The Unfortunate Events of Brenna: College Experience Update

Brenna Eller: Opinion Editor
When I was 3-years old, I had an imaginary friend. Or so I thought.
His name was Jacob. According to my sisters and parents, I talked to him, laughed with him, and made my mom pour drinks for him.
I did this so often my sisters asked me where he was so they didn’t have to sit near him. If he wasn’t there, I would simply just tell them he wasn’t with me at the time. I was 3, so of course I’m basing this off of what my sisters and parents have told me. Apparently it scared them the most because I was so serious about it. I would yell at my mom if she didn’t make something for Jacob and tell her to get him some juice.
On road trips my sisters would ask if Jacob came with us, every time I would say, “He stayed at the barn house.” When we moved from that country house, I was especially sad because I had to leave my best friend behind.
Now, imagine hearing this story for the first time as an 8-year old at your grandparents’ house right before going to sleep. All of my cousins and I would gather in the living room and tell scary stories, and my cousins were fortunate enough to be able to sleep after telling stories. I, however, was not so lucky. I would either have to sleep in my parents’ room or I would stay up all night terrified of everything. So, when my sister Leisha informed me that I used to have a ghost-friend named Jacob, I was already doomed to have a sleepless night and still scared myself years after that picturing what he might’ve looked like.
I asked my mom about the house we used to live in and she told me about all of the crazy unexplainable things that happened there. My dad claimed to see an older woman walking around the house all the time, he thought it was my sisters, but checked and everyone was in bed. There was an older man that I claimed to see along with Jacob. One day, my mom was in the basement folding laundry and my little sister and I were with her. All of a sudden I erupted with laughter. She asked me what was wrong, and I said, “He’s teasing me Mommy.” She stopped what she was doing and looked around for someone, no one else was there and she said, “Who’s teasing you?” I pointed right above me and said, “That man right there.” She dropped everything and took my sister and I both upstairs.
When my mom went to ask about the history of that house, she went to our neighbor who used to live in the house growing up. He told her about the deaths that happened there.
One boy was out in a pasture when a stampede trampled him to death, we figure that one to be Jacob, but aren’t exactly sure. The older man was our neighbor’s dad. He told her that his dad loved kids and loved to “tease” them. When she heard, “tease” she knew that was the man that I saw.
The lady was his step-mother. She was apparently abusive and would wear strong perfume, which my mom could smell in the bathroom. She said it would give her a headache because of how strong the odor was.
I remember believing Jacob was my guardian angel protecting me from all of the bad things in the house. I also recall telling my siblings that Jacob didn’t come with me anywhere and when we moved, I told them that he wanted to stay at his home, which was the barn house.
On the bright side, if there really is one from this story, I don’t see ghosts anymore. I used to try to look for ghosts and wanted to be a ghost hunter, but since I haven’t seen anything supernatural after that experience, I think I can live with it.

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