Who among us, even the rankest of existentialists, does not occasionally ponder the supernatural? While I have had plenty of experiences that seemed ghostly, most have had an explanation that stands up to daylight scrutiny.

Scene: I have just finished watching some TV show about Dracula. I am eight years old and scared to go to bed, thinking of the dreaded nausferatu with their flowing gowns, flowing hair, and bloody teeth.  The situation is made even more interesting by the fact that the mother of all thunderstorms is brewing. I go to bed, and eventually fall asleep, until a huge crash of thunder wakes me up. The flash of lightning reveals a figure in my doorway, wearing a long white gown, with hair flowing down to its waist. I scream, “Mina! Lucy?” and dive under the covers. A moment later I learn that this vision of undead-ness is actually my mother, come to see if I am frightened by the storm.

My aunt Helen, the self-proclaimed benevolent witch, loved to scare us kids when we would come over. She would set up cots for us in her living room and sit in a rocking chair underneath her mantel. Over her head there appeared this interesting message in cross stitch, which provided raw material for some lively dreams:

              From ghoulies and ghosties

              And long-leggedy beasties

              And things that go bump in the night,

              Good Lord deliver us.

Then she would read us a story. One I recall most vividly was called “The Screaming Skull.” I found a copy of this story some thirty years later and was amazed to learn that the scariest parts—the ones that sent us kids into near fits—were not in the manuscript. Apparently, the bigger our eyes got the more she adlibbed. And of course I know now that the bumps and crashes that happened after she had gone to bed were quite human in origin.

But what about those few that I can’t explain? My father talked of hearing my grandmother’s typewriter late at night in the months following her death. Twice during my childhood, when I was the only one awake in the house, I was quite convinced that I heard a typewriter. Even now I have no idea what else it might have been.

And so, I still wonder: are the dead quite gone? If they aren’t, why don’t they just come out of the shadows and say hello?