It began with a fall, soon after my birthday, though I recall nothing between going to bed as usual and waking as if from a long, dreamless sleep. I was found, early on a Winter’s morning, lying at the foot of the stairs in my nightgown, and was carried back to my room, where I lay unconscious, scarcely breathing, for the rest of that day and all of the following night, until I woke to find Dr. Clyde Wayland being over me. His head was surrounded by the most extraordinary halo of light, suffused with all the colours of the rainbow, a radiance so subtle and yet so vibrant as to make me feel I had never seen colour before. I lay entranced by the beauty of it, too absorbed to follow what he was saying. And for a while longer—minutes, hours, I did not know—everyone who came to my bedside was bathed in paradisial light, as if my housemaids Trinity and Elsa had stepped from the pages of an old manuscript book I had once seen. For each of them the light was subtly different, the colours shimmering and changing as they move and spoke. A verse kept running through my mind: “Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught.” However, then my head began to ache, worse and worse until I was forced to close my eyes and wait for the sleeping draught to take effect, and when I woke again, the radiance had gone. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

Everyone assumed that I had fallen whilst sleepwalking, which I had done often enough as a child. Since the death of my husband and my daughter in infancy, I had become prone to nightmares, as well as sleepwalking. As I continued to expand my mansion, the nightmare became more frequent and oppressive. There was one in particular, which recurred many times, of a vast, echoing in my house, as I had never seen it before. It was not much like Llanada Villa in its current state, there was a high tower projecting from the fourth floor, another five stores in the air, and the forth floor had been greatly expanded, adding a fifth floor to the mansion. It is dream, I was always alone, acutely aware of the silence, feeling that the house itself was alive, watchful, aware of my presence. The ceilings were immensely high, with dark-paneled mahogany walls, and other walls that flickered so there were made of gold and diamonds, as the sunlight transmitted its subtle sophistry of passion with a golden crown of enchantment.  And the windows had a gemlike brilliancy of diamonds, emeralds and rubies sparkled from bouquets in the garden. I was inhabiting a castle so marvelously beautiful. However, this dream also made a terrible impression upon my mind, which, in fact, never has been effaced. I was in a large cylinder room in the upper story of the castle, with a steep mahogany roof. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

Looking round the room from my bed, I failed to see the chambermaid. I thought myself alone. I was not frightened. Feeling neglected, to my surprise, I saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking at me from the hands under the coverlet. She was lovely as the dawn and gorgeous as the sunset; but what especially distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breath—richer than a garden of Persian roses. I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; her eyes conveyed a holy secret from the depth of one soul into the depths of mine, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way. I felt immediately delightfully soothed. I was awakened by a sense of pain. There was a sense of a burning and tingling agony, as if two needle ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried loudly. The lady started back, with her eyes fixed on me, and the slipped down upon the floor, and, as I thought, hide herself under the bed. Now, for the first time, I was frightened, and I yelled with all my might and main. The chambermaid and butler came running in, and hearing my story, they made light of it, soothing me all she could meanwhile. However, I could perceive that their faces were pale with an unwonted look of anxiety, and I saw them look under the bed, and about the room, and peep under tables and pluck open cupboards; and the chambermaid whispered to the butler; “Lay your hand along that hollow in the bed; someone did lie there, so sure as you did not; the place is still warm.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

I remember the chambermaid petting me, and both of them examining my chest, where I told them I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that there was no sign visible that any such thing had happened to me. The chambermaid and two other servants who were on duty remained sitting up all night; and from that time a servant always sat up in my chamber.  I was very nervous for a long time after this. Dr. Wayland was called in. How well I remember his long saturnine face, and his chestnut hair. For a good while, every second day, he came and gave me medicine, which of course I hated. The morning after I saw this apparition I was in a state of terror, and could not bear to be left alone, daylight thought it was, for a moment. I remember Mr. Hansen coming up and standing at the bedside, and talking cheerfully, and asking the doctor a number of questions, and laughing very heartily at one of the answers; and patting me on the shoulder, and telling me not to be frightened, that it was nothing but a dream and could not hurt me. However, I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was not a dream; and I was awfully frightened. In the course of that day, a venerable old man, in a black cassock, came into the room; his face was sweet and gentle, he had white hair, as he stood in my room, amongst the three-hundred-year-old furniture. His eyes, gazing down afar, at me. “Accursed one!” he cried, with venomous scorn and anger. “I beg your pardon, dear sir?” I said turning my large, bright eyes upon his face. The force of his words had not found its way into my mind; I was merely thunderstuck. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

