Pack your bags, it's almost time to go!

We had been doing everything the Reiki asked of us  The house felt so much calmer; safer as well.  It felt like a warm sunny spring day after a long and harsh winter.  It was as if everything was waking up after hibernating.  The attitude of everyone was improving as well. We were starting to feel more in control of our surroundings.   The screams of the crazy woman were less frequent.  When she did scream, they were different in tone and feel.  It was as if she was being to fade.

On the other side of the coin was the hat man.  He wasn't as affected by all the prep work we were doing for the Reiki's upcoming visit.  We could still hear him walking through the house.  Doors still open and shut on their own.  The smell of tobacco smoke could still be smelt at times.  His presence could still be felt but it was as if he was being patient with us.

Jennifer had taken to talking to him.  She would use a calming tone and was very careful; choosing her words wisely.  She made sure not to talk down to him or say anything she felt would antagonize him.

"We really don't mind you being here as long as you don't hurt anyone", she said to him on nearly a daily basis. "You're not trapped here and you're welcome to leave anytime you wish", she would add.

She explained to him we weren't to blame for why he was in our house.  "You know, it wasn't us that brought you here.  It wasn't our wish to harm you in any way or make you feel as if you're a prisoner here.  I know you were very angry about what happened, we were too, but it wasn't us.  We respect you would do anything to harm you.  We hope you understand.  We also don't want you to be angry or plot against those who put you here.  They were inexperienced and didn't know that their actions would cause you harm.  We ask that you hold no ill-will towards them and leave them in peace."  

In a stern yet motherly voice she told him, "You're welcome to stay on our land but when you leave the house, you cannot come back inside.  Regardless of who says you can, you cannot come inside.  I'm not trying to be mean, we have children and we want to make they're safe and feel safe."

I honesty feel that Jennifer talking to him saved us from further harm.  We knew that having Amy come into our home caused quite an upheaval with the dead.   It was as if there was chaos in front our house most of the time as we could feel the confusion among them.   I believe that by Jennifer talking to him, keeping him calm, helped us.  I feel that he respected her and may have took it upon himself to keep certain things at bay.  Even though I have nothing to prove that it certainly felt that way.

We continue our prep work as it had become a daily ritual of sorts.  Blessing, praying, burning the incense, etc.  All of it had now had become a habit; something that we would do without thinking. 

We were still waiting for a calm day but we live in the Midwest and calm days in early summer can be somewhat difficult to come by.  It seemed that every single day there was a threat of severe weather.

We had become hyper-sensitive to anything happening.  Paranoid thinking that everything negative was the result of some sort of paranormal activity.   The PTSD we had as a result of everything was  taking it's toll on us.

Jennifer and I had to be strong.  We needed to take charge and push through this even though we were exhausted.  Although we felt better, we still weren't a 100%.  This had truly kicked our asses.  We had to get up off the floor and fight.  We had to get ready for the battles and recovery ahead of us.   It was time to pack Etta's (the crazy woman) bags, roll up the Hat Man's bedding and tack up his horse because it was almost time for them to go.

We needed to do a better job at protecting ourselves from those who wanted to invade from the path of dead in front of house.  That scared me because who's to say that some dead person walking along that path wouldn't be more terrorizing than what we already had?  How do I stop that from happening?

We were so anxious to put this all behind us.  We just wanted our lives back and to be a normal family.  Little did me know that would be more difficult than what we thought.

The Reveal-Part Two

Amy said when she first got here, she came inside through the back and she could feel the presence of others as soon as she entered the mud room.  She walked through the house to get a feel of it and then straight through the front door.  As she was standing on the front porch, she could see a line of dead people walking back and forth in front of our house. She said there were hundreds of them.  While she's there, two black figures (not sure if she said shadow figures) just charged at her.  They were angry, aggressive, and wanted to hurt her.  They didn't want to necessarily be in the house but they did want to be on the property.  The figures were solid and very physical.  She said if someone were to get in their way, they could get hurt because these figures were quite capable of doing so.  Amy felt that they had some sort ties to the property; like a claim on it.  There had been times that we would hear tapping on our front windows and the storm door on the front door would shake.  She said that was them either trying to draw us out or  they wanted inside.

I mentioned to Amy that once I saw a man slowly walking, dragging a rifle by the barrel.  He was wearing a uniform of some sort.  Amy asked if I could tell what kind of uniform.  I told her it was a civil war era uniform but I couldn't tell if it was Union or Confederate.  She said that was interesting because she felt the figures who charged her had some sort of connection to the Civil War.

