Free Haunted by Dorah L. Williams

though, we heard a loud crash and hurried into our room to find that the large portrait had fallen onto the floor. The nail I had used to hang the heavy frame was not strong enough and had dislodged from the wall. Why the fragile glass covering the portrait did not break upon impact was a mystery to us, but when I picked up the frame, I realized that it never would have fallen if I had used a larger nail. Perhaps the one that had materialized beneath me that day had been meant to help me after all.
    Although nothing unusual had occurred in our home for many months, I somehow sensed that the appearance of that large, rusty nail was the beginning of the end of the quiet period we had enjoyed. Thinking back, I realized that all the nightly disturbances we had experienced occurred within a ten-minute window of time, between 3:00 a.m. and 3:10 a.m. What better way to get our attention than by constantly awakening us in the middle of the night? We had been disturbed by smoke detectors, footsteps, strange appearances, and the melodies of the glass globes. It seemed that interrupting our sleep had been the main objective of those incidences.
    It did not make sense to me that there should be a long period when nothing unusual occurred, followed by a renewal of such activity. But whether the appearance of the nail had been an isolated occurrence or if things were going to begin anew would soon become clear.
    One evening, shortly after I had found the nail, I lit a tea candle in a decorative glass holder. The holder sat upon a small table beside an antique rocking chair in the living room, and the flicker of the candle light etched the image of the decorative glass against the nearby corner walls. We all thought the effect was pretty, especially Rosa, who delighted in watching it. The candle was small, and if left to burn, would have lasted only a short period of time. About an hour after lighting it and several hours before bed time, I blew out the flame. As a further precaution, I glanced into the holder before I went upstairs that night to ensure the candle had been completely extinguished.
    Late the next morning I folded laundry in the living room, occasionally glancing at the television, while Rosa finger-painted a colourful creation in the family room. When lunch time approached, I saw Kammie and Matt racing up to the front porch for their break from school. I picked up the last pair of socks, turned off the television, and went to the front door to greet them. Matt was very excited because he had brought home a Magic-Eye three-dimensional book from the library and was eager to show it to me.
    As I carried a platter of sandwiches from the kitchen to the dining room table, a bright light in the far corner of the living room caught my eye and I turned towards it. The candle holder was glowing brilliantly, and its images were dancing around the walls. All three children were in the family room, and Kammie and Matt had not been in the living room since they had come home for lunch. None of them would have lighted that candle anyway; they all knew they were not allowed to play with matches, which were kept in a high cupboard out of reach.
    I stood amid the piles of recently folded laundry and watched as the candle’s flame jumped about erratically inside its glass container. I knew the candle had not been burning since the evening before. Not only was it impossible for the small tea candle to have blazed for that long, but it had not been burning while I had folded clothes that morning only a few feet away. The fact that the candle had seemed to ignite by itself was disturbing enough, but the intensity of the flame it produced was really alarming. I blew out the candle, carried the holder into the kitchen, and doused the candle’s waxy remains in a cup of cold water to make certain it was no longer flammable. Then I threw it away.
    Kammie was with the dog out in the backyard and I was at the refrigerator getting some milk when I