_{I was experimenting here with a very different style of writing than what is my more natural one, which is a lot less flowery/cheesy/nauseating, but while it was a fun challenge to step out of my comfort zone, I will likely write another version of this at some point in my preferred style. I will never tire of telling this story (like ever). So I welcome the excuse of doing so again anyway. There is nothing yet on this website that demonstrates my default style, which I think lately is the point and fun of writing, even if I’m less proud of the results than I might normally be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I love this guy.)}

In a rental car that came with its own GPS and, on occasion, a will of its own, I drove my friends towards the quaint village of Mernebes. A name that we would always question how to pronounce, because we could never hold on to the answer to it.

We had debated many, maybe even all, of the towns in the south of France for which we should make our temporary residence. We were on a two week vacation, and intended to cover some ground, but wanted a home to plant at least shallow roots in the middle of it, for the sake of sanity and some sense of relaxation. This plan backfired, spectacularly in my mind, moderately in others. But the others didn’t experience all that I did during our seven day stay in the villa whose photo appeal was ultimately what had tipped the scales in Menerbes’ favor. 

When the discussions of this trip first began to seem more than just a shared fantasy, there was the potential that up to eight amongst our group of friends would join it. Though of the eight, four were non-committal due to potential, yet fairly likely, family obligations that could derail their plans come departure time. In the end, all of the question marks backed out, and there were only four of us who stepped foot on the plane over to Europe, and then into this car. 

I noticed during the just shy of two hour long drive to Menerbes that the steering wheel would occasionally lock when turning, leading to the car unpredictably going a but too far to the left or right, when I was trying to follow only gentle curves of the road or veering a bit farther when the turns were sharper, but I didn’t pay much mind to it since it never took more than a split second to regain control of it. I didn’t share this information with my friends since it was only after the third time that I stopped questioning if it was in my imagination, and by then I had ruled it out as a serious concern. In hindsight, I should have traded the lost time to return the car to Avis for an alternate one that did not offer cause to even vaguely question its safety from the start. But by the third incident, we were well into the drive and I do not tolerate lost time well when traveling, so instead I continued down the many roads needed to finally arrive at our destination, handling each further infraction with a poker face and peace of mind. My friends either never noticed or just assumed driver ineptitude, which I sucked up the potential insult of.

There were none amongst us who were comfortable with last minute planning, especially when it came to lodging, and there was only one amongst us who had financial concerns to consider. So we had booked what appeared to be a pretty spectacular villa months in advance, and during the time we thought there might be a need for eight beds. As the one person, I was too proud to ask that we find another option once I knew the expense of it would only be divided by four. And I knew we, myself very much included, were too enamored of the place to be willing to part with it. 

The villa was at the bottom of a steep hill that led up to the never-bustling, yet charming ‘downtown’ of Menerbes. A steep hill that we ended up climbing fairly often, even though there were only two working restaurants and very few open shops due to their tourist season ending weeks earlier. One of the open shops sold take-away coffee, which proved to be surprisingly hard to find in this region of France- and palatable ones harder still. So even though they did so in the smallest possible cups, it was enough to justify the burn in our legs to get there in the morning hours before we set out on our daily adventures. 

And we did have adventures, ones I hope I will remember over all the years still to come and two that would be better left forgotten. The first of the latter, and ultimately, most impactful was about to begin once inside the walls of this eighteenth century villa.

We had fallen in love with the online photos of the Villa and the romantic description of it that accompanied them, and clearly quite deeply, considering the four of us were willing to absorb the cost of the fallen four. Finding it proved to be a challenge though. To its credit, our GPS seemed to give it a great deal of earnest thought, but be stuck in a state of confusion and would occasionally spit out what would become a series of contradictory messages. It finally seemed confident enough for us to believe it enough, with a dose of faith and hope, to follow. It led us to a villa that resembled the photos just enough to plausibly be ours, yet still was so far from what we had anticipated that our hearts fell. But a case could be made that the weedy overgrowth in the yard were the remains of the grape vines we were led to expect, and there were trees further off that may yet prove to be rich with cherries, even if no visible reason to believe so from where we were. The anticipated pool and tennis court (and trampoline!) were notably absent from the yard but the back side of the structure was still out of view. What *was* in view though through large windows coated with a thick layer of dust was a heap of broken furniture piled high and other unknown objects covered in sheets. Our GPS was adamant though that we had arrived in the right place, so we trusted it and our collective disappointment was palpable. To our credit, we did gamely try to feign a positive, ‘we’ll make the best of it’ attitude, but when we spotted the address numbers, mostly hidden behind dense vines, we were grateful to see that they were not the ones we were seeking. So we gratefully abandoned our revised expectations and set out to find the match to our newly restored original ones.

And we did. I don’t remember how we got there, the GPS remained steadfast in its conviction that it had absolutely gotten it right, but somehow we ended up pulling up to what was, at the time, the most incredible place I had ever seen, at least that I could personally call home for even a short while. 

