Oh, Henry

When my husband and I moved into a 1922 story and ¾ in a cute Fargo neighborhood, we didn’t know we would have a roommate. Shortly after we moved in a friend of mine, who had never been to the home, asked me a question.

“Is there a bedroom on the southwest corner of the main floor that used to be the master bedroom?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Oh, there’s the spirit of a cute little old man who hangs out in there,” she said. Then she moved on to other topics as if we had just talked about the weather.

I had only recently met this woman and she had never said anything like that before. I was thinking, yeah…okay.

It wasn’t until we ripped up carpet in the living room and had the maple hardwood floors sanded down that Henry made himself known.

Terry was sleeping soundly on the couch in the living room one afternoon after work and almost fell to the floor when he heard a tremendous SLAM near his head. He shot up to standing position and looked around the living room just in time to see the wooden lid of the 1970s record player hutch bouncing subtlety. More intrigued than freaked out he went to the record player, which we had gotten from my grandpa’s home.

Terry tried to recreate the sound he had heard. Lifting the lid and letting it drop didn’t work – it had a catch to close softly. Only when he lifted the lid and deliberately slammed it did he hear the same sound that jolted him off the couch.

That’s when he became a little freaked out.

After that, lights flickered, we heard footsteps and weight shifting on the stairs and the heat on an old dial thermostat would crank itself to 85 degrees. The volume on the stereo would become very loud and then turn down so low you could hardly hear it and once in a while, Maple would bark very intently at something that we couldn’t see and sometimes the TV would turn on by itself – usually to Cartoon Network.

When the bumps in the night started to affect my sleep pattern, a friend suggested I call Micara Link, who had just launched her own business as a psychic in Fargo, and I asked how much she charged for something like this.

“Just a donation,” Link said sweetly over the phone.

That was almost harder than a set price, but also refreshing.

Link came over one evening and walked through our home. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but everything was quite laid back.

Goosebumps shot up on my arms when Link was drawn to the exact bedroom my friend had asked about.

“There’s a spirit of an older man in here,” Link said with her eyes closed. She became emotional, “He just really loved living in this house and he didn’t want to leave.”

She said the man understood that we lived there now, but he wasn’t ready to leave. She described him as confused and became agitated when asked simple questions he couldn’t answer.

Just like on all of the shows you see on TV, Link spent time talking to the man and convinced him to go into the light. She prayed and had us pray with her; then she lit sage and walked it around all corners of the room, letting the smoke hang in the air. Link sat down on the bed with her eyes closed and after a few minutes, she took a deep breath and looked peaceful.

Henry was gone.

“He’ll probably visit once in a while,” Link said in a matter of fact tone.

After Link’s visit I was curious about the history of the home so I picked up the abstract and read through it. The first three owners were named Henry, so I figured referring to our friend by that name would be a safe bet.

Things really quieted down after Link cleared our house. Every once in a while the lights flicker. We just figure Henry is saying hello and letting us know we should take good care of the home that he loved so much.