In the long darkness, I found myself roaming in my mansion. The moon was almost at the full, and there was something very odd going on. Something inexplicable in any terms I am familiar with. A fire of pine logs burned in several of the fireplaces on the top three floors of the house. The resin from the burning logs gave my home a sweet scent. Now and then the panes rattled in their frames, made fretful by the wind. The house was wooden and it groaned at the weather, and wind whistled and signed through the unfinished fourth floor above me. It seemed a degree or two colder on the third floor than it had on the stairs, in spite of the fires burning in their grate. You could see the temperate on this floor was sinister. The overhead lamps, deliberately dim, flickered. As I went deeper into the catacombs, I became away that the usual sounds of construction seemed strangely muted, and if there were carpenters afoot, they kept well out of sight. The conviction tht I had taken a wrong turning grew upon me until, without any warning, the path swerved around a gigantic staircase and emerged onto an expanse of rooms. On the far side of the mansion, perhaps fifty yards, I was horror-stricken to find there were eight corpses swung in their chains, a fetid, blackened, hideous and indistinguishable mass. A dwarf hurled his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared through the skylight. Almost catatonic as I was climbing the stairs, I thought I heard a bell toll. It tolled only once. However, it tolled louder than any bell as a right to in Llanada Villa. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

Whatever else was lurking in my home waxed and waned in its power. The mansion seemed to be inching its way upward out of darkness. As the moon rose higher, the freezing darkness was just a few feet away. I stook listening to the creepings and rustlings from the thickets outside, the occasional hoot of an owl. After a hundred yards of stumbling in darkness, I knew that I was in the presence of a superior intelligence. There was a light; rather unnerving, I confess. People in these parts firmly believe my home is haunted, and that I am a necromancer. I suffered from a morbid fear of death, and I sometimes think this accounts for my having shut myself so much away from the World. It had certainly drawn me into strange paths of study; and in particular to the alchemists’ quest for the elixir of life; the potion which will supposedly confer immortality upon one who discovers the secret. As one enters the glary by the main doors, it is easy to see, at the far end of the room, an immense fireplace. However, no fire has burned in it for centuries; the space within is occupied by what at first appears to be an immense cabin trunk. It is in fact a Roman marble sarcophagus from the Dukes of Beaufort, decorated with forty human and animal figures carved in high relief with Dionysus seated on the panther. In the alcove between the fireplace and the library wall stands a massive suit of armour, curiously blacked as if by fire. You would think it the work of some mediaeval craftsman, but as you approach you see that, from the waist down, it resembles one of those Egyptian coffins in the shape of a man. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

I was unable to explain to myself quite why the journey had taken so long. Many visitors found something oppressive, even sinister about the size of my home, to which I was drawn to build it for perhaps that very reason. However, if one finds this mansion gloomy, for the love of Heaven, then, take a tour of the Victorian garden, and one will see bright sunshine, various plants, with gigantic leaves, and, in some instances, flowers gorgeously magnificent. Every portion of the soil is peopled with plants and herbs, which, if less beautiful, still bares tokens of assiduous care, as if all their individual virtues, known to the scientific mind that foster them. Some are placed in urns, rich with old carving, and other in common garden pots; some creep serpentlike along the ground or climb on high, using whatever means of ascent offered them. One plant has wreathed itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which is thus quite veiled and shrouded in a drapery on hanging foliage, so happily arranged that it may have served a sculptor for a study. Nevertheless, there are so many ghosts at Llanada Villa that the entities often get together and hold dances in the Grand Ballroom. On one occasion, I watched a group of 15 to 20 ghosts having a dance in the third-floor ballroom. Walking among these malignant influences, savage beasts, deadly snakes, demons and evil spirits, the ghostly figures did not seem to mind the intrusion of my physical presence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