It was built of stone, as you’d expect of a villa, close to 300 years ago. It appeared two stories high from the outside, with two third story lofts formed under two triangular peaks. The property itself was phenomenal. The front yard was a still flourishing vineyard, and it was lined by off-season, but still pretty walnut trees and a cluster of cherry trees with vibrant red shining in their branches. The expected pool and tennis court were in plain sight, with the former being the central feature of an outside sitting area that looked like a charming place to spend an evening drinking wine and winding down the day in quiet celebration of the luck that led us here. Which we would end up doing on multiple evenings. 

My initial thought when awarded my first unobstructed view of this villa was that I never wanted to leave and I immediately began plotting how I might pull off never having to. The place was a fantasy brought to life and made me feel foolish that I ever considered my day to day reality acceptable, let alone more than. And I temporarily let myself believe it might be possible. What I wouldn’t have believed possible in that moment is that in a long week later I’d feel that there was no departure time that could come soon enough. 

The proprietor of the place was there to meet us to give us the lay of the property and the instructions needed to keep such an old structure happy and humming. The villa was old, but parts of it had been newly remodeled, and we were the first guests to stay there after the renovations were completed. She acknowledged and apologized for the lingering dust, but the dust wasn’t the most impactful side effect that came of making the fundamental changes to the place. I’ve watched enough documentaries on TV to know remodeling a house is often the impetus for what I would shortly encounter, but had immediately started to suspect was there.   

You could make a case that the villa is actually four levels, even if the distances between each level were wildly inconsistent, with the adjacent kitchen being a just a few feet higher than the bottom and about seven feet lower than the main. But even this slight difference in elevation from both turned out to be a godsend for me. 

The moment my foot first crossed the threshold into the villa and hit its floor, I was hit by a burst of heavy negative energy that cast an ominous ambience to the place, and my excitement gave way to a quiet uneasiness. We were first led through a quaint living room very tastefully, yet sterilely, decorated. Objectively, I liked it, but intuitively, I very much didn’t. The unease that I already felt steadily increased as we walked through one additional room, this one totally barren, before giving way to genuine fear just a short distance into the hallway that came up next on our path. The hallway felt interminably long, but in truth was likely 15 feet at most. It opened up into a dining area that had been one of the main draws of the place, and it lived up to the expectations set by its photos. A long sturdy wooden table sat in an arched alcove of stone bricks that made for a uniquely intimate and charming space. The negative current that had been so strong in the hallway faded significantly once I stepped into the more open area, but the invisible barrier between the two was not impenetrable. You could feel its dark presence lurking there, even though the hallway was lit, and occasionally a gust of its energy would be just powerful enough to cross the distance to play with your skin. So though we had initially felt it a waste to eat any meal anywhere other than this room, we only ended up there for one. And during that one meal, I sat as far from the hallway as I could, but even so, it was impossible to deny the moments when the presence managed to reach me even there. Oddly, not one of us acknowledged any discomfort spending time there, it was just an unspoken preference to not and no one suggested it again. 

I didn’t speak to anyone of my experience with the hallway. I will confess, at the risk of weakening my credibility, that it is well-established that I love ghost stories and well-known that I have proactively sought to stay in places known to have their own to tell. In fact, I had flown out a few days early for this trip to spend some time in London with a sometimes lover, sometimes friend and we had taken an overnight trip to the town of Rye to spend the night at The Mermaid Inn, specifically because it is meant to be the “most haunted inn” in all of England (as so many seem to be). We walked away mostly disappointed, at least from a supernatural standpoint, save one creepy but fleeting vibe and the classic unnaturally rapidly draining battery of the video camera my friend/lover had borrowed from another ghost enthusiast. We wanted to try to capture the rocking chair in the corner of the room move “on its own” as it “infamously” was known to do in the middle of the night. Incidentally, the innkeepers actually keep the chair in storage unless guests specifically ask for it to be put back in, because of how many have fled the room after it gets going. Guests sleeping in make-shift beds in their lobby is said to not be a totally unusual sight. We didn’t get so lucky, but just maybe because the relatively new camera that was meant to last for 15 hours only lasted for one. My non-believing companion was a good sport enough to watch the one hour of us sleeping in hopes it would prove him wrong to my utter delight. It didn’t and was reportedly the most boring hour of his life.

