‘I always feel silly about this bit‘ I told the vendor, ‘But full disclosure is full disclosure.  Even ghosts‘. The vendor was a young man, late twenties, and as well presented as my three bed detached house he was trying to sell.

‘Ghosts, eh?’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck, ‘one man’s ghost is another man’s creaky floor board you know‘

‘Quite true‘ I said, and I had to agree with him, ‘but you know how it is now.  They changed the law to protect the buyer and seller alike.  Anything you mention now, you can’t be sued for later; and we’ve already covered the physical, social and geographical sections‘

‘I know‘ he said, sighing. ‘I know‘

‘I should probably put down that creaky board too‘ I said, ‘just to be on the safe side‘

There had been something of a scandal in the property market of late, with lofty booms and deep depressions, accusations of misleading descriptions, dirty dealings, gazumping and gazundering, and legal actions taken to recover any and every misspent penny.  The inevitable outcome of course, was the full disclosure clause.  A catalogue of features, good and bad, compiled by the seller and presented to potential buyers.  A full service history for the home; every dripping tap, noisy neighbour and molehill went in to the report, and if necessary, an estimate on the cost of correction.  If you knew about something, but failed to log it, you could be, potentially, liable for hefty losses.

The vendor fell silent and rubbed his neck again.

‘I’m guessing by your silence that you have something else to disclose‘ I said.

He laughed dryly, as if choking on ash.  ‘It’s crazy‘ he said.  ‘How can I disclose the presence of something I don’t believe in?‘

‘Do you believe there is a presence?‘

He stared through me, his eyes glazed.

‘Just tell me what you know; we can let the buyer make up their own mind.’ I pulled out my notebook to record the details.

His face dropped.  ‘That’s what worries me‘

            It was a tidy little house, only one year old and with one careful owner. It sat in an ample sized plot, its garden commanded an uninterrupted view down the long valley and the ocean beyond.  A typical modern middle class home, it was of a unique design among its neighbours, and it was hard to imagine how a house of this standard would fail to find a buyer in the current market.

‘We bought it in a rush‘, the vendor explained, ‘with the baby on the way and the unexpected job transfer; we found ourselves moving back out west. Found this house as part of a new development and moved straight in, just one week before baby was due.‘

That was August, last year.  A real heat wave, I remember it all too well.  While I celebrated my promotion to Associate Member that night with altogether far too much alcohol and a skinny dip in the Tamar, the vendor had had a celebratory barbecue at his brand new home.

He took me outside to show me, and his tale unfurled.

‘We were out in the back garden‘ he said, ‘When I first thought something was up‘

‘Over there‘ he said, pointing to the neighbouring street that backed on to his land, ‘That’s Elms Walk now, but when we moved in, that was the edge of the wood‘

‘We were all out here drinking; having a laugh, scoffing Evie’s minted lamb burgers and caramelised bananas. It was a beautiful day, practically tropical.  It must have been about seven o’clock though, when the sun started to dip behind the trees, casting the garden in to shade, and at that same moment, the wind picked up.  The whole yard cooled down, and, this might just be the booze, but the shadows from the wood seemed to dance menacingly toward us, and creepily, and far faster than I would expect the sinking sun to cast.‘

‘I had hoped we get more sun in the back than we did, but I didn’t mind.’ He went on. ‘The setting sun was just an excuse to light the chiminea.  This was when Evie asked me to get her a blanket from indoors.’

‘I did as asked and went inside, everything was still in boxes, even some of the cupboards were still in flat-pack boxes and waiting to be unpacked and assembled.  The Nursery had become an unofficial laundry room while we got sorted, and as I pushed open the door to collect a fleece blanket, something rustled behind the boxes.  I only saw its shadow, but my best guess was a cat, or a small dog; I could hear it rustling the plastic bags as it tried to evade me.  It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption, the doors and windows had been open all day. Anything could have got inside; my only worry at the time was getting bitten by some rabies infected mog.’

‘And then I thought it was a bird because when I crept cautiously round the boxes and found nothing, and walked round around again.  I was certain, then there was a tap and the window, a flutter of wings and it was gone.  I thought no more of it as I picked up the blanket.’

When I got back outside, Evie was sat up on the bench, nursing her huge baby bump.  I was very protective of my wife and bump, and I didn’t care for the worried look on her face.

‘It got cold very quickly, she told me, as I wrapped the fleece around her shoulders.’

‘I asked her if the baby was ok, and she assured me that everything was fine, but that she’d felt something, like someone had been touching her tummy, stroking her, pressing down like an obstetrician might examine the baby.  She said that she must have imagined it, but that it felt so real with her eyes closed; when the shadow from the trees moved across her, she was sure someone was stood there’. 

