Changelings
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It’s October, and fall has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Like a lot of places I’ve lived, September is a late summer month, a bridge month, and it’s lovely, but by the end of it I’m ready for a chill in the air, apple cinnamon things, and that unsettled feeling that comes from the knowledge that hauntings are gonna happen for one month only and I better be ready.
What is a changeling?
I’ve been writing under the title “Home is a Changeling” for a few years now, and for this essay, I planned to explain the specifics of what I mean by “changeling.” I think through this collection that it’s clear enough now what I mean by it, so I’m not going to devote a full essay to unpacking that term.
Nor am I going to dwell on other meanings of the term, which is that we change into new people as we grow, sometimes unrecognizable to the people we once were. But that’s been explored more beautifully in this October 2022 New Yorker article by Joshua Rothman. Do you feel like you’re the same as you’ve always been? Or do you not recognize your younger self?
I also thought about the parallels between a haunted house and a haunted body, such as in I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted: A Memoir, by Jennifer Finney Boylan, who realized that the body she was born into wasn’t the one she was meant to be in, and that sometimes real people can become ghosts to us. But that’s her story, not mine, and whether she wants to think of herself as a “changeling” is up to her.
So, then, what is a Changeling? The word originates from folklore found throughout Europe; it is a supernatural being (a fairy, a demon, or similar) that kidnaps a human child and takes the place of the stolen child. Not that it matters, but according to Celtic folklore, the particular name we gave our child protects her against witches and fairies (or maybe we were supposed to put a tree branch by our front door; whatever the case, she’s not a changeling, so it worked)!
You may have seen the 2008 Clint Eastwood film of the same name starring Angelina Jolie. Truly, the most terrifying components of that movie are that it is based on real events, and that people in authority are quick to imprison a devastated mother who insists that the boy who has come to live in her house is not her own, and that her real son is still missing.
As usual, the scariest things are the true things.
You Are Not Alone…
While the history of “changelings” is fascinating and all that, for this essay, I decided I’d collect some things I’ve encountered that make this month a time to reflect on all things spooky. I can’t say I’ve had more paranormal experiences than the average person. I don’t even believe in most of it, though I’m always—eagerly!—open to being convinced otherwise. But for this essay, I thought it would be fun to explore some of the times I’ve experienced strange things, or been in strange places where I wasn’t sure if I was alone or not, or felt something I couldn’t explain.
Who knows what it all means, but I certainly don’t feel like I’m going to open some portal to the netherworld or anything. Probably not. Maybe….
The house where I grew up, 1202 Belt Line Boulevard, was not haunted. It was old (by today’s standards) but I never experienced anything strange there. Sure, my bedroom door was right across the hall from the door to the attic, which was dark and smelled funny (the attic, not the door). Sure, there was a toilet in the unfinished basement (which was also dark and smelled funny). The presence of these things does not particularly indicate hauntedness.
My parents always told me and my brother that the former owner, an older lady, had died at the top of the stairs. (I often wondered, Did she fall down the stairs and die, or did she have a heart attack, then fall down the stairs? Or did she not fall? Lots of questions were never answered).
I didn’t like walking to the bathroom at night because I’d have to walk by the top of the stairs, and in the dark, the downstairs was an abyss, a black hole completely void of light that felt like it could suck you down into it. I’d shield my eyes and scurry past it as fast as I could.
Later, the reality set in that there was no ghost of the old lady at the top of the stairs, and, I understood that statistically, most people die at home, and that’s a good thing.
So someone probably died at your house, too. You don’t have to be afraid of their nonexistent “ghost”.
You, too, just might get lucky enough to die at home.
I thought I saw the Grim Reaper once, on an overnight school science trip to Barrier Island. It was dark, and he was standing on a dune, backlit by the cross on the beach (it was an Episcopal camp, though we weren’t there for religious purposes). He was tall and was wearing a dark hood.
I told my friends and classmates and everyone said it was another one of our classmates, Carl, who was very tall and wore hoodies. Also, no one died that night. Everyone was probably right.
Later, I thought that I’d seen him turn and face me slowly. But I couldn’t have. I would have looked into that hood and seen something, and I would not have been able to forget that. Right?
I’ve also been to this grave in Vermont, and I can assure you that you can’t see the doctor’s corpse through the glass anymore.