But I have readily shared with others multiple experiences that I have had throughout my life that I thought intriguing enough to believe were possibly, and even in a few cases likely, supernatural and haven’t hid that I would love few things more than to have an irrefutably convincing experience. However, in defense of my integrity, I have also been the first to admit that, while indisputably compelling, nothing that I had personally experienced through then countered every shred of doubt. So though I do suspect I’m genuinely more sensitive than many to such things, I’m also aware that, given my interest, many people will discount me as a willful and willing victim of my imagination, especially if I become the girl who cries ghost at every slight provocation based on nothing more than a feeling or unidentified sound- though for the record, I often have had more than that to pin my hopes to. So without anything tangible to pin my fears on in this villa, I kept them to myself. But did later come to learn that though I had the strongest reaction to the hallway, everyone felt uneasy walking through it. The others braved doing so alone though and I did not. And I truly believe I would have been trapped inside the villa if I didn’t have an escort and it was my only pathway out, even if the danger hadn’t proven to be anything more than a mere sense of it. Cowardice is not typically my thing, but there are exceptions to every rule. 

There was a short set of stairs leading from the dining room into the kitchen, and the kitchen was a gift, in both look and feel. It was one of the newly remodeled rooms, and in fact, mostly a new addition, so though farmhouse rustic, it was comparatively more modern in design and not as aesthetically unique as the rest of the place. But it was still beautiful in its own way and, more importantly, it had a light and airy feel to it. It would, in fact, become my sanctuary and the only room I ever felt totally at ease in, except those few moments where I couldn’t help but stare through the doorway to the darkness below, or through the one at the top of the longer flight of stairs leading up to the main part of the villa. 

This latter doorway led directly into the central living room, which was spacious with high vaulted ceilings and an open small loft on the far left that served as a reading nook. The room was austerely decorated, but the simple touches made were effective in creating a comfortable space you’d feel chic and cozy to hang out in. There were, however, two bedrooms directly adjacent to it, and the doors to both were open. The master bedroom faced the front yard and was parallel to the kitchen, albeit higher than, and was higher by a few feet even than the main floor (does having to climb 3 stairs to get to it qualify it as a fifth floor?). The other room clearly furnished for children was under the loft, and was on level with the living room. The master bedroom, also newly added, was so clearly set apart from the others in terms of both luxury and the view, that though no one wanted to be the selfish one in making an outright bid for it, it was clear that given the opportunity to do so classily, any of us would have planted our flag in it. However, we were aware of this discrepancy coming in and had proactively navigated the delicate issue by agreeing on a two-night rotation.

It was painful to do, because like the dining alcove, it did prove to be as spectacular in person as it looked in the photos and like the kitchen, it had a good feel to it, but I immediately relinquished my turn upon entering the living room, mentally anyway. The living room itself felt safe at its core, but the energy emanating out of the kids room filled me with a terror greater even than the hallway and it was unfathomable to me to sleep in such close proximity to it. So with the excuse that I would rather just settle into one spot, I chose the one room on the top level on the right side of the room, directly across from the reading loft. Its flaw was that it was faced the kids room too, but it was at least a legitimate flight of stairs higher than it and was the span of the living room away. And the only other two rooms were along a right back hallway on the main floor, that, when facing the living room from the kitchen door, the back half of my room was right above the left half of, but were positioned too close to the short staircase on its far end that led directly to the dreaded hallway just below it. And in walking through the upper hallway to check those rooms out, I learned once more that you didn’t have to be in the lower to feel what lived (or didn’t) there. So it was a relief to have what felt like the second safest space in the villa to spend the late and solo hours in. The legitimate flight of stairs to get to it was a deterrent to others, but I embraced every last inch between me and the two origins of fear. 

Though the latter was a denser and more palpable version, I would describe the energy within both the hallway and the kids room as malicious, and I made a self-promise to never put myself in the position of having to walk through, or even by, either alone. Which was a hard promise to keep as they are respectively ‘the’ path or right by the path to just about anywhere in the house. So I stealthily clung to my friends to avoid the shame of being outed as the sole coward of the group; the rest of whom seemed to me entirely unfazed by the energy that overwhelmed me. But though the vow was solemnly made, I accidentally broke it the very first night. After spending time around the kitchen table making our way through the wine the restaurant we had dined at let us bring home, two of my unwitting and unaware bodyguards retired for the night, leaving me with just one. One was enough though to provide a shield of more comfort.   

My friend and I share a passion for photography and having run out of conversation for the night, we started to scroll through our respective day’s work and occasionally share our favorites. My span of attention is laughably short for most things, but unlimitless and singular when it comes to photos, so, as often happens, I got lost in my own world watching my images flash by on my camera’s small screen. I only vaguely heard my friend get up and wash a few dishes. When I looked up after what I clearly misjudged to just be a few seconds later, I slowly took in that I was alone and shieldless. She probably said goodnight and knows me well enough to know and not take personally that it just didn’t break through my trance. The terror crept in as I weighed all of the options available to me. My pride stopped me, but just, from calling for her to return to be my escort. So I was left with the prospect of staying the night in the kitchen or having to pass through the living room with the kids room just a short 20 feet to my left. I reluctantly conceded to my logical side that only one of these was truly an option, though really only after imagining my friends finding me sleeping on the kitchen table in the morning, so I rose to my feet and forced them to move where they least wanted to go. 

