Mystery Monday: A Personal Experience.

One of the reasons I like mysteries is because on the odd occasion, I have also come across something that I cannot explain. These experiences range from strange occurrences, odd coincidences and occasionally supernatural touches. Now, before you cry ghost or loony, let me explain something. I am not the kind of person who cries ‘ALIEN!’ at the sight of bright lights in the sky. I am a scientist by heart, I like facts, I like all avenues of explanation to be explored. And, I like evidence.
Objective evidence.
It’s therefore that I recount a past experience to you with all the facts as they presented themselves to me and I’ll leave you to decide for yourself what it was that I experienced.
In August 2008 I traveled to Lancaster in Lancashire, England for a job interview. Because I had not been in the north a lot, I decided to make a day trip of it and traveled in early to the town to do some tourist like sight seeing. My first stop was Lancaster Castle and – if this sounds familiar, I should point out that I blogged about it in one of Aheila’s Drabble Days.
After some friendly “My grandfather shot at your grandfather during the Anglo Boer war” banter with the local tour guide, I managed to sweet talk my way into doing a tour of the dungeon for free (I was pretty broke at that stage and bartered for everything.) It was still in the UK’s tourist season so there were quite a lot of other foreigners on the tour. My karmic curse for not paying was that I ended up with the tour with the most uneducated children that I had encountered in a long time. They disrupted everything and irritated me to a point where I wanted to lock them up in the dungeon well and forget about them.
But, then I’m a fairly impatient person when it comes to other people’s genetics.
We traveled through the dungeon to three specific holding cells where they used to keep convicts who were particularly troublesome (like those children for instance). The cells were dark and damp and had been sealed up for quite a number of years until the 1970’s when they were rediscovered. Our guide was quite dry and bored about the concept of loosing three dungeons and blankly asked us if any would like to volunteer to step inside.
I was the first to say yes, seeing the dark deep dungeon as a welcome escape from the irritating children. Smiling at all the men whom had not shown my enthusiasm at going into the cell, I walked in and put myself in the darkest corner that I could find. Immediately, I felt a young child grab my pants, just by my knee, and jerk hard. Unable to believe that the tourist kids had followed me in, I turned to glare at the parents, only to find that all their kids were still outside the cell, quiet suddenly at the idea of being locked up in the dark. There was no way that they could’ve come in with me and run out without either me seeing them or them making a ruckus.
I was still alone in the cell, with my skin tingling where the hand had grabbed my pants.
I decided to say nothing, because I’m not the kind of person to cry wolf. I was still convinced that the kids had somehow managed to do this and resolved to find some way of getting even with them. (Like throwing them in said well…) One or two more volunteers joined me in the cell and the tour guide locked us up for a good three minutes. I kept expecting the kid to grab me again but nothing else happened and we were let out again, the dim light of the corridors strangely bright after the darkness of the holding cell.
We were about to walk away when the tour guide turned to us and said in his dry, droll tone:
“I should tell you something else about these cells…”
In a strange way, I knew what he was going to say immediately.
“I’m not a believer,” the tour guide had continued. “Which is why I always tell this after we’ve been here as I hate to put ideas into people’s minds. But, it has been reported that sometimes some people either sense the presence of a young boy here. One guide, who does not work here anymore, even once reported seeing him sitting in the cell when she opened it for her tour…”
I didn’t hear the rest, the sensation on my leg suddenly burning. I had felt, vividly, that a child had grabbed my leg. I had not been told of the child before hand, so my imagination could not make up wild stories based on suggestion.
The feeling had been real enough and my mind’s perception had classified it. A child had grabbed my leg, one I did not see – but one I had felt with me.
I am still not willing to cry ghost, but I know what I felt that day. Was I tired from traveling? Yes. Was my imagination in overdrive? Of course, it always is.
Did I know that people had seen the ghost of a child there before?
No.
So, I ask you – what was it that I had felt there? What do you think?