The Faceless Phantom

I was eleven in the summer of 2001 when my family moved into our grandparent’s house, nestled in the heart of North Georgia’s Blue Ridge mountains. The sultry southern heat and thick humidity were a stark contrast to the mild summers I had grown accustomed to while living in Southeast Alaska. After retiring from her Coast Guard career, mom offered to help Granny care for Grandpa, who was in the final stages of advanced Parkinson’s disease. My nine-year-old sister Nikki and I spent our idle mornings pushing one another on the tire swing our uncle had strung up in the humungous weeping willow tree planted in the front yard. In the afternoons, we raced Granny’s golfcart around the lush lawn until our mom called us inside for dinner. It was an idyllic and carefree existence, until we encountered Mrs. Oglethorpe.

“Sounds like they’re finally asleep.” I whispered through clenched teeth.

“Yeah, I think so too.” agreed Nikki.

“Okay, I’ll crack open the door to check if the coast is clear, then we’ll go hangout with Granny.” I declared.

Our bedroom was positioned in the back of our grandparent’s ranch style home, connected to the kitchen through the laundry room. It was a short jaunt through the kitchen and down the hallway to our evening soiree in Granny’s room.

Nikki and I lay completely still in our shared full-size bed, eyes closed, slowly exhaling, and inhaling, determined to convince our parents we were fast asleep. We did not dare move until the crescendo of our stepfather’s snores and our mother’s labored breaths reverberated through the wall adjacent to our bedroom. Our nightly charade was soon to commence. Each night since we moved in, Nikki and I would sneak out of our room to spend the evening grazing on pan-seared chicken breast and flipping through National Enquirer magazines with Granny in her bedroom.

I tossed aside the handmade quilt Nikki and I were tucked in to, rose out of bed, and gingerly crept toward our bedroom door. I gently pushed the door ajar, careful to not let the creaking hinges give us away. The second door, which separated the laundry room from the kitchen was closed. The absence of light gleaming through the crack at the bottom was an assuring sign. No one was in the kitchen.

“I think we’re good, let’s go.” I instructed Nikki.

I slowly cracked open the laundry room door as Nikki untangled herself from the quilt then hastily tip toed across the room to join me. I took the lead as we each pushed open the door, ready to take the brunt of the punishment if we were to get caught by our parents. As the two of us prepared to slink through the kitchen, we were stopped in our tracks by the sight of an elderly woman in a white sleeveless nightgown standing at the stove. The lights were turned off; she was illuminated only by the light of the moon shining through the kitchen window.

"Granny?" I called out to the strange woman at the stove.

The woman wrenched her head around to look at Nikki and myself, it was in this moment I noticed she was entirely transparent. I searched her face for a trace of familiarity but was startled to find an empty space where her face should have been. My heart began to pound against my chest, I could feel the prickle of goosebumps making the hair on my arms stand straight up.

Fight or flight set in as I squeezed Nikki’s small arm and whispered anxiously,

“Run!”

We each bolted past the translucent old woman and dashed down the hall toward Granny’s room. The hallway seemed endless as we frantically sped to the closed bedroom door.

“Please don’t let her be in here,” I thought as I threw open Granny’s door.

I desperately wanted to believe that was our grandmother standing in front of the stove in the dark kitchen. We simply had not recognized her with the lights out, I assured myself.

We burst through the bedroom door and much to my dismay, there was Granny, sitting on her bed, nestled up with a bowl of Utz sourdough pretzels, the newest edition of National Enquirer in hand.

"Granny, there's a woman in the kitchen!" Nikki and I squawked in unison.

Granny barely glanced away from her magazine as she responded nonchalantly,

"Oh you girls saw her? Yes, that's Mrs. Oglethorpe, she used to live here, she died in the sunroom." She then promptly returned to reading her magazine.

“You mean you’ve seen her before?” I asked with astonishment. Nikki and I were frozen in place, unable to wrap our tender adolescent minds around what we had just experienced. Granny casually confirming our encounter with Mrs. Oglethorpe did nothing to ease our unsettled souls. Granny went on to inform us she had occasionally spotted Mrs. Oglethorpe meandering around the kitchen and relaxing on the sofa in the sunroom.

The fact that we had been unknowingly living in a haunted house did not sit well with Nikki or I. Neither of us were in the mood to hang out with Granny after our run in with Mrs. Oglethorpe. We were instructed to put the sighting out of our minds and focus on something else. Nikki and I were too shaken to sneak out of our room for any more evening get-togethers with Granny after that night.

Two decades have passed since our unexpected run in with Mrs. Oglethorpe and I have never been able to put her out of my mind. I cannot help but wonder if she purposely revealed herself to Nikki and me that evening as a way of deterring us from sneaking out of bed. Perhaps she knew what we were up to and wanted to let us know we were not as sneaky as we thought we were. Whatever the reason, neither of us can walk into a darkened empty room without slight apprehension and the haunting memory of a faceless phantom waiting for us.