It was 13 years ago, in the quiet foothills of Litchfield, Connecticut—a rural town with a reputation, known for its old wealth, sprawling estates, and the occasional Hollywood star who would tuck themselves away in seclusion. Nestled in this serene backdrop, I found myself living in a modest apartment, surrounded by neighbors whose lives and stories mingled with the history of the area. It was peaceful, an unexpected retreat from the more chaotic chapters of my life.
The building was older, a relic of the 1960s, with brick facades that had withstood decades of change. It had its charm—simple yet comforting. I settled into this new home with ease, quickly making acquaintances, including an elderly woman who lived directly below me. Let’s call her Mildred. She was kind, offering me a bouquet of wildflowers that she picked herself on my first day there. Our conversations became a ritual for whenever I headed out for the day, a quiet companionship that grew as time passed.
Litchfield, though tranquil, was not destined to be my permanent home. A job offer unexpectedly had come, one that would take me back to Hartford—too far a commute to maintain my life in those hills. And so, after six months of living an idealic Connecticut lifestyle, I prepared to leave.
The night before my move, I cleaned my apartment thoroughly. It was late, nearly 3 a.m., when I finally lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. But something was off—something was there.
At first, it was a feeling—a shift in the atmosphere. The air thickened, charged with an energy I couldn’t explain. My ears started to ring. Someone—something—was in the room with me. Instinctively, I looked around, half-expecting to find a figure lurking in the shadows. But there was no one, not visibly at least.
The sensation didn’t pass. If anything, it grew more intense, more hostile. The anger in the air was real, as though I had somehow intruded upon someone's peace. My limbs became heavy and it was difficult to move my body. I knew I wasn't alone. I shut my eyes, but in the darkness of my mind's eye, I saw it. Kneeling beside my bed was a dark figure— I could tell it was female... thin-framed, with short, spikey, feathered hair and very large, glowing red eyes. Her grotesquely long hands clawed away at my chest and belly, her movements filled with rage, though I felt no physical pain. The anger she radiated wasn’t just that of a passing entity; it was deep, personal, and aimed directly at me.
I opened my eyes. Nothing. The room was empty. But when I closed them again, there she was, unmoved, relentless. I struggled to control my fear and was paralyzed—unable to move or escape, but I could still speak. Again, I opened my eyes and began to pray with the words of the Hail Mary spilling from my lips. The oppressive weight immediately lifted off of my body. I remained still for a moment. Then I sensed that it wasn't anger that this entity was feeling, but grief! Then I sensed that she was very sad because I was moving. I nodded in acknowledgement and explained to her outloud that I didn't want to leave, but had to because I accepted a job far away. It was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up because it paid well and my savings were nearly depleted. The entity understood and left. I finally was alone and quickly fell asleep, exhausted.
I hadn’t been deeply involved in magic or spiritual work at this point of my life beyond dabbling with Tarot cards. My psychic abilities were latent and repressed, and experiences had always come to me in fragments— unexpected premonitions, dreams, glimpses of things yet to come—but nothing like this. Nothing that reached out and made itself known in such a visceral way.
When I awoke, the sun had barely risen. The movers were due to arrive shortly, but something caught my attention—the bathroom door. I had closed it tight before bed to block the smell of bleach after cleaning. Now, it stood wide open, as if someone—or something—had deliberately flung it open. It was no mystery who.
I continued about my morning and prepared for the move. The movers arrived and quickly cleared out my apartment, loaded their truck, and headed to my new place. As I was leaving the building, I felt compelled to say goodbye to Mildred. I knocked on her door, and when she answered, I froze. Her features—the sharpness of her face, the shape of her body, the feathery haircut—it was her! The figure from last night, the one who had clawed at me in grief and rage, looked exactly like her.
Mildred was alive, flesh and blood, standing right in front of me, but there was no mistaking the resemblance. She looked at me with sorrow in her eyes and said, “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Her voice trembled, echoing the grief I had felt from the entity the night before. We said our goodbyes, exchanged a tearful hug, and I left, unsettled by the inexplicable connection between her and the entity that had visited me.
Days passed, and the experience haunted me. I reached out to others, asking if they had ever heard of something like this—a ghost, a spirit, not of the dead but of a living person. Theories were thrown at me—doppelgängers, astral projections—but nothing felt quite right. Mildred was alive, and yet something tied to her had visited me that night, filled with grief over me leaving.
It wasn’t until years later, after I had started to embrace my psychic abilities and delved deeper into the mysteries of the spirit world, that I found an explanation. A trusted psychic medium, gifted in ways I hadn’t fully understood at the time, gave me the missing piece. The entity, she said, wasn’t Mildred herself but something attached to her. It saw that she liked me and so it liked me, too. When it realized I was leaving, it lashed out in grief for Mildred, mirroring the emotions Mildred would soon feel. This made perfect sense to me. As for its uncanny resemblence to Mildred, I figured this parasitic spirit had simply taken on her form like water in a vessel.
The encounter still lingers in my memory, a reminder that not all spirits are of the dead. Some walk among us, hidden in plain sight, waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves. And sometimes, they’re closer than we ever realize.
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