Visitations

In Durham, N.C., there is an apartment complex called South Point apartments. We first moved in when I was eleven, as a temporary place to stay until our new house was finished being built. I was to share a room with my little brother for the next two months.

My brother and I always fought. I was pretty sensitive, and he would enjoy scaring me and playing tricks on me. The first night there we had already gotten into a fight and began to knock each other around. By accident he had pushed me a little too hard and I fell, hitting my head on the side of the door jamb. I was bleeding a little, but it was nothing serious. That night we went to bed early, both of us punished and tired

I fell into a light sleep, and my brother had been unable to sleep as well (I dont know any brother and sister who would have fun sharing a room with each other). I woke up because I thought I felt him messing with my hair. My hair was being brushed back off my forehead by a hand. I looked over at him, and he was simply staring. My hair was still being touched.

I turned over expecting to see my mom. Maybe I had been talking in my sleep or something as I had a tendency to do, so she was probably comforting me -- or so I thought.

At first I didn't see anything. Then looking up, I saw a face looking down at me. Whatever it was, its hair was held back, and I couldn't make out any details. I started to cry and the playing with my hair only got more intense, as if something was trying to comfort me intensely. My brother finally turned the light on, screaming.

There was nothing we could see, but I still felt like something was there. I began to cry, and we both spent the night in my parents room.

The next day we wandered around the complex, exploring and came upon a graveyard located on the grounds. My father asked at the office what it was, and we were told that it was an old slave graveyard. They weren't allowed to tear it down, so they had to built around it instead. We were told that there was also family buried there, and if we looked inside the small fence in the graveyard we would see the head stones. So we did, and we could. None of the writing was decipherable.

Neither my brother nor I ever saw anything again. One time after that I woke in the middle of the night, and I thought I felt something touching my head again, yet there was nothing there. When I turned on the light, my brother was fast asleep.

It sounds strange, and I still wonder what was there. I was never able to find out what it was. I am not so sure if I need to know anymore. I never felt anything else unusual inside the apartment the few months that we were there. Occasionally both my brother and I would get scared wandering around the back of the apartments at night. Even in the middle of June when we moved in, we would get cold and have goosebumps. But this could have been a child's imagination. However, whatever I saw that night was definitely not my imagination.

Well, there you have it. In many ways, it's sort of a touching story. Who was the visitor that approached M.N. in the night? A good question, and one that it seems she's content to leave unanswered. And indeed, sometimes that's best.