It is difficult to say exactly at what point fear begins, when the causes of that fear are not plainly before the eyes. They key to character that other people seek in the eyes, the mouth, the modeling of the skull, Mrs. Winchester found in the curve of the nails, the cut of the finger tips, the way the palm, rosy or swallow, smooth or seamed, swells up from its base. As a rule, after people die, things are tidied up, furniture is sold, remembrances are dispatched to other family members. However, Mrs. Winchester had managed to keep much of her mansion the same. I was not in the mood for noting details; but in the faint dabble of moving candle light I was half aware of bedraggled cushions, odds and ends of copper pots, and a jar holding a faded branch of some late-flowering shrub. A white figure flitted spectrally to the chimney piece, it lit two more candles, and set down the third one on a table. I had not had time to realize it was an apparition until Mrs. Winchester said, “Three candles—have you ever seen that sort of thing? I have got beyond all that you know,” she chuckled. “This house is built by spirits, after all. It really is such a sense of freedom. Come and sit down by me,” she entreated, sinking to a sofa. “It has been such an age since I have seen a living being.” Her choice of terms was not very mysterious, but I have the urge to turn and run. However, with her radiant face, hovering there in the candlelight, with her bashful red cheeks, the colour of varnished apples and her honey golden brown eyes swimming in vague kindliness, seemed to appeal to me against my cowardice, to remind me that, dead or alive, Sarah L. Winchester would never harm a flower. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

“Do sit down!” she repeated, and I took the other corner of the sofa. “It is so wonderfully good for you to come. It is an event—quite an event! I have had so few visitors since my death, you see.” Another bone chilling blast of cold air ran over me; but I looked at her resolutely, and again the innocence of her face disarmed me. I cleared my throat and spoke—with a huge panting effort, as if I had been heaving up a gravestone. “You live here alone?” I brought out. “Ah, I am glad to hear your voice—I still remember voices, though I hear so few,” she said dreamily. “Yes—I live here alone. The woman you saw goes away at night. She will not stay after dark…she used to work here when she was alive. However, it does not matter; I like the darkness.” Mrs. Winchester learned to me with one of her irrelevant smiles. “The dead,” she said, “naturally get used to it.” She stood up and fluttered across the room, wavering nearer and nearer to the door. “Do you know this place by daylight?” she asked abruptly. I shook my head. “It is very beautiful. The house is sprawling and in the gardens there are nearly 12,000 boxwood hedge, and some 1,500 plants, shrubs, and tree. It is really is the showplace of the Santa Clara Valley. There are over 10,00 windows which allow the sun to come flooding in lighting almost every square inch of the mansion. However, you will not see me in the day. The light—it makes my head ache. And so I sleep all day. Do you know where I usually sleep? I like the Daisy Bedroom. There is a shady corner down at the bottom where the sun never bothers one. Sometimes I sleep until the stars come out.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

Her eyes were still fixed on me, and I saw two tears gather in their corners and run down over the red glistening circles on her cheeks. “You are not going, are you? You must not. I am too lonely.” I stammered something inarticulate, my eyes on the blue-nailed hand that grasped at the latch to the door. Suddenly, the door-to-nowhere crashed open, and a gust of wind, surging in out of the blackness, extinguished the candle on the nearest chimney corner. I glanced back nervously to see if the other candles were going out too. “You do not like the noise of the wind? I do. It is all I have to talk to. People do not like me much since I have been dead. Queer, is it not? The peasants are so superstitious.” She fell in love with the song of the wind, with the rich colours that pulsed all around her, with the rich colours that pulsed all around her in the flowers and drowsy palm trees of the mansion’s gardens. For many years she had been the dupe of superstition. The World had seemed a grim and unchangeable place to her, full of foolishness and ghoulishness, misery and injustice. She knew with an aching heart what young Annie had suffered and her husband William. Her World was poised for destruction if old secrets and old horrors were not confronted and examined by those who knew the stories from the earliest nights? Mrs. Winchester was slowly building a realm for herself with wealth and love. The wealth was easy to acquire, so easy in fact that she donated much to the people in her village, and was able to keep up construction on her mansion day and night for many years. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