‘That sent a right chill up my back,’ he said, ‘and Evie never really shook the feeling that someone was stood over her shoulder where ever she was in the house.  I wished I’d listened to her at the start.’

‘After the barbecue, we only had a week to try and sort the house, but so much of our stuff was still in storage that we just couldn’t feel at home; and the bare walls and polished floors made for a cold and empty feeling.  It was harder to settle in than we’d thought, especially after the weird dream I had that night, I had enough doubts about the house and moving without some haggard looking grey skinned witch with wiry green hair screaming “Idiot, you got the wrong house!” at me. I woke up with a scream, my vest soaking; I very nearly set off Evie’s labour.’ 

‘About a week after later, we were both in bed, and I’d made Evie a caffeine free coffee for a Sunday snuggle and snooze, but we both heard a noise.  We sat upright, and heard it again.  A high pitched, but stifled giggle, like an excited schoolgirl trying keep her cool as she met her idol.’

‘“She’s on her way” The same hushed voice called out. And in the next moment, Evie was gripping my arm.  Her waters had broken.  I won’t bore you with the slippery details, but twelve hours after that, we had a beautiful baby girl, and the creepy voice was right. And after that, things started to get weird.‘

            ‘Got weird?’ I said to the vendor, ‘as if the creepy voice and groping thing was normal?’

He led me back inside and up the stairs to the master bedroom.

‘We kept baby in here with us to begin with, for the first two weeks’ he explained, ‘but she was so unsettled, and it began to interfere with our sleep.  She would wake every three hours for a feed, which is normal, but we started to have weird dreams.  Both of us dreamed that she was in the bed with us, and we’d wake at the same time looking her under the sheets.  It was like we were having the same dream, at the same time, and it was only when one of us looked up to see her in her crib, that we realised that we’d been dreaming it, but it was hard to shake when it was so realistic, like something had been there with us in the bed.’

‘That is weird’ I said, ‘Spooky even’.

‘That’s not the worst of it‘ he went on.

‘One night I woke up in the small hours.  Evie was sat on the end of the bed, with her head slumped.  I asked if she was ok, but she shushed me. I went over to see what was wrong, and tapped her on the shoulder’.

‘She snarled at me, muttering that I’ll wake the baby, but the baby was in her crib, and I told her this.  Then she opened her eyes and saw her empty arms. “Where is she, where is she!” She almost screamed the house down’.

‘It’s all right, I told her, gripping her upper arms to steady her, though by now baby was screaming too, and ready for a real feed’.

‘It was after this I suggested that baby be moved to her own room. I’d hoped that things would get back to normal if at least one of us would get some sleep.  Evie took some convincing to let the baby sleep in another room, but she knew it was the right thing to do, and she wasn’t very far away, and we had the pressure matt, and the sensor, and the night vision camera streaming to our phones, which meant that we were effectively in the same room wherever we were’.

‘On the very first night in her own room, just as we had settled her in her cot and stood admiring her, Evie spun around, adamant that she had felt a breath on her neck.  I shrugged it all off at the time, but if truth be told, I felt it too, and not just the breath.  I also felt a nudge, like someone was pushing their way between us’.

‘As the baby grew older, a couple of months or so, she began taking an interest in the corner of the nursery, always that same corner.  I tried sitting with her facing the other way round so that she couldn’t see it, but that would agitate her, and she’d wriggle her way round, and I’d have to give in and face that wall anyway.  This went on for a few weeks, always the same corner, and if you can imagine, a two month old girl, laughing and smiling at a plain empty corner.  Even I had the creeps by now’.

           ‘ It could be my imagination, and it probably is in all fairness, but one night, she woke up all grumpy, needing a change and a feed.  Evie was doing her dead to the world thing, so I got up.   It would have been about five am, and she was cradled in my arm, glugging down the milk, and as normal, I was staring at those gorgeous big brown eyes. She smiled back at me, gargling cheerfully on the milk, but she wasn’t really looking at me, she was looking past me, and this is where my eyes must have been playing tricks, because there was something there, moving over my shoulder, reflected in her eye’.

            ‘I froze at first, and my skin tightened as the Goosebumps formed, forcing the hairs of my arms to stand on end.  Baby just chuckled though, and I had to force myself to find reason.  If someone was behind me, it was either Evie, or I had an intruder to deal with’. The vendor continued his story, and even I was starting to have goose bumps. ‘I turned to see an empty room.   I was beginning to agree with Evie, and that we weren’t alone here.  Baby eventually fell asleep and I placed her back in her cot, but I didn’t really want to leave her there on her own’.