Then with a sudden bound something dashed out of the Grand Ballroom. The concussion against me was so sudden and so utterly unexpected, as well as so tremendously violent, that I was thrown down, and in my fall, the light was fairly extinguished. All was darkness, save a dull reddish kind of light that now and then, from the nearly consumed Observational Tower in the immediate vicinity, came into the room. However, by that light, dim, uncertain, and flickering as it was, some one was seen to make for the window. Although nearly studded by my fall, I saw a figure, gigantic in height, which nearly reached from the floor to the ceiling. I screamed. The figure was about to pass out at the window which led to a kind of balcony, from whence there was an easy descent to the garden. Before it passed out, I caught a glance of the side-face, and I saw that the lower part of it and the lips were dabbled in blood. I saw, too, once of those fearful-looking, shining, metallic eyes which presented so terrible an appearance of unearthly ferocity. No wonder that for a moment a panic seized me, which paralyzed any exertion I might otherwise have made to detain that hideous form. Then I grabbed by revolver and fired at the figure, which then occupied the window, as if it were a gigantic figure set in a frame. The report was tremendous in that chamber, for the pistol was no toy weapon, but one made for actual service, and of sufficient length and bored of barrel to carry destruction along with the bullets that came from it. The tall form turned upon me, and when I got a full view of the face—that face was one never to be forgotten. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

It was hideously flushed with colour—the colour of fresh blood; the eyes had a savage and remarkable lustre; whereas, before, they had looked like polished tin—they now wore a ten times brighter aspect, and flashes of light seemed to dart from them. The mouth was open, as if, from the natural formation of the countenance, the lips receded much from the large canine-looking teeth. A strange, howling noise came from the throat of this monstrous figure, and it seemed upon the point of rushing upon me. Suddenly, then, as if some impulse had seized upon it, it uttered a wild terrible shrieking kind of laugh; and then turning, dashed through the window, and in one instance disappeared before my eyes as I felt nearly annihilated by its fearful presence. “God help me!” I said. I crossed the corridor, and could not but pause a moment to glance from a window as the face of nature. As is often the case, the terrific storm of the preceding evening had cleared the air, and rendered it deliciously invigorating and lifelike. The weather had been dull, and there had been for some days a certain heaviness in the atmosphere, which was now entirely removed. During an evening séance, 17 different entities declared their presence and provided a bit of their personal history. When a pretty kind of omen, Crispus Attucks, a soldier killed in the Revolutionary War, identified himself; he explained that most of the time he liked to stay down in the basement and that during the war, tribes squared off over disputed land. The skirmishes and ambushes escalated into attritional war. Wells were poisoned. Villages were burned. They found scorched villages and corpses, and dead beasts bloating and alive with maggots and blow flies. However, he was not the ghostly conjuration encountered that particular evening. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

Gods of gods and Lord of lords, who hast created all things out of nothing, great king, very obedient Lucifer, I call upon your powers of light and the skies through the gates of Heaven. Powers of baneful darkness, I summon you to this holy mansion. I conjure you to enter here and guides the lives of my enemies into utter darkness. I now plant the seed of my desire within the black Earth, through the mouth of the black sun where the powers of sorcery and counter creation dwell. Through this gateway of darkness, I now shine the light and power of my will upon this World for the benefit of me and mine! O Thou great, powerful, and mighty King, who bearest rule by the power of the Heavens, Hell, Earth and the Universe, I do invocate and command thee by the especial and true name of God; and by that God that Thou Worshippest; and by the Seal of thy creation; and by the most mighty and powerful virtue thou mayest cause, enforce, and compel ADREALPHUS and His 30 Legions of Infernal Spirits, to come here before this Circle in a fair and comely shape, without harm unto me or unto any other creature, to fill us with your essence and might! Empower all endeavors that we undertake so that they may serve us here upon the corporeal plane! May your creation serve as a key to the realms above and below unlocking power and wisdom for our gory and ascent! Fill this mansion with your powers and seek any wrath and fury or spiritual attacks rendering them useless and impotent! Embrace us from the break of day to the setting of the sun, we thank you air, fire, water, earth, blessed be the one. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6

THE WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE

In September 1998, a team of paranormal investigators told a story of being lifted off the ground and dropped by a ghost, and their accounts were backed up by the corroborating testimony of several witnesses. A teenager said that he had reached out to touch the phantom and had found the thing to be very cold. Observers had seen the ghost loitering in the Venetian dining room and strolling across the grounds. Other have seen the entity as a black cloud drifting across the yard, ranging from six to eight feet in height. Those who observed the thing in either guide affirm that it was a creature of habit. It always seemed to appear between 11.00 P.M. and 1.00 A.M., and usually followed the same routine from the dining room to a certain point on the grounds. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

And please be sure to check out the online gift store: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/