Steven LaChance Blog

From the Case Files of Steven LaChance

I remember one of my first encounters with a child ghost.

The memory comes back to me in fragments, but the feeling it left me with has never faded. I stepped into this old house for the first time during an investigation, and even before I crossed the threshold, it seemed to lean forward toward me, as if it had been waiting. It’s something hard to describe when that happens to me in a location. It’s a feeling at the base of my neck that seems to announce something extraordinary about a certain place. This old house clearly told me I needed to prepare myself for it.

I can’t explain that in any other way.

The house’s appearance carried that unsettling familiarity of a horror film, something out of Salem’s Lot, or the kind of place Norman Bates’s mother might have lived. Inside, the air was stale with dust and the scent of wood that had absorbed too many years. The smell of mold and rotting wood. You will immediately recognize the smell in your memory if you have ever encountered it yourself.

Every sound inside the house seemed to echo: the creak of a floorboard, my own breath, the beating of my heart. You know the cues nature has given us within our own bodies to let us know something is out of place and afoot. Many people go through life without connecting these feelings and moments to anything beyond normal body functions. But for those of us who have made the connection, we know the feelings and what they mean.

There is something happening here. Be on guard.

The staircase rose ahead, narrow and steep, its railing worn smooth by countless forgotten hands that had held it tightly through the years. At one time, hands that helped steady someone climbing up or down. That’s it, a grip rather than just a gliding of hands. An old woman, maybe, came to mind as I took each step slowly, one by one. Each step groaned, as if it carried its own memories, as I began to climb.

Halfway up, a coldness swept over me, not the kind from drafty windows but the kind that comes with the presence of an energy or a spirit, if you will. My chest tightened, and for a moment, I wondered: What in the actual fuck am I doing here?

But instead of turning around and leaving the feeling behind, I kept climbing, unable to turn back.

At the top of the stairs, everything changed.

A gust of brisk air swept past my shoulder quickly. Before I could even breathe it in, I heard it.

A child’s laughter.

Not faint, not far away, but close enough to feel it in my bones. A sound that should have been full of joy, but it wasn’t. It was laughter without warmth, and it froze me where I stood. Nothing can truly prepare you for the sudden sound of a child when you know no children are around.

I turned toward the room where the sound originated, my heart pounding in my ears.

In the corner, a young girl stood. She crouched low, her small frame folded in on itself as if the shadows held her down, keeping her grounded. Her hair clung to the sides of her face, her dress was pale and thin with a pink sash and bow at the back, and her eyes were wide with fear.

For a moment, she appeared undeniable, as real as any other living child could be. I could see the trembling in her arms, the way she hugged herself against the cold of the room surrounding her.

And then, in a moment, she disappeared.

She was gone.

The corner was empty, and silence swooped back like a door slamming shut. The absence felt worse than her presence. It left me standing in that room, with a knowing something had touched me, stepped into my world long enough to make itself known, and then it pulled back.

My body reacted before my thoughts could. I stumbled backward into the hallway, the floorboards groaning beneath me as if the house itself disapproved of my retreat. Down the staircase, each step seemed to moan louder, echoing my panic. The ordinary world outside looked thinner, almost fragile, as if I had carried a shadow out with me that refused to let go.

I had seen ghosts before. The only thing that came close was seeing the vision of the baby that hung in the tree outside the Screaming House.

But this was different.

It is hard to explain, but this was innocence interrupted, safety turned upside down. It was everything in me as a father that wanted to protect a child, clashing with the horror of witnessing one who could not be saved. That day, I learned why a child’s ghost affects us more deeply than almost any other haunting.

The house is not the only thing that is haunted. It is you. At least that is the way encountering the spirit of a child leaves you. It is something that haunts you long afterwards.

This was different.

The only thing that had ever come close to this experience was the sound of a little girl’s screams in the Screaming House. It was chilling in every way, but I had convinced myself it wasn’t a child’s scream, but something else. Something was trying to trick us, but in this house with the little pink-bowed girl, it was impossible to deny because I had seen her with my own eyes. It was not just a scream or a giggle. This one had substance. This was a girl.

I went outside and found Bill, who had organized the investigation.

“Dammit, Bill, you didn’t tell me there was a little girl in there!” I screamed, pointing at the house.

“Wait a second, what are you talking about?” Bill asked, seeming very surprised.

“There is a ghost of a little girl in there, Bill,” I whispered. I was starting to realize he had no idea what I meant.

“I believe you. This is just the first time I’ve heard about her, is all,” Bill said reassuringly.

We went back into the house, where I found Carol setting up a video camera in the same room where I had seen the young girl. Carol, who had lived through the Screaming House investigation with us, immediately sensed something was out of place and could tell from my face that something was going on.

“Okay, Steven, tell me what is happening,” she said, looking over the top of her tripod and camera.

Marie, who was not far behind, heard Carol and immediately asked, “What is going on?”

Both women knew me too well. I didn’t want to cause them anxiety by telling them I had come across a child’s spirit. I knew it would bother them because it would remind them of the Screaming House and those horrific moments we had lived through.

“I saw a child spirit. She ran into this room and then vanished.”

“Aw, hell no,” Carol immediately responded, and for a moment I thought she was going to pack up her camera and go home.

“Well, what are we going to do about it?” Marie asked, her hands on her hips, as tears began to trickle down her face. She asked the question we were all thinking.

“Could this be something other than a child?”