“Yes, poisonous thing!” he repeated, beside himself with passion.  His rage broke forth from his sullen gloom like a lightening flash out of a dark cloud. “Thou hast done it! Thou hast blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou has made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself—a World’s wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now, if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others, let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!” “What has be fallen me?” I murmured, with a low moan out of my heart. “Holy Virgin, putt me, a poor heartbroken child!” Thou—dost thou pray?” cried the man, still with the same fiendish scorn. “Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, tain the atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray!” “You are certainly no gentleman,” I said, camply, for my grief was beyond passion, “why dost thou join thyself with me thus in those terrible words? I, it is true, am the horrible thing thou namest me for I am heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune.” His passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his lips. There now came across him a sense, mournful, and not without tenderness. “Does thou pretend ignorance?” he asked, scowling upon me. This selfish, and unworthy spirit, could dream no Earthly happiness had been so bitterly wronged, and I could feel his pain as I too pass heavily, with that broken heart, across the borders of time—I must bathe my hurts in some fount of paradise, and forget my grief, as I was the cause of their suffering. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

“My dear, sir,” I said feebly, and still as I spoke I kept my hand upon my heart, “wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable doom upon me?” “Miserable!” exclaimed the man. “What mean you, foolish girl? Dost thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvelous gifts against which no power nor strength could avail an enemy—misery, to be able to quell the mightiest with a breath—misery, to be as terrible as thou art beautiful? Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?” His wrath and despair had been so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither me by a glance. I grew white as marble. “I would fain have been loved, not feared,” I murmured, sinking down upon the ground. “But now it matters not. I am cursed by evil to be haunted by vengeful spirits for all of eternity.” The angry apparition started to fade right before my eyes, vanishing into thin air. Several ghosts haunted this spectacular mansion, including a dark and menacing spectral figure holding an axe who wanders around the grounds at night, and a ghostly black monk who walks from the castle kitchen toward the Observational Tower in the late afternoons. Servants often spoke of  ghostly woman holding a gray lantern near the front gates as well as two children who have been sighted playing in the basement. There are also others various apparitions who seem to wander aimlessly through the hallways. Because of this, I was compelled to move from one room to the next, fearful and yet powerless to stop. Sometime after midnight, there would be some malignant being hovering at my window; my heart would begin to pound until I feared it would tear itself out of my breast, and I would run, my heart still beating violently. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6

The Winchester Mystery House

hester Mystery House is full of recollections of the delicate and benign power of Mrs. Winchester’s feminine nature, which so often envelops guests in a religious calm; recollections of many a holy and passionate outgush of her heart are noticeable, from the pure fountain and their pools of water, and the estate in the midst of which grew shrubs, flowers, and trees that bare gemlike blossoms. Several guests have been affrightened at the eager enjoyment—the appetite, as it is—with which they find themselves inhaling the fragrance of the flowers. The date the original house was built is unknown. When Mrs. Winchester purchased the 18-room farmhouse in 1886, she expanded it into a 600-room mansion with a nine-story tower.

Today, the mansion stands at 4 stories high and has 161 room, of which 110 are open for guest to explore. According to legend, one dark and stormy night a hundred years ago, a group of teenagers crept into the mansion to explore its empty hallways, but one of them never came out. All that was left of the young lady was her bloody handkerchief at the bottom of the fourth-floor staircase. Ever since that girl met her mysterious fate in the mansion, people have seen an eerie light in the upstairs window and heard cries and moans issuing from the dark interior. In September of 1991, one of the tour guides stated that there was not a shred of evidence to support the spooky tale of the young woman who disappeared, leaving only a bloody handkerchief and a few drops of blood behind.

He had heard all the stories about people seeing lights on in the mansion and hearing and seeing strange things to support the legend. He himself was surprised one night to see a single light in the fourth-floor window. After a careful examination, he concluded that the source of illumination must have been light escaping from the skylight. Tour guides often hear people saying that they “feel something” within its walls. Some people have sent pictures they took, when photography was allowed, that purport to show something passing in front of the camera, like an apparition. Perhaps the expectations of hundreds of people over the years have created a spirit and a mysterious light at The Winchester Mystery House, and these same expectations have kept the “ghost” alive for more than 100 years by feeding it with their collective psychic energy. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

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