When I was about nine or ten, my mother, my sister and I, lived in an older two story brick house. We rented the bottom half and an older lady lived upstairs. The older lady moved out after awhile, to live with her daughter, so my mother rented the top half of the house too, so that my sister and I could each have our own rooms. My sister got what was the "living room" area of the upstairs apartment (it had once been a bedroom, and I got the actual bedroom. It was really pretty with floral wallpaper and everything, very feminine. Across the room from the door, there was another door which lead into a very smallish room, with slanted ceilings (it was in the "gable" of the house) and a very small window. Off of this little room, was a very little door that entered into a part of the attic.
I was pretty excited about the prospect of having my own room once again (we'd lived in many many houses, and most of the time, I had my own room, I was pretty used to it). I even moved my desk in the little room, which for some reason I named "the nursery" even though I was older than that doll age and there was little physical evidence of the room ever being used as such. It was always extremely cold in there and after a month, I moved my desk back. I was also extremely uneasy about having that door open, and I would even prop things up against it, because sometimes, even though it had a pretty good latch, it would open by itself in the middle of the night.
Then, I specifically remember one night, I woke up and thought my mother was in the room. My bed was situated so the door to the nursery was at the foot of my bed. Standing in front of the door, at my feet, was an adult shape, but it was all shadows. I think that I covered my head and tried to go back to sleep. Another time, when I was sick, I woke up and the shape was back. I got the distinct impression that I had called out to my mom in my head, and the figure was answering the call. I sat up a little bit, to see if it was shadows from the window or something, but the figure remained. Then I let out a bloody scream for my mom and the figure rushed across the room to the door leading into the hall. It passed directly through the light coming off of the street, and it was definately a solid black or shrouded figure. I got the impression that it was a sad lady. I never told my mom because I didn't think that she would believe me. Then, after a few more months, my mom moved us back downstairs because she could no longer afford the rent for the upstairs. We moved again after another year.
There were some other strange things about this house. There were definate hollow spots in the walls and strange noises came from them sometimes. Also, the basement had several different rooms, including a coal room and this strange meat locker type room. I got the distinct impression of evil that came from that room. Also, once I thought I saw a big grinning face in the dark where that door was.
The strange thing about this, which makes me think that it wasn't just a nine-year-old's active imagination (ok, well, the face may have been), is that about two years ago, I was talking with my mom about ghosts and faces that you see out of the corner of your eye. I kept saying "Haven't you ever done that? Thought you saw someone?" and she kept saying "No, never." After I let the subject drop, she brought it up again. She said "Actually, remember the brick house on Shawano? Remember when you girls were sleeping in that upstairs part? I went up there one day when you were in school to pick up dirty towels and I was standing by your closet, looking out the window when I just got this funny feeling. Then I thought I saw a woman standing there looking at me, but when I turned my head she was gone. It was over by that little cold room in the front of the house. Remember that room?"
I had never told her about the incident and, while I was growing up, we had lived in about fifteen different houses, so there was no reason for her to just pick that house at random.