I was noticing that the décor in the study was being moved. Pictures were shifting, furniture rearranged, the floor rug had transmogrified from a beautifully salubrious Persian Kashan, to what today could only be described as a Hardly Normal special!
I thought it must have been the contract cleaners, taking liberties. My efforts to be home during their visits were fruitless, scheduled cleaning changing at the last moment, my work commitments dictating last-minute, interstate trips. Ridiculous really. I left notes, seeking explanations, assurances, I withheld payments, and finally, I had taken the awkward step of changing cleaners.
But things continued to wander! I was becoming quite paranoid. I changed my work schedules, arranging to often work from home.
I tried approaching home surreptitiously, taking a different route, turning left along Crystal Street to achieve an unexpected arrival. To no avail. The desktop accoutrements had moved. I always had the stapler next to the hole punch, eight inches to the right of the keyboard. They were now on the left!
The changes were not happening in other rooms, just the front room, my study. And I noted that the changes could occur while I was actually in the house, between evening’s arrival and the following breakfast! I lived alone.
Mrs Google provided the contact details for a paranormal psychic. For half a gold brick, they installed motion-activated cameras, a recorder and an electromagnetic monitor, all connected remotely, via wi-fi to their van parked in the street. I was resigned to being temporarily decamped. A week later, the remaining half gold-brick changed hands, and they revealed an abnormality, recorded two nights earlier, suggesting something!
I went to the local library to undertake historical research on the building. I was a little startled to learn that the whole suburb was built over a reclaimed late, eighteenth-century graveyard. Jees, hang on. Nah, that’s going down ‘bullshit lane’.
I set up my stretcher, made arrangements to work from home for the week, bought in extra provisions, some malt whiskey, brie, biscotti and settled in, ahh … to do what?
It scared the crap out of me. Day Three. Two am. I don’t know what woke me up, maybe a sort of suspended face, leering, bodyless, dancing in the dark across the study. Rational thought evaporated. The decision to sell was settled the next morning, and I was signing the Real Estate contract by week’s end.