And the final experience (for now), the most real one of all, is actually not my story to tell. In a house in New York in the late nineties, an awful crime was committed. My husband’s cousin and her family moved in several years after. They’ve experienced many strange occurrences in the house over the years, and I can’t share those. But I can share that we’ve visited a few times, and once, I felt something pressing down on my chest when I was sleeping on the fold-out couch in the living room. I struggled to wake up and move and push whatever it was off of me.
Perhaps even more surreal, and a reminder of the not-so-long-ago-ness of what happened there, is that I’ve run my fingers over bullet holes, still there in the walls of the upstairs bathroom.
That’s all I can share for now, but experiences like these make me continue to question what is real and what is only imagined.
Just a list of spooky things I like and don’t like
I’m sure that we all have particular things that scare us, for whatever reason, rational or not. Many people are afraid of, say, spiders or snakes. Though both of those give me pause when I see them, I recognize their value and I’m not afraid. I don’t want to touch them and take them home as a pet, but I’m not freaked out.
The same goes for spooky stuff. Dolls have to be actually creepy to bother me, and my standards are pretty high for what constitutes a “creepy doll” (American Girl and Barbie dolls? Of course not. That wooden doll whose eyes never really closed that belonged to my grandfather that I used to play with as a child? Okay, fine).
I also have no problem with clowns of any type, and frankly whenever I hear that another person is afraid of clowns, I have to roll my eyes. It just feels like they’re jumping in the clown car of all the people who think it’s “cool” to be afraid of clowns. Were this many of us freaked out by clowns when they were all over the place in the eighties, like at the circus or in bedroom decor? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of these toys I definitely had (that clown car made fun sounds)! Some of you are definitely faking it.
(I’m just here in my corner, trying to debunk the theory that not all clowns are creepy, one clown at a time. It’s grueling work).
Finally, can we all agree that vampires aren’t scary either, just cool and sexy like in the movies, and that deep down we all kind of want the ability to live forever? Yes? No? Okay.
I say all this like I can handle creepy stuff and that scary movies don’t bother me. That’s hardly the case. I generally avoid scary movies, and while I’ve seen a good number of them, I think the reason I can sleep at night is because I don’t go out of my way to watch something I know is going to freak me out.
It’s for my mental health, you know.
But I don’t want to miss out on some truly enjoyable, impressive films or stories, the ones that can truly take me to another dimension, or that scare me just enough. So every few years, I allow myself to venture into the underworld. Here are some things that I’ve learned.
What Does Freak Me Out
In general, some of the themes of “scary things” in film tend to fall into certain categories. If a movie trailer has something on this list below, I generally do not want to see it (I’ve learned my lesson). This is not a complete list. (I’m also not providing links. Go Google them yourself if you don’t want to sleep tonight)!
Home invasions (Never ever will I watch “The Strangers” or “Funny Games”)
People wearing masks
Children in danger (no thank you, “Hereditary”; I read the Wikipedia plot and I’m all set)
Bodies that twist in nonhuman ways (see “The Ring” below)
Some mirrors (never watching “Oculus”, thanks)
Jump scares (can’t avoid these, don’t like ‘em)
Dead bodies (do I even need to mention this?)
Too much stabbing (exception: “Scream”)
A creepy person or thing, moving slowly towards the camera, over a long distance
Eyes and mouths that open too wide (I’ve seen “Get Out” and “Nope” by Jordan Peele; I don’t plan to watch “Us” for this very reason. Also, the alien abduction scene in “Nope” is one I think about often and never want to see again)
Scariest Movies I Will (Probably) Never Watch Again
The Hand is an Oliver Stone movie starring Michael Caine, and I watched this on TV on a Saturday afternoon in the 1980s when I was far too young to be watching such trash, and I’ve never since been able to hear the name “Stella” without having flashbacks to a disembodied hand strangling a young woman and then stuffing her into the trunk of a car. I’m sure this is a campy romp but I don’t want any part of it.
It Follows. I might, might watch this one again sometime, once a lot of time has passed and I think I can handle it. It takes the “creepy person following you slowly from a distance” to the next level. I also closed my eyes during a key scene in this movie which I won’t even describe because it’s too disturbing, but always having to look over your shoulder for fear that something is following you is scary enough.
Drag Me to Hell. Okay, this one was really good, and the twist at the end is jaw-dropping, and I might watch it again just to feel that rush in the last 30 seconds of the movie. But it also freaks me out, and rightfully so.
