We had an outdoor barbecue and invited a few friends over including some whom we hadn’t seen in a long while. The beer flowed free as did the conversation and the food turned out excellent thanks to some “secret” recipes shared by my sister. It went on till pretty late and when it was finally wind-up time almost at midnight a couple of our friends, including an old friend Liz, were a bit worse for wear and we invited them to spend the night and leave the next day.

I offered Liz the spare bedroom and a spare set of pajamas to sleep in while a couple of my husband’s friends settled down on the sofa downstairs and everyone turned in for the night. I must have dozed off almost immediately but after about an hour or so, I (and everyone on the premises) was awakened by a series of loud ear-piercing shrieks. After the initial dazed confusion we realized it was coming from Liz’s room and dashed there, fully expecting her to be in the process of being murdered because that’s what it sounded like.

Then the figure vanished. That was when she had started screaming.

Everyone tactfully dismissed the incident as an outcome of too much drink and Liz was trundled into our bed to sleep next to me for the rest of the night while my husband went downstairs to his sofa buddies. But I wonder – our aunt Emily passed away in our house in that same spare room a few years ago – could Liz have seen her ghost? When I float this idea to my husband he laughs and says, “Nonsense, it was just bad digestion from those undercooked sausages!” But I still wonder…