I made myself another soon-to-be-unheeded instruction that I was not to look in the direction of the kid’s room and was to keep my eyes firmly focused on the route to my own. But like most, my mind seems to prefer to be aware of any looming danger, so my head instinctively turned towards it immediately on stepping into the living room. I rationally expected to see through the doorway into the room so entirely void of light, but irrationally feared I would instead see something sinister creeping out of it on its way to meet me, and I didn’t know what from there. I saw neither of these things. Instead, the moment I turned my head after climbing that last step into the living room, I found myself staring into the slightly translucent face of a woman whose body became increasingly so before disappearing entirely right above where her knees likely should have been, or once were. I recoiled, more from surprise than fear, and stumbled a few steps back, my arms flailing, and my mouth letting out a warbled noise- like a gasp that carried aspirations of being a scream, but fell short in volume and conviction. She was visible for mere seconds, maybe less than, before vanishing completely, but lingered just long enough for me to have taken in the details of her face. She had olive-colored skin, dark honey hair, and an open face with a straight nose and overall, strong features. Her translucence aside, her eyes were the only feature that did not look perfectly human. They would have also appeared normal but for the slight shadows that clouded over them, so while my impression is that they were almond-shaped and light brown, this is the only descriptor I do not stand firmly by. She was wearing a loose white blouse and what looked to be the start of a long gray skirt. She was pretty, in a non-standout way, and I would have gauged her age to be more or less the same as ours. Her translucence still aside, she could have easily fit in with our group. Perhaps hers was a lonely existence and that was her aim.

Strangely, given the state of paranoia I was already in and the shock of seeing her, I didn’t fear her. She didn’t give out a strong vibe of any kind really, but I felt confident that she was not associated with the energy that had me so on edge. So I collected myself remarkably quickly and retreated upstairs, grateful still to close the door behind me. As an introvert, it can sometimes take me a while to process something, and I often do below the surface of my awareness, before I accept it as real and know how I feel about it. This characteristic, often a curse, was a true blessing in this moment, and likely the reason I was able to sleep.

I didn’t share this experience with my friends right away. It demanded a lot of self-control to not, I’ve long wanted to see a ghost and had considered it to be the remaining piece of evidence I’d need to be fully convinced of their existence. But though it was a strong temptation, I resisted it to protect them from feeling fear during what was meant to be an stress-free vacation. However, I lost this internal fight two days in and confided in one friend first and then in the remaining two a few hours later. I was surprised and relieved that the first believed me with no hesitation, but, admittedly unfairly, felt a little resentful towards the one who expressed skepticism. The third listened receptively but gave me no real clues as to her level of genuine acceptance.

In defense of the skeptic, I can have an overactive imagination in some ways. In defense of myself, never to the point of hallucination and if I was susceptible enough to the power of suggestion to manifest one, there were many earlier scenarios in my life that my mind would have been equally or even more ripe for this- The Mermaid Inn being just the most recent, but far from the most intense. But I tend to compartmentalize things and had marked that part of my trip as *the* ghost hunting adventure and had put all thoughts of the supernatural aside when it was over and it was time to move on. So I can truthfully say I had no expectations or even speculations of the villa stepping up where the inn had fallen short. Also, the woman was not wearing what I’d have come up with for her. I’m far from an expert on French fashion over the centuries, but I have seen Les Miserables 30-ish times, so with it being an obsession of mine and my only insight into their potential attire, I’d have dressed her up like Eponine, or maybe Cosette since the villa was too nice to realistically encounter a waif in. And further, I think if my mind were to have conjured something up at that moment, it would have more likely been a manifestation of the sinister presence I had been expecting and bracing myself for. In hindsight, I’m grateful the woman blocked my view of the door and perhaps she was offering me a protective shield the only way she could. Though it was a questionable and risky strategy if her motives were altruistic.

In further defense of my friend’s skepticism, though she admitted at one point that the hallway was creepy and though she was the only one that ultimately explicitly stated a preference for the feel of the kitchen over the dining room alcove, she didn’t herself feel anything supernatural and she felt she would. And this is justified, since while I think I am more attuned to the supernatural, she has proven to be overall highly intuitive in her own right and isn’t immune to any lurking energy in the air that surrounds her. That said, she also isn’t sure she believes in ghosts, at least as they are usually defined. But I took offense to this too, as in the moment, I petulantly, and again admittedly unreasonably, thought that my word should have been irrefutable evidence of it. She said she believed I saw something but wasn’t sure she believed it was what I believed it was, and to my mind, the only remaining alternative was a hallucination of a naive mind. And I, brattily, wanted more credibility than this, rightfully earned or not. In all of my many re-tellings of this story, I have never once hedged my claim of seeing a ghost by leading with ‘I think’, a first for me when sharing my many eerier experiences in life. 