In the Winchester mansion, the libraries were full of poetry, histories, and the philosophies of cultures unknown to the World. I ought to have shut the door when the first gust came. I might have known there would soon be another, fiercer one. It came now, slamming the door shut, filling the room with the noise of the mountains and with swirls of fog, and dashing another candle to the floor. The light went out, and I stood there—we stood there—lost to each other in the roaring coiling darkness. My heart seemed to stop beating; I had to fetch up my breath with great heaves that covered me with sweat. The door—the door—well, I knew I had been facing it when the candle went. Something white and wraithlike seemed to melt and crumple up before me in the night, and avoiding the spot where it had sunk away I stumbled around it in a wide circle, got the latch in my hand, caught my foot in a scarf or sleeve, trailing loose and invisible, and freed myself with a jerk from this last obstacle. I had the doors open now. As I got into the hall I heard a whimper from the blackness behind me; but I scrambled on to the hall door, dragged it open and bolted out into the night. I slammed the door on that pitiful low whimper, and the fog and wind enveloped me in healing arms. The months had passed. The house became a home. I was gratified to be able to fulfill Mrs. Winchester’s dream of having the land restored to the Winchester family. As time wore on, I grew to love the mansion, to feel that I belonged within its walls. However, items would go missing or get misplaced. You might set your coffee on the table, then go to get something in another room, come back, and discover that your cup had been moved to the draining board. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

The trifling anomalies were to give way to more ominous. I prepared to go back down the stairs. However, before I reached the bottom, the door had swung shut again, all by itself. I hesitated on the stair. I heard something. I felt something, too; it caused the blood to drain from my face. It was not my imagination—heavy footsteps were slowly crossing the hall, in the direction of the stairs. I went into a bedroom and closed the door. Yet, through the closed door I could hear the unseen intruder mounting the stairs, so loud were the footfalls. They were the steps of a heavily built man wearing boots. You could hear the stairs shake with every step he took. The footsteps continued to climb the stairs. I put my ear to the door and listened, hardly knowing what was louder, the thudding of my own heart or the lumbering tread of the phantom boots. At the top of the stairs, they halted. Moments later, they crossed the landing. I caught my breath. My terror was supplanted by the overriding urge to see what was coming. I unlocked the door. However, the landing was deserted, nor was there any sound from any of the other rooms. The house was silent. Whatever had intruded seemed to have left us in peace, if only for the time being. There was an evil presence in this house. Then there was a low whimper followed by moaning. I knew it was not the wind. The moaning grew steadily louder and higher in pitch. There could be no doubt—it was the wailing of a grief-stricken persons. The siege of the Winchester Mansion—the screaming and wailing, the urgent rapping on the windows and doors—continued all through the night. The wailing in particular alerted me to the possibility that it might be a banshee. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

The banshee is a female spirit who attaches herself to families. Her wailing is said to presage the death of a member of the family. Irish mythology paints the bean si, or “fairy woman,” as a beautiful creature with long, flowing hair and eyes reddened from weeping. She is variably dressed in a green or white gown. However, although many claim to have heard her, actual sightings of the elusive creature are rare. The legend runs that she anticipates the violent death of a family member by appearing to wash his blood-stained grave clothes in a river or stream. I only half believed the legend. However, the horrendous events of the night had convinced me that paranormal forces were arrayed against the Winchester family. If they are real, why not the banshee as well? Tuckered out, I fell asleep. Only to be awakened again after a minute or two by a noise that made my flesh crawl. It was the unmistakable sound of the door-to-nowhere opening. I lit a candle, and walk down the hallway. The door-to-nowhere was opened. My heartbeat quickened. The door was wide open. Standing there, shivering, more from fear than from the cold. I put my finger to my lips. I went cautiously to the door to ease it close, lost my footing and fell to my death. As my soul started to rise my body, Mrs. Winchester approached and said, “I am glad you decided to stay with me. I told you, you would love it here.” Afterwards, the chief of police arrested a large number of sorcerers, fortune-tellers, witches and black magicians because they discovered that the blood was drained from my throat in honour of the demons Ashtaroth and Asmodeus. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6

The Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester Mystery House is an extravagant maze of Victorian craftmanship—marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. Tour guides must warn people not to stray from the group or they could be lost for hours! Countess questions come to mind as you wander through the mansion—such as, what was Mrs. Winchester thinking when she had a staircase built that descends seven steps and then raises eleven?

There are so many mysteries surrounding this estate and the First Lady of Santa Clara Valley. There were visible acts that were noticed. Dr. Clyde Wayland, her personal physician, revealed that he witnessed Mrs. Winchester acting very strangely. He claimed that Mrs. Winchester floated inches above the floor, and books and other objects fell off nearby shelves.

According to Dr. Wayland, and other witnesses, Mrs. Winchester spoke in different languages, but she had only learned to speak English. Mrs. Winchester also spoke with a deep voice that sounded nothing like her. The voice shouted, “Go away! She is ours!”

Although Dr. Wayland stated that Mrs. Winchester was sane, he believed there was the possibility that there was some demonic force inside of her home, for he saw no reasonable explanation for these events. Mrs. Winchester was also said to have unusual strength at times, which lead him to believe she was possessed.

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