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Visit from a friend: a ghost story

We moved to Tennessee in 1975, when I was 12, and one of the first girls I met was Wanda. We had most of our classes together and talked on the phone fairly regularly.  She was sort of shy, and I guess we came together because I was sort of shy too. She was also an absolute brain, and it's always good to have an intelligent friend.

 

One summer night in 1976 I went to bed a little later than usual. I'd probably stayed up late reading, as I was prone to do, but I also had things on my mind.  I hadn't talked to Wanda in about a week, but for some reason she kept running through my thoughts, and I just found it difficult to drift off. I finally fell asleep thinking I would call her the next day.

 

I awakened later in the night feeling panicked. Not sure what had roused me, I turned over and looked toward the bathroom door, and what I saw frightened me to the point that I quickly jerked the covers over my head. In the doorway was Wanda, dressed in an over-sized football jersey, and she was looking at me with the strangest expression on her face -- more confused then scared. But what frightened me most were her eyes. Where I should have seen her pupils, I saw flames.

 

While I was cowering under the covers, I kept telling myself that it was only a dream. I just knew that I had awakened before the nightmare was over. Finally convinced that I was fully awake, I slowly lowered the covers. Wanda was still standing there, and she still had that strange look on her face. But then she quickly turned to look behind her, looked back at me as if to say she was sorry, and then she turned and disappeared. I was completely unnerved, and it was hours before I could go back to sleep.

 

The next morning, my mom woke me up with the news that I had a phone call. I stumbled sleepily to the phone, but I was soon wide awake. Angela, a mutual friend, was calling to tell me that Wanda had been killed during the night. Her home had caught fire while she was sleeping upstairs. The volunteer firefighters were on the scene quickly, and they put a ladder up to her window. She came to the window, looked at her parents on the ground, and then turned to look behind her. She looked back at her parents one last time, and then turned to go back into her room. They found her later wrapped in the arms of her brother. They think that she had heard him and went back to get him. I was afraid to ask what Wanda had been wearing when she died. I had already heard too much.

 

I don't know why Wanda came to me that night. I don't know if she was saying goodbye or what. Maybe she had been thinking of me just as I had been of her, and so we had a psychic connection. Whatever it was caused me many sleepless nights that summer.