarah heard in that stairwell explains why the maid fell off the ladder. In those days maids were not supposed to be seen cleaning when the family had visitors. So when this maid heard people come in and start coming up the stairs she must have rushed to get off that ladder and make a quick get-away before they noticed her. Imagine the horror of these visitors and of the family when, as they’re lightheartedly going up the stairs, the maid suddenly plunges to her death right in front of their eyes. Their laughter turned to shouts and screams which doubtless mingled with that of the maid as she was falling. No wonder the noise we heard was so earsplitting. Not only were these people all screaming at once but the horror and pain they must have felt at this tragic occurrence must have left a huge imprint on the place. That imprint is probably what we were hearing. Of course I did not know the story of the maid at the time so it was only later that I came up with this theory.
It’s amazing how life goes on in spite of enduring a scary experience like that. We still lived in that property like nothing had happened. I don’t remember that we went around scared or even expecting that it would happen again. It did of course, two or three more times, and very time my dad would go down there, while the ear splitting noise went on and on and we shivered upstairs, scared to death.
When we went back to Malta our ghostly experiences were over. However when my father passed away, 40 years later, he gave me many signs that he was still around. Perhaps he was trying to tell me that ghosts do exist, after he was so insistent that they didn’t. But that’s another story…..!
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Haunted House in GozoTuesday, 02 March 2010 Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com
This is a true story written by one of the 'kids' who experienced the hauntings. To protect the identities of these people, names and locations have been...
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