All My Life

I have been reading stories on Castle of Spirits for a long time and have decided to submit my experiences.

As long as I can remember I have always had experiences with the "unknown". Before my Father met my Mom he was a professional Black & White photographer. One subject that he liked a lot was an old broken-down hotel called the Blythewood that is located up in the Catskill Mountains in NY state.

He had many portfolios of the house, the inside and outside. Many of the pictures hang in our house today. It is said that the land that the hotel is built on it a portal to another dimension and that spirits surround the house and the land. My Father has had many experiences with them, far too in depth for me to recount on this site but none-the-less true. He has always told me that the spirits will follow the pictures or any pieces that you take from the hotel, which we have many... nails, pieces of wood and pieces of the toilets. This is one experience that I have had with them, or what I think is them.

When I was 6 we moved into a very old house. One night my Father and Mother were cleaning out his darkroom where he keeps his portfolios. When my parents met my Father made a portfolio of my Mom's favorite pictures from the hotel. While they were cleaning they got into an argument and in anger he threw the last portfolio into the cabinet. This portfolio happened to by my Mom's. A little while later they were looking for her portfolio and it was gone! I remember them cleaning out the whole darkroom searching for it but it was no where to be found.

When I was 13 we moved into a new home. We had packed and moved just about the whole house except for the darkroom. My parents went over to the old house and loaded all the portfolios into their cars, counting them carefully to make sure that they hadn't left anything and there was still no sign of my Mom's portfolio. When my parents arrived at the new house my sister and I went outside to help them carry the portfolios out of the trunk and into the basement. My Mom stayed at the trunk and loaded everyone up with a stack of portfolios. Mom loaded my father up first, then me, then my sister with the last ones. She went to close the trunk and looked inside to find one last portfolio. Puzzled she picked it up. It was her's!!! The label had her name and "The Blythewood" printed clearly on it. We all came running back to the car when we heard her yelling for my Dad. How that portfolio appeared in the trunk, we don't know. My parents checked every portfolio label before putting them in the trunk. It didn't go in but it sure came out!