Haunted Objects: Stories of Ghosts on Your Shelf Read Online Free

so if it was her or the spirits that were already in the house when we moved in, I don’t know. The dresses went back into storage, and I haven’t heard anything more about them.”
    The little girls may have found something else to play with and perhaps they will someday be able to move on and find the kind of peace they once heard about in bedtime stories.
    For her part, Dodie can only hope that the darker, scarier things in the house never interfere with the sweet souls of two lost girls who had the bad luck to get caught in a closed room during a fire. While living in the house, she saw dark spirits appear on computer screens, shadows float throughout the bedroom, and heard her children wake up screaming at things only they could see. Of all of the spirits that made that house their home, the little girls never seemed to want to scare as much as play or make themselves known. They may even still be there, hoping someone else will fill the closets with pretty new clothes to wear. Dress-up can still be a young girl’s favorite game, even if she is no longer alive.

Some Things Are Better Left Dead
    Mary Ann and her husband were visiting an antiques shop not far from home one day when she spotted a faded pink parasol. It had a wooden handle and a tear in the material, with a yellow stain on one side of it. Mary Ann liked it, but the price tag said $60—far more than she wanted to spend.
    Two weeks later, while perusing a local thrift shop with one of her friends, Mary Ann found what seemed to be the exact pink parasol. It, too, was faded, had a wooden handle, and had a tear with a yellow stain. Amazed, Mary Ann looked it over to be certain it was the same parasol. She wasn’t going to leave it behind a second time, especially after she saw the price tag—just $5.
    As she drove home with her friend, she remarked about how strange it was that the same parasol would go from an antiques shop to a thrift shop in only a matter of weeks, and then be sold for substantially less than it was priced just a short time before.
    When she showed it to her husband, he agreed that it appeared to be the same parasol. They figured it was a stroke of good fortune that led Mary Ann to the parasol in the thrift shop. Perhaps, she thought, she was fated to own it.
    She placed the parasol against their brick fireplace, the perfect spot to display her new treasure. Then she and her husband and friend continued on with their day.
    Later, the three decided to go out for dinner. While they were upstairs changing their clothes, they heard a loud crash downstairs and ran to see what had happened.
    The fireplace screen had tumbled to the floor. The fireplace tools, which had been tucked inside the fireplace for the summer, were strewn over the floor, several feet away from the fireplace itself. The only thing left untouched was the pretty pink parasol.
    Mary Ann’s husband suggested maybe the cat caused the ruckus, but the animal was standing next to them, looking just as bewildered. It, too, had apparently been upstairs at the time of the crash.
    They scratched their heads and began to wonder about that parasol. Perhaps the reason it had shown up in a thrift store at such a low price was because it was haunted. Whoever had purchased it from the antiques shop must have taken it home, had their own strange incident, and immediately donated it.
    Mary Ann decided that was a good idea. She donated it back to the thrift shop—and the fireplace screen and tools never fell again.

The Belt That May Have Started It All
    Researching haunted objects involves noting how things can be altered when such an object is present. Something is drawn to or kept in place by the item. Watching the way a spirit interacts with an object tells you something about both of them.
    There are other times when a haunting is defined by something that is not there. In that case, the absence of an item that once proved to be a powerful symbol of someone’s life can cause an