Ghost stories

Last night on a whim we went on another tour. This one was with Auld Reekie Tours and it was so freaking scary. I can’t remember a time when I’ve been that afraid. It started out like all the other tours we’ve been on with a bit of a walk around the Royal Mile talking about the usual throwing of the toilet bucket out the window and the nasty conditions. But then we also heard a story about a family of women who were tortured in the old Toll Booth Prison because the mother was accused of making a deal with the devil. Four daughters were tortured, raped, and eventually killed over the course of five months in front of the mother’s eyes. And by the time they were all dead, she could no longer speak so she was killed too since she was obviously possessed by the devil.

Then we went down into the vaults and lucky, or maybe unlucky for us, there was a trio of paranormal investigators on the tour with us. They were along on the tour to hear the background, get some stories, and then they were spending the night down there. From the moment we stepped onto the stairs, the three of them were hearing voices and feeling rushes of air around us.

The first room we went into was fine for me. The guide, Meg, told us about conditions for the people who would’ve lived down there and how gross it was. She described how you never knew if the person lying next to you was going to kill you in the night so they could sell your body to the medical school for a virtual fortune - 7 Pounds. The lady in the group of paranormal investigators distinctly felt someone stroking her hair in this room. And the guide told us of a little boy ghost who often pulls at women’s pant legs or puts his hand in theirs. They think he died down there, lost and alone, and is trying to find his mom.

Meg then showed us an area where a coven of witches practice Wiccan down there. But then we went into the vault where they used to practice – a room that they vacated and told the tour company to not take people because bad things would happen to them. Naturally the tours keep going into that room and they continue to tell the story of why the coven stopped using it because now it’s an even better story.

Before we walked into the room Meg told us to stick to the outside walls and not enter the stone circle in the centre of the room. The stones were there in the room when the coven decided to use the room and they arranged them into the circle because a circle is sacred to them, and safe. However, over time, they all started to feel odd every time they spent time in the room. They’d feel dizzy, have headaches and just feel uneasy until they walked back out the door. I believe it because as soon as I walked in there the air felt thick and it just seemed that there was something heavy about the atmosphere in the room. The women of the coven started to find things moved ever so slightly, and they began hearing scraping and scratching noises on the stones that couldn’t be explained away. And even worse, they’d go home and find scratches on their bodies – always three distinct, deep lines which could not be explained and none of them could remember feeling anything touch them. The head of the coven finally decided to spend a night in the vault to see just what was going on in there and who was harming the witches. He was alone and for the first while, nothing happened so he turned off his flashlight and settled in to sleep inside the circle. But that’s when the scraping started. It came closer and closer to the circle but it seemed like it couldn’t come in. He started chanting incantations and spells but that just seemed to make whatever it was angrier and until it started to climb the walls. But the story stops there…the man has never spoken of what happened that night to anyone. All they do know now is that whatever it was seems to now be in the circle and all too often, people who step over the stones go home to find those scratches on their bodies. They also seem to encounter terribly bad luck. And in one case a former guest called to see if the company does exorcisms because something had followed them home. No one walked into the circle from our group, but one of the paranormal guys said he was going to spend an hour, alone in that circle that night. Brandon heard scraping on the wall in there and no one but him, and the paranormal guy picked up on it.

Finally Meg took us to the doorway of a completely blackened vault. She began telling us the rules for entering that room and how the women stand on one side – the safe side – and the men on the other. She said that we had to be silent in there and that she had to be able to see us all so no bunching up in little groups. Cameras and phones could not be used in there and that even though there is a safety light installed in the room, it consistently goes out for no reason and sometimes even flashlights will flicker and just stop working. She also told us what to do if we felt that we needed to get out. I couldn’t go in. I spoke up and said there is no way I was going in that room. I felt an overwhelming sense of dread and absolute fear and would’ve actually preferred to just get out completely, but I stood in the doorway while everyone else went in. As it turns out, this is the room where a poltergeist lives. It’s rather malicious and it doesn’t like people in there at all. The safe side of the room is where less activity happens though women often feel someone stroking their hair. Men are often pushed over and roughly grabbed. There is a wooden door hung on one end of the room which falls off the hinges, once in the middle of a tour, and last night there were boards at the bottom that appeared to be broken as if something was trying to pull it apart. Meg explained that a poltergeist is a spirit that is not connected to a person, but rather seems to be the manifestation of extreme emotion or terror that happened in a specific place.

She then went on to tell us the story behind this room. There was a terrible fire in Edinburgh and down in the vaults, where people ran for safety, the smoke was suffocating. The men put all the women and children into this room because the ceiling was the highest and therefore there would be the most oxygen. They locked the doors from the inside and made the women promise to not open the door even though there would be desperate knocking and pleading by the men to come in. Now stone doesn’t burn, but it does get hot. They didn’t think of this and as the fire worsened, the room got hotter and hotter. The women made the horrible decision that rather than watch them slowly bake to death, it would be better to kiss their babies goodbye, slit their throats, and then slit their own as well. By the time the fire had burnt out and the men came in to get them, the flesh had all but melted off the bodies and the smell was indescribable. No wonder, with such unimaginable horror, there is a manifestation of such power and emotion in that room.

As I stood there in the door way listening to this story, thinking about how it would’ve been pitch black and so horrible, I got more and more afraid. My heart was pounding, my cheeks got hotter and hotter, I had my jaw clenched so tight that my teeth hurt when we left, and I spent the whole time praying for those women and children and saying I was sorry to whatever it was in there. I was so happy when Meg came out, Brandon gave me back his hand to squeeze tight, and we got to leave. I’m not entirely sure that I believe in ghosts or spirits, but I do know that I felt distinct evil in that place. I believe that extreme emotion can leave an imprint on a place or an object and I think that those vaults have seen more than their share of intense evil. I told Brandon that I will never ever go back down there and that if he takes our visitors on that tour, I made him promise repeatedly that he would not step into that circle. I think that the people that go down there and ask for things to happen to them are crazy. And I think by provoking whatever spirits that may be there, they’re bringing trouble to all the subsequent tours that go in there too. Whether you believe in it or not, there are some things you just should not mess with.

I can’t say that it was a fun time, but it was definitely an experience.

And as predicted, I couldn’t sleep last night. I woke up twice after dreaming of the things I felt down there and remembering the stories. And the only way I could get back into a fitful sleep was to say the Lord’s Prayer to myself over and over again. So, I went with Brandon to Glasgow today and while he was at his piping lesson, I went to the Cathedral. I spent about an hour there and for a little while I was completely alone in the huge sanctuary. It felt good to be in a holy place where there wasn’t any fear. And thankfully, I think I’ll sleep tonight.