And now for a wee bit more weirdness...
The strangest thing happened last week. It all started out sort of innocently - just Chace and I having a conversation. On Tuesday night, we were at the pool swimming with the girls. Chace wanted to warm up, so he joined me in the jacuzzi. after a couple of minutes of silence, he said "Hey Mom - I just remembered something."
Chace began to tell me a story about how when we liven in the Renton House and he was really little - maybe 2 or 3 years old - he used to play with a little girl quite a bit. She had short red hair, pale skin and was about 4 years old. I asked if she had freckles, but he said no, her skin was "smooth and white". She wore a white and pink plaid dress and Mary Jane shoes that buttoned. He said she looked like she was from the 1950's.
He said that one day she put a videocassette in the VCR and pressed play. The movie was of him and our family at the grandparent's house. There were scenes of Chace and Grandpa E. riding the tractor, feeding the cows and hanging out by the catfish pond. There were also scenes of Chace and HK playing with a toy accordion. Chace said the screen went black and the movie stopped. He tried to eject the tape (yes, he was quite adept at working the VCR an an early age) but it wouldn't eject. He then pushed open the front flap of the VCR and saw that there was no tape in the machine.
What Chace didn't realize at the time of seeing that movie was that none of the events on the TV screen had happened yet. We wouldn't have gone to the Grandparents with Chace for at least another 6 months or so. But true to the movie he was shown, he rode the tractor, saw the catfish pond and cows, and played with a toy accordion.
He also told about one time where he was playing, and this little girl put a ladybug sticker on the window. Chace was putting his finger on the window, trying to pick up the sticker. HK came in and asked him what he was doing. When he told her he was trying to get the sticker, HK said "What sticker?" When Chace looked back, both the little girl and the sticker were gone.
He told me about another few things that happened - a couple of which I remember quite well. Things he said he saw and heard that nobody else saw or heard. Both incidents made no sense to any of us at the time. Not until Chace filled in some gaps.
I asked him why he never told me any of this before, and why he was telling me now. Chace just shrugged his shoulders and said "I don't know. I just didn't think to say anything until now."
Okay, so on Sunday we went to Doug and Anne's house for a late Easter/birthday celebration. I had been thinking about what Chace had told me at the pool on Tuesday about the little girl. The only person I could think of who could have possibly matched the description of a 1950's era redhead girl was Doug's sister Heather. She committed suicide in that house 3 or 4 months before we moved in. Heather was 50 years old. I briefly told Anne what Chace had told me that Tuesday, and we went up to the attic to look for photos.
After a few minutes, we found a photo of Heather at about age 7. I showed the photo to Chace and asked him if he recognized the girl. He said "Yeah, I know her."
I asked where he knew her from. Chace replied "From before - when we lived at the Renton house."
So I asked him how he knew her from the Renton house. He said "Mom, that's the girl I just told you about. She's the one I used to play with. She's the one who showed me the movie and put the ladybug sticker on the window."
