Visitors

Ghostly

By Elizabeth Yates, In Fiji

In the South Pacific, ghosts are still part of the way of life. Good and evil spirits each take their place in the local scheme of things, dis

pensing power.

I MYSELF have lived in two haunted houses, have seen one ghost and was very close to another one. The ghost I saw was when we were living in a 50-year old bungalow on a hill overlooking a Fijian village. The house was built on the site of an ancient burial ground, and the spirits of the ancients had fled to a rocky hill behind the house when they had been rudely disturbed by the builders of 50 years ago. This hill was sacred and thus we were seldom bothered by people wander ing through our garden, and certainly never at night.

Moonlight

All the more surprising when, one warm moonlit night, my husband glanced out of the screened window and drew my attention to a figure walking silently across the lawn. (He said later he had felt the figure watching him so had looked out).

The figure near the garden bure turned and stared at us. I felt oddly vulnerable.

We now took more than a casual interest in our silent visitor.

It was a woman, dressed as though on her way to Sunday church. This was Tuesday evening.

“What do you want?” my husband called.

He was answered only by the rustling leaves in the acacia trees and the pounding of the sea on the reef. The lights down in the village suddenly seemed far away and the gentle night noises began to shout at me.

Thrusting open the screen doors and striding on to the lawn, my husband called out again, walking towards the figure.

She moved closer to the bure, turned her head to take a last look as us, smiled—and disappeared!

Next day the villagers said we were honoured to have been visited by such an important spirit. She was the spokesman of those on the hill behind us; the only one that could be seen by human eyes.

She was probably on her way to the village and had simply stopped to have a look at us, they said.

They spoke of her in the present tense, as though she were still alive. When pressed, they con ceded that they really didn’t believe in her—she belonged “to the olden times”.

The second eerie occasion of my Islands life was again in my own home. We were then living on a remote station and my husband had to spend half of each month on tour.

Our modern concrete bungalow did not lend itself to things super natural, for there were no long dark passages or creaking steps.

But as usual we had hurricane lamps, and this night I carried the lamp into my bedroom to read.

Our kelpie bitch was padding restlessly round and round the room, but I took little notice.

Nanese, the woman who helped me in the house, slept in the spare bedroom nearby, and at ten we settled down to another evening of sleep, disturbed only by the quarrelsome flying-fox jibbering in the mango tree.

I awakened suddenly to find the dog howling and Nanese screaming and moaning. The noise was spine chilling, and I lay clammy with terror. Not I the brave adventurer out to see what I could do, “What’s the matter, Nanese?”

I called, sharply.

There were more moans and screams of terror and the kelpie continued to howl at the foot of my bed.

I now decided that Nanese was

having a nightmare and shouted to her to come into my room.

This time she heard, and came quickly.

It was not until next morning that I was given a vivid explana tion.

Nanese had been woken by the sound of footsteps in the passage outside the bedroom doors.

Frightened, she lay wondering which way they would turn.

Then suddenly she felt two hands pressing down on her chest.

She found it difficult to breathe and impossible to help herself.

She said she knew this was not a living person as there was “a strange feeling in the air ... a sort of cold smell”.

Icy smell

She recovered herself enough to scream out and wake me up, and when I shouted the second time she was left alone.

She never offered to sleep in the house again, and I was left to cope as best I could.

A few months later my mother came to stay, and she slept in the second bedroom. Horror! She, too, experienced the same para lysis, the same crushing sensation and the faint icy smell. As we were without electricity she didn’t have the comfort of a clear light at hand.

At this time I was about the house every night, feeding my new baby, and so I lived in a constant state of terror lest I saw or was visited by this frighten ing spirit. The kelpie always fore told a visit by rushing about the house, hackles up and howling.

Two months later I gratefully moved to another district.

There are many such tales in the South Pacific. And when they affect me. I’m willing to admit I’m a coward.