Amy said that when she went into the barn and looked out into the back pasture, she saw a man walking.  As he walked, he changed into different stages of his life until he finally got to the stage of his passing.  She said he died in the house of some sort of breathing problem and that the energy she saw was just residual.

Amy then told us about her time in the house.  As she walked inside she encountered a male who was very tall and wearing a cowboy hat.  She felt he was from the Western times.  Amy got the sense that he had done some terrible things in his life; murder, robbery, setting fires.  He was very aggressive and physical.  He didn't die on the property but had some sort of ties to our land, either directly or indirectly.  He was "pissed" because he felt that someone in the house, a living person, trapped him here.  He would stand in the back corner of the open bedroom where Jennifer and I slept.  He was trying to figure a way to get revenge on the person who he felt trapped him.  Amy told us he was watching us sleep and at times we could see him as some sort of shadow figure.  She also said that being in the room would be uncomfortable.

Steve told Amy that we had issues in that room and we shared with her the things that had happened to us.   Jennifer said the room made each of us uncomfortable and that one time we saw a shadow figure walk through the room.  She also told Amy that she would wake up with bruises on her upper arm, like someone was grabbing her and trying to drag her out of bed.  Jennifer also shared that one time someone picked her legs up by the ankles and violently slammed them down on the bed.  I told Amy that I had felt someone grab my ankles and pull me down off the end of the bed by about two feet.  I even told her about the time I heard the boot steps walk from the back of the house, past the open bedroom and into the living room.  Steve asked Amy if the guy could do that, and her response was "Yes...and it's going to get much worse."

Steve asked us to share with Amy about the time we brought in the paranormal team for help (see blog post "We Work With The Dead Files & We're Here to Help...Well Sort of.")  I will never forget the look on Amy's face as we told her about that experience and how we made the team cleanse our house.  She said they may have done a blotched cleansing that is what he feels trapped him.

She tells us she had a sketch done of the guy and when we saw it, I was shocked to see the same guy I saw on our property once before.  I immediately start talking about our horse we had to put down and that one evening I saw the same guy from the sketch standing next to where we buried her.  As I approached him, he said, "just paying my respects." and he walked through the fence and faded away.  Amy asked me if I could tell what he was wearing because she just saw him wearing some kind of robe; like a church choir robe.  I said that I thought it was a western style decorative poncho.

The Sketch of the Hat Man

This poncho is similar to the one I saw the Hat Man wearing.

Steve spoke about a man named William Wade who once owned the property.  His brother, David Wade, and two nephews, Newton and Samuel, served with the Quantrill's Raiders.  They were specifically in William "Bloody Bill" Anderson's unit.   We all looked on as Steve showed the pictures of the Wades' and a couple of Bloody Bill.  He describes the things that Anderson did and how he was killed.  He also told us that David survived the war but Newton and Samuel were both killed in action.  All of these men had likely stayed on our property as Clay County, MO was very supportive of Quantrill and his men.

Steve asked Amy is anyone in the picture looks familiar.  She pointed to David Wade and said the only one that sticks out is "this dude. But it could have been him", she said as she pointed to the picture of Anderson.  She also said that the two black figures that charged her could have been the other two (Newton and Samuel) but she couldn't say for certain.

Steve asks me to tell Amy about what happened to me when the paranormal team was here.  I told her about they called out to the dead.  I remember the shock on her face as she said, "You never command the dead, you only use that when you're commanding them to leave."  I told her about how I was picked up and thrown into the wall.

Steve asked Amy, "Is this something this guy could do?"

"Yes...that's something someone like this would do, torture and if he traps you somewhere else it will be worse than that."

So now we have a ruthless western era outlaw, David Wade or Bill Anderson, in our house. The feeling of helplessness rushes over me because I felt that even if I could see this guy, I couldn't take him.

I could tell that Jennifer was starting to get upset as she heard the news that the paranormal team might have trapped a sadistic manic in our home.  It felt like having a wild animal locked inside with us and it was capable of killing any of us at the drop of a hat.

Jennifer and I were already starting to feel emotionally drained.  We didn't expect to hear that someone who was so terrible in life was in our home with our girls.  I was scared before but now I was petrified. How was I going to protect my family?  How could I beat this thing?

I had hope that we had heard the worse but when Steve asked Amy, "I'm afraid to ask if you saw anything else, but did ya?"

I knew by the tone of how she said, "yea, I did." That we were about to hear something far more frightening and worse.

It would be something neither of us were prepared for or wanted to hear.