The Ring. Of course this one is on here. I haven’t watched the original Japanese version (and I expect it is even scarier) but I don’t know why I subjected myself to this movie, even after my friend Adam described the movie to me, in minute detail, and that was freaky enough. I also can’t say that I’ve actually “watched” it, since I have never covered my eyes more than I did for this movie, so I probably have only seen ⅔ of it and listened to the rest. The scenes I did see are burned into my mind’s eye, and I have to live with that.
I learned, after the fact, that some major scenes from the movie were filmed in Skagit and Whatcom counties, where we live now. Apparently my eyes were closed when the main character drives to the Shelter Mountain Inn, but we used to live less than five minutes away from where that particular scene was filmed.
But whenever I start to get scared again just thinking about this movie, I remember that the girl in the well is played by the same actress who was that awful teenager in “Big Love”. She’s also the original voice of Lilo in “Lilo and Stitch.” Not scary!
My Favorite Scary Movies
Then there are those movies that are just frightening enough (or surprising, or entertaining enough) for me to enjoy. If you have any to recommend, let me know!
Scream (duh)
The Faculty and Disturbing Behavior (not particularly scary but particularly enjoyable, to me)
The Others (the twist!)
Interview With the Vampire (a classic. We tried to watch the newer series and it was far too bloody and intense)
The Cabin in the Woods (everyone loves this one, for good reason)
IT (the original, in all its cheesiness)
Dawn of the Dead (2004 version; it was my introduction to zombie movies)
The Skeleton Key (this is one of my favorites, also for the multiple twists)
The Village and Old, from M. Night Shayamalan (something old and something newish)
I’m sure this is not a complete list, but these are tried and true in my book.
A Final Word/Last Gasp
Just like my childhood home, I don’t believe that our current house is haunted. I really don’t. Just because it’s 115 years old and has its own name doesn’t mean that spirits reside alongside us.
But there have been a couple of strange instances that I can’t fully explain. One night, less than a year ago, I was laying in bed, about to fall asleep, and I heard a voice from the hallway between the bedrooms. It was a man’s voice, and it uttered one word: Hello.
I bolted up. My husband was still awake and in the kitchen, and lights were still on. I ventured out. “Was that you?” I asked.
He was confused. No, it wasn’t. Was it because I was about to fall asleep, and my dreams were just about to start, and I was in that liminal state between awake and asleep, and I only thought I heard something?
But then, a few months later, it happened again. I was with my daughter in her room, which shares the same hallway. We’d turned off the lights and I was still with her in her bed as she settled down.
We were still rather awake when we heard a distinct voice from the hallway. This time, I couldn’t make out words; it was more like a one-syllable sound. We both heard it. We sat up and looked at each other. “I think that’s Dad in the hallway,” I told her. We laid back down and she fell asleep.
When I came out of her room some minutes later, I asked him if he’d been in the hallway. He hadn’t been, nor would he typically say anything aloud when we’re trying to get our daughter to sleep.
The hallway is the very middle of the house, surrounded on four sides by the two bedrooms, the bathroom, and the living room. It isn’t unusual in any way. Oh, other than it’s also where the pull down door for the attic is.
We’ve lived here for three years, and it’s only happened twice. I don’t think I have anything to worry about. Do I?
October 2026: more “supernatural” experiences from my past. And as for the voices in my hallway, maybe I’ll have more to tell next year, if we’re lucky (or not; that means more weird nights in my future)!
Reflection Questions:
What’s your favorite scary movie?
Has anything strange or supernatural happened to you or someone you know? What did you think of it?
Are you afraid of clowns? (You must submit a three-page essay, single-spaced, with at least four arguments proving your point, and you will be graded on grammar, humor, and believability).
No land acknowledgment this time, but a recommendation: there are some incredibly scary stories from Indigenous storytellers and this 2023 book looks like a great one—I’ll check it out from the library and report back next October!
Image: me and my cousin Ryan, Trick-or-Treating, c. 1985. Photo by Grandmother.
My favorite classic scary movie is The House on Haunted Hill (1959) with Vincent Price. The closing lines, "The ghosts are restless...they're coming for me now.........and then.....they'll come for you", always gave me goosebumps. A movie that I had a hard time watching and subsequently sleeping afterwards -The Haunting (1963). Modern versions of both of these are quite chilling.
Yes. I've had experiences. I'll tell you about them sometime over a glass of wine.
Clowns can be creepy. I'm not afraid of them. Pennywise is a different matter.
Thanks for the spectacular seasonal essay!