Scary Stories 1

The Victorian Ladies

Did you work in Pine Ridge village? If so, you might've heard a lot about the two Victorian ladies that haunt the area by the creek. I've never seen them, but I learned through research at the local mission that the area that kids say the women hang around at used to be the old boarding school. It was surrounded by a tall fence with barbed wire at the top to dissuade runaways. It was also constantly guarded by armed soldiers.

The school burned down under mysterious circumstances in the late 1890s. No one knows where the old cemetery there went. One of the creepiest things about the reservation is that there are an amazing amount of unmarked graves and massacre sites.

To be honest, the East Coast wasn't as scary as the places of my childhood. The ghosts were more plentiful, but were generally less frightening and malevolent. When I visited certain plantations in VA, I'd see people working in the fields surrounding them often, but it wasn't scary as much as it was sad. A lot of the things I saw there felt like simple reflections of the past, as if it was the earth transmitting its memory rather than ghosties trying to make contact.

That's not to say that there were never any scary incidents. After visiting the oldest church in DC, something followed me home and made a ruckus. It slammed the front door and walked down the steps to the basement...and I was so convinced that it was a burglar that I called my boyfriend's dad to come investigate after I ran out the back door (he worked a couple miles away). He found nothing amiss and I thought that I'd never stop blushing.

Boston was pretty scary. When I visited family friends there, I stayed in a house that was built in the early 19th century. My bedroom was on the top floor, and each night, three women wearing long dresses would come and stand alongside my bed. They held hands and glowered down at me for hours. There was also an incessant whispering in the house. I'd hear it immediately after one of my friends would say something, as though a group of people were commenting on what was said. I'd listen to them talk about me whenever I was alone in the house, and the things they said made my hair stand on end. It was so creepy that I cut my trip short and went back to DC a couple days early.