But there was more evidence yet to come to validate my claim, and somehow one experience managed to be even more convincing than what I had always thought would be the conclusive proof I was waiting for. Turns out that seeing is almost believing but this next one finally bridged the remaining gap and removed that tracest shadow of doubt that I didn’t know was still lingering by then. I think in hindsight, I had subconsciously begun to question if my mind had actually manifested her because of my fear and as an act of self-protection. I really didn’t think so, but I was maybe starting to reluctantly acknowledge it was possible.

We spent most of our days exploring the region, whether nearby villages or areas of natural beauty, so it was usually just the mornings and evenings that we spent in the villa. However, midway through our time there, we planned a full day in to take advantage of the pool and tennis court and to explore its own beautiful surrounding landscape. It was the only day that we experienced any inclement weather and our mock-ish competitive tennis match got prematurely ended by a thunderstorm that swiftly rolled in. (It would have been full-on competitive if I hadn’t been unpleasantly surprised to not be the better of the two- a lesson learned in humility, and quite swiftly). We retreated to the kitchen and enjoyed the pairing of the dramatic performance happening outside with fantastic red wine, though were disappointed over the lost opportunity to use the pool. The intensity of the rain and thunder left no room for doubt in our minds that it would not relent in time for us to both swim and shower before heading up the hill for our dinner reservations. We couldn’t choose to do the former without then needing to do the latter if we cared about being presentable, and we generally did. 

If I can claim being uncannily blessed in anything in life it is experiencing amazing luck when it comes to weather while traveling, against all even remotely realistic odds based on what’s typical and whatever the weather reports called for. I was once known to be a harbinger of doom for bringing impactful inclement weather with me wherever I went, but the pendulum of my luck swung the other way on my trip to Ireland seven years earlier. I had thought at the time that I might be able to attribute it to my Irish ancestors watching over me through it, but it has never swung back. I was just struggling to square this exception to what has become a rule I now took for granted, for though I absolutely love intense thunderstorms, I resented not being able to enjoy every last asset of the villa or to make use of my swimsuit newly purchased specifically for this trip. However, the storm miraculously blew out almost as abruptly as it did in and it gave us an hour to pretend that we actually enjoyed swimming. Though actual swimming soon gave way to competitive hand-standing and photos would later prove I decidedly lost at it, if not in duration, at least in form. In conclusion, in all, the day gave us the best of all weather and my lucky streak remained unmarred despite tottering dangerously on the precipice. 

In being the only day that we felt no sense of urgency to make it to a destination early enough to cover as much ground in a day as humanly possible, it was the only that we experienced the sensation of pure relaxation. And though I had anticipated being restless over all the sacrificed unseen beauty within our reach, it ended up being one of my favorite days for the elusive sense of peace that being on its grounds, walking along the nearby winding countryside roads, and having nothing to care about but being better than my friend at tennis (I wasn’t) instilled. So I was feeling especially calm, happy, and, uncharacteristically while there, unafraid-ish when it came time to get ready for our evening out. I add the “-ish” because I still followed closely behind my friends through the villa, treading on their heels, until I could make a break up the staircase to my room. I started the long process of making myself presentable, feeling comfortably safe in my secondary sanctuary. 

It was still light out but the sky remained overcast and the window in the bathroom was small to begin with, so I turned the light on, as I had in my bedroom. The one switch lit a row of lights above the mirror. I hung my swimsuit and stepped into the shower excited for the warmth. It was a small standing-room-only shower that had a simple white cloth curtain as its barrier. The structure of the stone stall seemed old, but the plumbing was newly upgraded so it delivered the blanket of water I needed after the unheated pool. I moved slowly through my routine, more so than usual, enjoying the quiet moments of solitude. And when the lights went out right as I was working shampoo into my hair, I didn’t react with anything other than neutral curiosity.

I stepped through the curtain, more out of instinct than logic because I’m not sure what clues for why they went dark I thought I might readily see or understand. I took in with passive interest that the light in my bedroom was still on, but also noted with more active interest that the light switch in my bathroom was still pointed towards the ceiling. To my uninformed mind, this implied there was simply a power failure and that the two rooms were fed by by different sources, which I stand by as a, if not the most, reasonable conclusion. So with a nonchalant shrug, I moved to resume my interrupted shower that I had left running. Then in absolute (and I can’t stress this word enough) synchronization with my hand touching the curtain about to draw it back, the lights came back to life and the water came to a stop. Plumbing is as much a mystery to me as is electricity, and neither are ones that I’ve ever cared to crack, but even I know that my first ‘logical’ rationalization of this was entirely illogical.