            ‘I did go back to bed though, eventually, and snuggled up to the sleeping Evie, wanting to wake her, tell her what had happened, and if she’d seen or heard anything more, but I heard baby was awake again, although this time, she didn’t cry.  I was happy enough to listen to the monitor and leave her to laugh herself to sleep, but as she giggled and gurgled, I made out another, distinct voice in there’.

            ‘Evie, not as asleep as she’d made out, heard it too, and we both sat, bolt upright, at the same time.  We leapt out of bed and ran down the hall to the nursery, terrified by what we might see, but driven on by parental instinct.  I got there first and turned the light on.  Baby was alone and now sleeping again, quietly in her cot’.

            ‘Evie yelled at me, Now do you believe me! I did’.

            ‘I really did, but I didn’t want to believe her.  I’d heard it myself, seen things too, inexplicable things, but if I confessed to this, it would make it real somehow, and it can’t be. So, “It must have been the wind or something” I told her’.

            ‘She harrumphed at me, and we both crept back to our room.  I turned the monitor screen on, and angled it so that we could both see it, and the cot on the night vision screen where the baby was now sleeping soundly, and we listened to every blip…blip…blip of the pressure mat that vigilantly reported every breath and heartbeat, ready to alert us to any lack of movement’.

            ‘Evie turned her back to me, and I felt terrible for dismissing her fears. But we both loved the house, for all of its weirdness, and accepting it really was haunted would destroy that.  Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the screen‘.

            ‘Do you ever get that thing, where you’re looking at an everyday thing‘, he went on, ‘and it looks normal, but there is something different with it, but you can’t say what. Like when a colleague gets a haircut‘.

‘Well, we had neighbours living on either side of us now, and when a car drove up the road, the head lights would shine through the curtains and cast a shadow on the back wall of baby’s room that was clearly visible on the monitor.  By this time, the neighbours were up and leaving for work in the darkness of the winter morning, and each time a car passed the house, their headlights shone upon the wall the outline of branches from an enormous bare tree.  I’ll attribute my slow conclusion to my lack of sleep, but it did eventually dawn on me that there are no trees outside, and certainly not between the window and the road’. 

            ‘There was nothing outside that could cast anything even remotely similar to that shadow, and I didn’t just look out the window.  I investigated this properly, taking in to account the height of the window, the level of the road, the direction of traffic; I modeled exactly where a tree would have to be to cast a shadow on that wall’.

            ‘What’s more, I have the recording from that night, and the shadow is there.  I didn’t imagine it, it shouldn’t be there, but it is‘.

The Vendor was starting become agitated by his own story.  It was hard enough to imagine that someone would make this up, especially as it could affect the value of their home.  ‘Maybe it was a trick of the light‘ I said, trying not to over stimulate him further, ‘Maybe the tree was further away, down on the main road’

            ‘It really wasn’t‘ he said, ‘And if it was, that wouldn’t explain the leaves in the nursery.  Everyday we’d have to vacuum, but the windows were never open, how they blew in is a mystery‘

            He walked me back through to the nursery and we looked out the window, ‘See,’ he said, ‘these windows were never opened, Evie was terrified baby would fall out one day and it was better not to get in to bad habits.‘

            Outside, he was right, there were no trees, just shrubberies.  The whole wood had been cleared for the housing development, much to the protest of many conservationist and pressure groups at the time.  ‘Show me where the phantom tree would have been‘ I said, and he pointed out a recently disturbed flower bed.

            ‘Just there he said, I dug it up, found a bunch dead roots down there, but nothing of note’.

            ‘That’s where you thought the rabbit warren was isn’t it?‘ I said.

            ‘Yes, but as we discussed, the investigation found nothing down there, and no on-going concerns’ 

            ‘Yes, it’s all in the report, and there’s sign of pests. No sense going over old ground, is there anything else I should put in the disclosure?‘

            ‘That’s everything I can think of‘ he said.

            At that, we shook hands and I returned to the office to type up the brochure.

It was about a week later when, I received a visit from an interested buyer, and we spoke at length about this house, in particular, the spooky goings on.  I was worried this would put them off, but she was illuminated by the prospect and she went on to make a very generous offer, generous enough that I wanted to give the news to the Vendor in person, so I could see his face.

            We met in the Kings Arms pub next to my office and he beamed as I gave him the news.  Cash buyer, no chain, wants to move quickly.  It’s the best part of the job for me, seeing someone’s plans work out.

            ‘Who is she?”‘He asked me, taking a long celebratory sip of beer.

            ‘Didn’t like to pry‘ I said, ‘but she gave me her business card‘ and I slid it toward him. ‘It’s got a photo of her it’. His eye brow rose as he picked it up to inspect it closely.

            ‘Cornish Dryad Society?‘ He said, reading the words on the card beside the picture, ‘That’s the old woman from my dream!’

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