Like most pre-teen girls, I went to many slumber parties and hosted them, too. We loved to “play” with the Ouija Board. Back then it was just a game, but we did speak to spirits. Two girls would place their hands on the game piece while a third thought the question. The answers always rang true.

One time we asked, “Is there a spirit in this house?” The game piece slowly moved to ‘yes’ and all five of us screamed.

When we calmed down we asked the Board, “What is the spirit’s name?”

Again the game piece slowly moved. “G.” Those closest the Board shouted out the letter, like cheerleaders on the sidelines. “O.” The letters were scribbled on a notepad by one of us. The piece moved to the final letter, then rested still. “D.”

God was the spirit in the house. Even with the ghosts that still haunt that house, God is there, too. And my childhood house, still occupied by my father and his new wife, is haunted. We’ve heard bath water running upstairs when no one was up there. Noises, like cats chasing each other, in the attic. Noises that one can’t ever catch or explain away.

Now my own children are hosting slumber parties. “Tell us ghost stories, Mama!” they beg. And so we light candles and shut off all the lights. I tell them about a friend of my sister’s, who had psychic abilities and was often in touch with the spirit world. One night she dreamt of someone at her window. She awoke, and looked out into the snow-covered landscape of her backyard. Footprints in the snow approached her window and stopped beneath it, but no one was there. No steps led away. My children scream at the idea of it, alternately yelling “Don’t tell any more!” and “Then what happened?”

Ghost stories speak to us like nothing else in this world could. They send shivers down our spines and make us sit very still and listen in an empty house to noises that may not even be there.