The light didn’t faze me at all; it was a given that faulty wiring could result in just a temporary disruption in the flow of electricity, so it was the water that my mind had to contend with. And the best it could do in the moment was, shamefully, that a friend must have started their shower in that moment and ‘stolen‘ the water supply for her own. It was only a matter of moments, so I hadn’t given myself enough time to recognize the absurdity of this conclusion, before I had drawn open the curtain and laid eyes on the shower handle. When the new plumbing was installed so was the hardware to control the water. They had opted for the singular handle that you pull up and out towards you to start it and then maneuver left or right to manipulate the temperature. Though it did not exactly require Herculean strength to do, it did a modicum of it as it wasn’t flimsy or loose and wouldn’t have fallen victim to gravity. So my expectations were to see it still as I had left it, as I had the light switch, but it had instead returned to its resting position parallel to the wall. The implication of this didn’t fully escape me, but it didn’t terrify me in the moment either. And I still had a thick lather of shampoo to rinse out, so I simply stepped fully back in, pulled up the handle, and completed what was now a much faster, more efficient routine.

As I already mentioned, sometimes it takes me a while to fully process the unexpected, especially if it might trigger a more complex emotional reaction, but my mind wasn’t working quite as slowly on this occasion. So it was only after I had dressed and was standing in front of the mirror drying my hair that the “incident” started to truly play with it. And on nothing more than a whim, I started talking out loud to whoever my invisible company may have been. I led with what I’ve read you are supposed to say when trying to interact with supernatural beings- reassuring words of light and good intentions. Partly out of a strange sense of duty to them, I mustered the courage after a few minutes of other idle chatter, to ask if they needed help, and if so, to please give me a sign. And right on cue, the row of lights above the mirror began to flash with a consistent cadence, and I instantly regretted my implied offer and explicit request for confirmation. I very ineloquently expressed fear and an unequivocable wish for it to stop, and again, they obliged without delay. It was this moment that accelerated my mental processing of it all and breached my limits. I fled downstairs to finish getting dolled up in the company of my friends.

Admittedly, though dramatic and unnerving in the moment, whatever was in my bathroom had no more of an ominous feel than did the woman, so time provided the only thing I needed to return to my room with just slightly tempered comfort. 

I had momentarily returned to my room before going to dinner to grab my purse and, on another whim, opened my laptop to a blank word document and offered them the opportunity to use it to communicate their needs to me while we were out. Respecting that they were likely not tech-literate, I generously gave a brief tutorial on how to do so and even changed the settings so it would not enter standby mode for three hours. I re-entered my room later that night with dread and proactive regrets about this but was relieved to find a still blank page staring back at me. Sometimes losses are wins in disguise.

One request I had asked the presence, mainly out of petulant pride, between my protective words of light and final offer of help, was if they could do something to show themselves in front of my friends, so that I was not the only one spouting off about such things and leaving the room open for them to write me off as ‘imaginative’. I may have initially hoped to protect them from fear, but found not being believed to be more intolerable. And in this, they were again obliging, though in a less dramatic fashion. 

The following day we came back from our daily adventure to rest before heading out once again for dinner. We had just an hour of downtime, which we spent, as always, all together around the kitchen table, wine in hand. For no other reason than being the one that the proprietor had first handed them to, one of my friends had taken on the role of ‘key master’ and only she and one other were in earshot when the proprietor had given the tutorial on how the lock worked. It was this particular day, when in a less vigilant mode given we were only coming back for a short stretch, that the two ignorant amongst us were the last through the door with the other two already well ahead. As I would later learn, locking the door required turning the key on the inside lock. However, the door will not close with the key turned, so while the one in charge of it had put it in, neither me or the other straggler turned it. I walked in just ahead of the other, but waited for her to shut the door, as much out of politeness as to have an escort through the hallway. Honestly, I doubt either of us would have bothered to lock it even if we knew it was on us to do. What I was personally afraid of was already inside and I would have strongly preferred to have one less obstacle to a hasty exit over one for any unlikely would-be outside intruders.

The build-up to this moment probably makes clear what the reveal will be. And the drama of it was actually underwhelming considering the implications, but our finding a locked door waiting for us on our way out was significant to me in that I was not the sole witness to it or the only who knew with conviction that it was not locked by our hands. And while it did deepen the overall creepiness of the villa, I had already experienced greater theatrics, so my dominant reaction was to be thankful for the requested validation. That said, I wasn’t entirely able to keep the less welcome possibility from lurking in the shadows of my mind that it was perhaps a symbolic indication of their desire to keep us inside. But for the short term, my gratitude outbid my fear for the dominant space in my mind. 

On the day following this experience, we took our longest day trip yet, which was down to the Gorges du Verdon with plans to paddle boat on the river running through a steep canyon. It was just shy of a two-hour drive away, though much of that was due to long stretches of the route being over curvy mountain roads that considerably slowed our pace. I had noticed each day that the car had continued to occasionally jerk to the right or left of its own accord, but it had not increased doing so in frequency, intensity, or difficulty of regaining control of it, so by this time, I was even less concerned about it than I had been on the first day (which was even then a barely detectable blip). I noted on the drive to the Gorges that the frequency did seem to be picking up, but the degree and ease of righting it remained the same, so though it wasn’t a development I welcomed, I was still a far distance from panic. And ultimately the only trouble we had reaching our destination was the GPS entering another state of confusion and taking us down random rural country ‘roads’ that really weren’t roads or fit for driving on. It was a poor testament to our common sense that we followed the directions anyway, and especially as they were clearly leading us away from the river, but we convinced ourselves that perhaps the storefront where we sign up for a boat was one of the random structures we could see sprinkled here and there. It wasn’t, and logic finally won over blind obedience so we just drove to the river in hopes that the actual launching point would be obvious, and thankfully it was. 

