A Child's Ghost Story

Sometimes a story coming from a child bears greater weight than if it came from a college professor. Something about the pure simplicity and innocence of a child’s story lends it gravity. Sure, kids can fabricate from whole cloth, but this is almost immediately identifiable. A child generally doesn’t have the language skills and sophistication to fictionalize convincingly, which makes a non-fictional story from them all the more convincing.

We were riding home from a vacation a couple of years ago, passing the time telling ghost stories. My daughter, who was then about 8 years old began telling us of something that I at first took to be a dream, even though she insisted it wasn’t. She proceeded to tell the story, which, although I remember it clearly, I still managed to file away as a sort of half remembered dream. Fast forward a couple of years. Under similar circumstances – another long car trip – the subject came up again. If you ever want to really fact check a child’s story, ask them to retell it a few years later. She recounted the incident to us, almost verbatim, and I confess to a slight chill running through me. Here it is, my best attempt to tell it in her now 12 year old voice, with my questions interjected:

“You know how you are when you’re just about to fall asleep, not really awake, but not really asleep? I was in my old bed at mom’s house which looks right straight out at the hallway where the fish tank used to be. There was a little girl standing there. I wasn’t afraid, but I knew that I was no longer asleep at all, and actually leaned up on my elbows. She was about 7 or 8 years old, long blonde hair, but the ends were curly. She had a dress or nightgown on. I couldn’t tell which. It was either a frilly nightgown or an old style dress. She was standing looking at the wall.”

“Could you see her face?”

“Oh, yeah. I could see everything about her. It was like she had her own light. It wasn’t like she was glowing, but not really. It was like she was in light, but there was no light there. It was dark in the hall. And it wasn’t like she was glowing, because she wasn’t giving off any light on anything around her. She looked confused, like she was lost. She had a blanket or something like it in her hand, hanging over her arm and it looked like she was trying to figure out which way to go.”

“Did she move?”

“Yeah, she turned and looked at me!”

“You’re kidding!?”

“She looked right at me, we looked at each other, and she was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her.”

“And you weren’t afraid.”

“Unhuh. Not even after.”

“What do you mean after? What happened next?” (I was totally enthralled at this point.)

“She took a couple of steps towards me. It wasn’t like she was walking on the floor, though. Not like she was gliding, but walking, but it was like her feet weren’t where the floor was.” (I remember the chill I felt when she said this).

“Did she approach you?”

“Just a little, but then she just wasn’t there. Not like she faded, or vanished or anything. Not like anything I can explain. She just wasn’t there anymore. The hall was dark and empty, but I don’t remember her going away or anything. Just not there.”


I drove for a while after hearing this story a second time imaging it, trying to put myself in the scene, imagining my daughter laying there in some sort of communication with a girl about her age. Perhaps that’s why she saw her. My dad instinct kicked in and I felt a pang of concern for this little girl, lost, with her blanket. Perhaps she was looking for her daddy.

Later.