At that exact moment, from somewhere in the room came a child’s giggle and the sound of running feet across the floor, which stopped right in front of us. The three of us stood there with shocked looks on our faces, without saying a word. It was almost as if we couldn’t breathe.

Then I felt cold little arms wrap around my leg, as if to hold on just like the way my children used to do when they were little. Tears began to roll down my face, to the shock of the other two.

“She is holding on to my leg,” I whispered softly. “She is a child.”

Tears began flowing down the cheeks of the other two women.

“Oh, my God,” Marie whispered.

“What do we do?” Carol asked.

I felt the arms release my leg, and we heard the patter of feet once again run across the floor. Then she was gone.

“We are going to try to send her on,” I said. “Let me go get Lady Light.”

Lady Light had very powerful gifts when it comes to dealing with issues from the other side of the veil. Some people say she is a natural witch who is able to walk comfortably in the dark and in the light. I had worked with her before and knew she was someone I could trust with something as delicate as trying to help a child spirit move on.

I found Lady Light standing outside the house and quietly approached her.

“I need you to come inside with me,” I whispered.

She looked into my eyes, and I knew she was surveying me for any signs of what was happening.

“Okay, let’s go.”

On the way upstairs, I brought her up to date on what had happened and what I felt needed to be done.

“Steven, moving a child on is very tricky work. It doesn’t always work,” she said, stopping me on the first landing. “There are so many things that can go wrong, and there are so many things about the child we simply do not know, and if anyone tries to tell you they do, they are lying. You know this.”

She was right. The truth is, you never really have the full story on anything or anyone.

“The best I can do is try. I hope you brought a candle with you.”

I pulled a candle from my bag of tricks. There were things you learned to carry with you, and this was one of them.

“Wouldn’t come to this party without one,” I said.

She smiled. “Well, then let’s go see what we can get done.”

Carol and Marie were waiting for us when we entered the room. Lady Light gathered us into a circle, and we sat on the floor as she lit the candle. Bill stuck his head into the doorway to say something, immediately took in the scene, and disappeared. This was something Bill just couldn’t handle. I laughed at his reaction. I couldn’t help it, and it helped relieve some of the tension, but soon we returned to the task at hand.

The room seemed to spin as Lady Light had us hold hands and concentrate on the candle flame in the center of the circle. The flame itself seemed to grow as the outside world closed in around us. In a very short time, we found ourselves in existence with nothing but our circle, the flame of the candle, and the sound of Lady Light’s voice.

No particular words. Nothing I could write would let you know exactly what was said. The one thing I can tell you is that I know the child was with us because she was standing right outside our circle. I could see her. She was wearing a simple white dress, but what struck me about her more than anything, and what I will carry with me for the rest of my life, was that she had the most beautiful blond hair I have ever seen on a child.

It seemed to be a gentle and beautiful moment, but all of a sudden, something went wrong.

Lady Light began to become agitated. Outside the circle, it started to grow dark. You could feel fear enter the room. Something had changed, and we all knew it. Lady Light clutched my hand tighter and tighter.

And then she spoke quietly.

“Run.”

She wasn’t screaming or yelling. It was whispered and stern.

“Run.”

She was looking straight ahead and speaking toward where I had seen the image of the child. I knew she must be communicating with her now.

“Run.”

Then the candle in front of us went out.

Marie immediately turned on a flashlight she had sitting in her lap. We all sat there looking at each other for a moment, not really saying anything, not really knowing what to say.

Finally, Carol spoke.

“Did it work?”

Lady Light raised her head and looked at Carol.

“I really don’t know. There is a male presence here that I think is keeping her captive. I know that sounds crazy, but I think it could be something to do with her life on this side. Like maybe he is still trying to hide a secret, maybe sexual abuse? I really don’t know.”

When you think about the situations and the things that can hold us in place in the afterlife, it is really disturbing.

The evil of humanity is a constant theme that is found in the evidence of many of these situations. Sometimes I feel like standing on the rooftops and shouting this lesson I have learned. You need to be careful what you do to others in this lifetime because it can affect you and the people you damage in ways you may never understand.

I could only pray that we had been able to set this innocent child free.

Sadly, later that night, our question was answered.

One thing we always did as a team was set up our equipment and then leave the location, locking the doors for a period of time. This way, there was nothing but the equipment inside to record any activity without human interaction. Shortly after the attempted crossing, we did one of these lockdowns.

There was certain evidence Carol never shared with the team because she felt it should not be shared publicly. Part of this secured evidence was a video clip she had caught during the lockdown of the little girl laughing and playing through newspapers on the floor in the upstairs level of the house.

We were unsuccessful in crossing her over.

Part of me feels like I failed this child much in the same way I failed a baby’s spirit hanging in the tree at the Screaming House. How could I not feel this way? Even though I try to tell myself I did everything in my power, I still feel like I failed.

She is still there.

Whatever evil specter is keeping her there still has its hold on her. I don’t want to imagine what that hell is like for her.

This is one memory I can’t bury, and sometimes I wish I had never stepped foot into that house. I can’t erase the past. It happened. I did my part to try to change things, and I continue to do my part today. It doesn’t change the fact that a little girl ghost roams the halls of a house in an undisclosed location somewhere in Missouri.

I can still feel her cold little arms as they wrapped around my leg to hold on to me like she would her daddy.

It is not just the house that is haunted.

It is you.