It was a good day, maybe even one of the best. The canyon was stunning as was the nearby town we visited afterwards. It was the drive home where things took a turn for the worse, as whatever was wrong with our car came out with a vengeance and unluckily, just as we started on a long stretch of a curvy mountain road. I’m not generally afraid of much (clearly outside of the realm of the supernatural, but not even usually that!), and I don’t have a fear of heights in most contexts, but what does scare me are roads along steep and sharp cliffs with no barriers to impede your plummet off of them. If I am a passenger, I will be as curled into myself as is physically possible and will remain convinced of our inevitable doom until it’s over. So I need to be the driver to tolerate them at all, but even then, it’s a source of palpable stress. And in the return direction, the very steep cliff was a threat just to our right. The first lock of the wheel took us in the direction of the oncoming traffic though, and I thought it likely a product of paranoia that it seemed to veer a bit more aggressively and remain locked into place just a tad longer than it had before. But when it happened again, this time towards the cliff, there was no denying it, and this is when unabated panic came flooding in. I remained silent, but the look on my face communicated clearly to my friends that I had not simply lost focus, and for the first time they too became aware of the car’s fickle personality. Their fear weighed heavy on my own.

Without the option of pulling over or safely coming to a stop, I slowed our pace considerably, raising, I’m sure, the ire of the long line of drivers collecting behind us. I had the lives of my friends in my hands though, quite literally, and it hit me for the first time how unconscionable it was for me to not share that the car had been acting up from the start and decide unilaterally that it was of no concern. Of my friends, I’m the only one who isn’t prone to playing it absolutely safe, even in the face of a perceived minor risk. It’s likely not a coincidence that I’m also the only one who doesn’t have children. So my guilt in not giving them a vote rose in parallel with my enhanced sense of responsibility for getting them safely off the mountain, and I was determined to do so, even while becoming less and less confident about my chances.

The car seemed determined, almost intentionally, to chip away at our hopes, and it nearly won in erasing all that we had left when the wheel locked and moved again towards the cliff, even more emphatically than before. I can’t say with any degree of certainty just how long it took for me to regain control of it, but the three screams still echoing in my mind validates that it was just barely shy of ‘too’ long. The car behind me seemed to finally get the reason for our slow speed and eased off from our tail, which relieved a small degree of the anxiety I felt. But I now had three friends on the phone with their families, one explicitly telling her husband that it may be their last moment of connection, and two sharing loving words with no explanation of why. After several more occurrences that thankfully weren’t quite as dramatic, we did finally reach the bottom of the mountain and gratefully pulled into a small town, first just to sit and breathe, and second, to reach out to Avis..

Working with Avis became its own nightmare that I could write pages on, and it is difficult to believe just how difficult it was to get them to care, let alone help. When we finally did get ahold of someone who agreed to try, we were told that the earliest they would be able to get another car to us would be the following morning. So this time a collective decision was made to continue home to the villa, now that the remaining roads were wider and flanked only by level fields. Other oncoming cars were still a concern, but we were veering off to side roads from there where they had proven to be few and far between, even during “rush hours”, and speeds were low. Oddly, from there, the car only acted up once, and back to its original mild version of it. I recognized the illogic of my paranoia, but I couldn’t help but wonder in the back of my mind if the more malicious energy had followed us from the villa. But at least, if so, it aimed to scare and not kill.

We had indulgently hired a private chef to prepare dinner for us at the villa that night and we were, fortunately, able to reach her to let her know we would be arriving later than she had planned to, and fortunately, she was willing to adjust her schedule to accommodate us. She was there, however, sitting in her car when we pulled up, and the sky had already darkened. The interior lights of the villa were glowing through the windows and casting a beautiful glow on the vineyards, and that aesthetic coupled with the relief I felt to be safely back, almost made me question why I ever thought to fear it and if my imagination was perhaps more powerful than I had ever given it credit for. But as we began to walk towards the door, the lights went dark, and we all came to a quick uneasy stop, though I wasn’t the only to take a step or two backwards.

And we just stared at it at a complete loss over what to do, until one of us thought to call the proprietor. She dispatched help our way, but until he arrived, we waited outside, preferring the light of the moon and stars to the absence of any in a place that already creeped us out to varying degrees as it was. We stared at it though, not able to take our eyes off of it, not knowing what clues it may offer as to the level or nature of any potential danger within. Then as suddenly as it went dark, it came back to light. We breathed a sigh of relief and were, gratefully, willing to believe it was simply an electrical misfire.

