Haunted Wisconsin

Arthur, the Impudent Ghost

Shortly after A.J. Nielsen moved into her house at Sparta, she wished she had not. She was to recall many times over the next months the odd hesitancy of the previous, elderly owner before agreeing to sell even though it had been vacant for fifteen years. A.J. had been attracted to the well-kept, two-story house for reasons that even she sometimes could not understand; though she especially admired its charming and spacious rooms, there seemed to be something else pulling her toward ownership. The troubles began almost immediately; A.J. and her two children confided in each other that they felt “uneasy” sometimes. Within weeks, their disquiet intensified with a distant scratching that the family attributed to mice or bats in the large, walk-in attic that occupied a third floor, except that searches never revealed any evidence of rodents or flying mammals. But that all changed one night when A.J. arrived home from work at ten in the evening. She found her son and daughter armed with baseball bats, their faces pale with fright. They said they had been watching television when they heard something jumping up and down from somewhere on the floors above. The chandelier in the dining room was actually swinging back and forth, they said. With flashlights and baseball bats, the trio climbed the staircase to search the bedrooms and attic above. “The chill was terrible upstairs,” A.J. remembered. “We all held our breath as we opened the attic door.” 229 Arthur, the Impudent Ghost Stacks of unpacked boxes were exactly where they had been placed earlier. Nothing had fallen. Nothing had been disturbed. But later things got much, much worse. Small items placed on a table one minute went missing the next. Locked doors swung open. Doors left ajar suddenly slammed shut. “When I was in the bathtub there would be doors slamming and footsteps all over the house,” A.J. recalled with a shudder. Every family member was awakened during the night at one time or another by scratching noises or loud, thumping sounds. A.J.’s son often bounded downstairs to say he had felt some presence at the top of the stairs icily staring at him. His sister thought she sensed her brother standing nearby on the stairs one night as she watched television. Expecting him to pop into the room and play a joke on her, she flung open the door that led out into the hallway and staircase. A blast of cold air hit her in the face, and then a hissing. The girl ran upstairs and found her brother fast asleep in his bedroom. Early one morning, A.J.’s daughter awakened to the pressure of a hand pushing against her side. “That was the last straw for her,” A.J. said of her adult daughter. “She moved out and got her own apartment.” The Nielsen haunting also affected the family’s social life. A.J. hesitated to invite friends over, given the nightly commotions and sudden, unpredictable chills that swept the house. Two acquaintances who did drop in told A.J. they had felt uncomfortable during their visit. An electrician hired to rewire the house started on a day when A.J. was not home. From then on out, he refused to work there unless she was home. He told her he felt someone breathing on his neck, watching from over his shoulder as he worked. A.J.’s former husband stopped by one day to visit their son. The boy had not yet returned from school, and A.J. had left the house to run an errand. When she got back, her ex-husband was standing outside, pale and shaken. “I don’t know what happened,” he told her, “but something made me get out. It’s just like ice in there.” So onerous was her life there that A.J. began to doubt her own sanity. On a day when the turmoil seemed unceasing, she ran to the bone-chilling attic and fell sobbing to the floor. “Why are you doing this to me?” she cried out. “I have never hurt you. I have no other place to go!” And then a remarkable calm filled the room. She felt the pressure of a hand on her shoulder, but this was a reassuring touch that conveyed warmth and 230 Part II: Southern Frights understanding. A.J...