But as we took a tentative step forward, the lights began to flash back and forth with again a regular cadence, though a slightly slower one than the ones in my bathroom had. So we slowly retreated and I felt someone grip my hand. I can’t recall who, I’m not sure I knew then, and I can only say definitively that it wasn’t the chef, but I wondered then what she was possibly making of all of this and admired the courage that she was displaying by not taking off. I thought of the belongings in my room and what I’d miss most if not given the chance, or not being willing to take one, to go retrieve them.

The man sent to investigate the issue must have lived nearby as he was with us within 20 minutes. The villa had gone completely dark again by the time he arrived, so he entered the place that he apparently knew well, armed with nothing but a small flashlight to guide his way. I don’t know if he ever sensed anything there, but either way, I admired his courage as well and feared for his well-being, but was thankful that there was someone willing to enter who had the skills to help. He emerged with an initial report that he couldn’t find anything wrong and was on the verge of declaring defeat, when inspiration hit and he disappeared back inside. And minutes later, the lights were restored. Since he did find something, we felt reassured enough that what had seemed so spooky was nothing more than a poorly-timed malfunction in the electricity, so we gratefully went in and the chef got to work.

Incidentally, I did question if whatever went wrong there had also been the cause of my bathroom lights flashing. I certainly can’t rule it out, but a few days had passed since then without issues, and so the isolation of it (both in frequency and being limited to just them), the timing of their ‘responses’ to my questions, and it following right on the heels of the shower incident made it all too uncanny to lean in the more ‘practical’ direction. Though I know hard-core skeptics would be likely to disagree.

Anyway, we said an appreciative goodbye to the man and settled in the kitchen, as it was our more-than-ever-needed sanctuary, and shared incredulity over the latter part of our day. A few minutes in though, the house plunged into darkness once more. The most level-headed of us thought of the flashlight feature on her phone and at least provided that one beam of light. I am fairly confident that I was not that person and that I was too fixated on the two doorways, with dread roaring in, even though in the total darkness I couldn’t actually see them. Someone had happened on a drawer full of candles earlier in the day, and luckily, the drawer was deep. But though it was clear which option was better, their flickering lights added more creepiness to the feel of the place than the ability to see well subtracted from it. Fortunately, the man hadn’t made it too far down the road and returned within 10 minutes, perplexed, but determined. He disappeared downstairs and another 10 minutes later, we had light once again. He offered an explanation that I did not understand, but he said it confidently and it sounded plausible enough to latch to it as the truth. And at that point, I really needed to. For the rest of the night, the house let us be and the lights only went out when we chose for them to. And we needed to do more than just ask.

The moodiness of the lights returned the next morning, though the drama of it was considerably lessened by the sunlight coming through the windows. So it only served to taunt, not blind. But it was also our last morning there, and it incentivized an early departure. I don’t recall ever being so eager to leave a place behind, or ever not running late, but I wasn’t the only one standing in the driveway with fully packed bags waiting for our cab well ahead of its expected arrival. 

Retrospectively, I do see the irony of being so terrified of the two areas of the house, yet only experiencing events in the parts of the villa that I had felt to be relatively safe, the kitchen thankfully excluded. Though I suppose the front door was at one end of the lower hallway. But also that I didn’t find the more tangible experiences to be that frightening- certainly nowhere near as frightening as the mere presence of bad energy in the two areas.. The bigger power outage was both tangible and frightening, but it may have very well had a practical explanation, even if rather coincidental. But though the individual experiences didn’t faze me as much as I would have expected, in and of themselves, they did fuel the sense of dread that built over the week and spilled over just before we were set to leave on our own accord. I don’t think I had it in me to stay another night.

I do have fond memories of our time in the villa, as we had some truly great moments that I could also write pages about. But though it defies belief given just how idyllic it is and how committed I initially was to staying there forever, I would be hard-pressed to force myself to ever enter it again. That said, I do have lingering guilt over implying an offer to help whoever was in my bathroom, only to then run away when they confirmed their need of it. Especially as they did later graciously honor my request of them. So I do occasionally feel like I should, for the sake of my conscience, return once to at least make an attempt. Though my bag of tricks has only two in it and it seems like a lot of effort to make to simply yell at them to ‘go to the light’ and wave around some sage. Perhaps I can do the former over Zoom. But we did share the story with the proprietor so my genuine hope is that she’s since picked up my slack.

On a last tangential note, I will also never use Avis again and wouldn’t feel bad to single-handedly drive them out of business (pun totally intended) over their frightening apathy over their faulty car almost driving us off a cliff and the unbelievable effort it took to get them to lift a finger to help. I am an expert at holding select grudges and I will consider it a relationship-ending betrayal if anyone who even remotely likes me ever uses them again. 🖕🏻, Avis.