We found out about this terrifying tale once Nanny Bell passed away and we were clearing out her attic. Even her own daughter, my mother, didn’t even know about this story or the existence of Nana Bell’s diary. It was found under a loose floorboard under a heap of old suitcases. It was decaying with age but the writing was still legible after being underground for over 50 years. The last entry was dated in July 1959 only a few months before my Mom was born.
According to my grandmother’s diary entries she didn’t tell this story to anyone because it was so utterly frightening. In her mind she didn’t want to give this recollection any more credence than it deserved nor did she want to frighten anyone the way it frightened her. Also Nana Bell thought she was losing her mind and she knew she would be sectioned in an asluym and given electric shock therapy for madness which happened to her mother’s sister after she got the “blues”. So the only outlet Nana Bell had was this diary. Nana Bell was born in 1940 and these encounters took place in 1957 when she was 17 years old. The first ever entry detailed what my Nana Bell described as the “Harbinger”.
My sisters and brother compiled all of the diary entries to make into a cohesive story that I’m going to share with you.
Nana Bell’s ordeal is horrifying, disturbing and unbelievable and we still struggle with the affect it is has had on everyone especially my mother. It also explains Nana Bell’s emotional coldness and distance we all experienced and even at her death at eighty two she remained just as aloof and closed off as my mother remembered as a child. Was it because of this? We knew she loved us in her own way, but she lacked any maternal connection with any us of and didn’t have much in the way of compassion or empathy that we always failed to grasp. This diary held a lot of answers for us.
This is Nana Bell’s story. I hope we did her justice.
The first time “it” happened I was waiting for the bus after I finished work. I was a typist at the time working for an accountants and doing very long hours. I was tired and cold. It had been a long day. At first when I saw it I thought I was hallucinating. This woman was hovering above the ground across the road from me in a long flowing black cape. She was just openly staring at me. Her feet weren’t even on the ground! I rubbed my eyes furiously thinking it would go away. But it still remained there. This woman didn’t even look a typical woman not just because she seemed to be levitating or her bizarre clothing but she didn’t look well human. The woman’s head looked dome shaped framed with jet black hair, she had eyes that looked like the pits of a cold dark cave, her mouth very small, her nose far too pointy, her hands large and nails really long. It was like a person who used a very bad template and this was the final result.
I don’t even know how to compute this into words. I mean it sounds crazy doesn’t it? Imagine if I told Mother and Father I saw someone floating in mid air wearing a cape and looking other worldly?! I would be sent to one of those sanatoriums that my aunt got sent to and she was never the same again! Just the thought of it makes me shiver involuntarily. The woman remained where she was hovering until I got on the bus and it sped off. I could feel her eyes following me until she was out of sight. When i got home I was greeted by my mother sobbing uncontrollably telling me Father had been killed in a work accident.
The cape woman appeared again. This time she was in the cemetery where I was laying flowers on Father’s grave. At first I was too shocked to be scared and just yelled “go away!” at the top of my voice. But as the woman hovered closer I started to clamber backwards utterly terrified. She opened her mouth to reveal these tiny sharp little teeth that looked like it belonged to a rodents. I tried to scream but only a stifled yell came out. The woman began to cackle. It was a horrible inhuman sound that penetrated into the depths of my soul. I didn’t know if I wanted to block out the sound or the sight.
Just as she appeared the woman vanished. I ran home sobbing. I wanted to confide in my mother but the implications were just as scary as my experiences. It would terrify my Mom and anyone else I confided in. When I got to the house there were flashing lights everywhere. My mother was white faced and talking to officers. My brother had apparently drowned in the lake at college.
I haven’t posted for a few months as Mother and I dealt with the grief of losing both Father and Eddie. I wanted to tell Mother the truth about what was happening but couldn’t find the words. How could I say that seeing this woman was a bad omen? Both times I saw her, Father and Eddie were dead. Was it just a coincidence? But then who was she? What was she? Did I have a mental illness that was making me see things? Was this all in my head?
A year has passed since I saw the woman and I have been made secretary at work. Mother is mostly okay but it has still been really hard without Father and Eddie. I am stepping out with a man called Peter and I think he was The One! I am so excited to eventually settle down and get married but Mother thinks I am getting ahead of myself. I am only eighteen so I have plenty of time to save some money for a wedding and house deposit. Im so relieved seeing that woman was a temporary insanity that i could put behind me
She is back again. My hands are shaking as I write this. I feel sick. Why is this nightmare happening again? I was out for dinner with Peter and through the restaurant window I saw her standing there looking in the glass. Her black eyes went right through me. I jumped up so abruptly that Peter leapt with fright. Diners and staff were staring with open curiosity. I composed myself and dared to look back at the window: the woman was gone. I sat back down again red with embarrassment and apologies. Peter looked at me with concern and I explained I just got a shiver and nothing to worry about. But I felt cold with horror and sick with dread. knew something bad was going going happen or had already happened. A few weeks later I received a letter from my cousin Martha. She told me Ada, our other cousin, had died in childbirth a fortnight ago due to complications and so had the baby.
I’ve been avoiding writing about these occurrences for awhile because what if I’m giving it power by writing about this woman? This may sound ludicrous to anyone else but to me nothing makes any sense anymore. I have lost all reason and rationale. I feel like I am making these bad things happen by seeing this woman. Maybe I need to remove myself from all of the people I love and care about? To keep them safe and to help me regain my life by not seeing this wretched spectre again. I could call of my engagement to Peter even if it broke both our hearts. Go traveling far away and not develop any close relationships with anyone ever again. But I couldn’t. No matter how dire this gets, I can’t leave Mother even if could leave Peter. I’m all she has. I will lead as much as a normal life as I can but keep some sort of barrier up to protect those precious to me.
The woman came to me again. She was even uglier and grotesque as she was before. I didn’t even realize this but the woman had claws. I don’t think the sight of her could any more horrific but it is. I covered my eyes when she came to me at work and pretended she wasn’t there. The office assistant was looking at me baffled when I hid my head behind my desk trying to use the type writer without looking at the keys. I was crying in dismay. I kept saying “go away” as a mantra in my head, over and over. When I looked up she had gone. The office assistant asked me if I was alright and looking at me as if was bonkers. On the way home an ambulance sped past and I knew that someone I had cared about had died. There was no doubt.
I got home and saw the ambulance parked outside. I didn’t even have to ask the sympathetic paramedic. I just knew Mother had died. Heart attack, they reckoned. She wouldn’t of felt anything. One minute she was hanging up washing the next she was gone. Mother was only 40. How could it of been a heart attack? I refused an autopsy and sorted out all the insurance paperwork. The funeral preparations and will were already sorted. After months after I buried Mother I sold up the family home and moved in with Peter. A few months later we got engaged.
It’s 1959 now and I’m married. I saw the woman a few more times after Mother. My Grandpa died within days after my Mother’s sudden death. Grandpa couldn’t handle the grief of losing his only child and was found dead in his bed by his housekeeper. Then Martha, my other cousin, died of tuberculosis leaving behind her husband and three children. The woman appeared just as ominously as before and by now I had become so resigned to it I just ignored her as if she was a bothersome fly rather than something I should be bothered by.
But then it became much worse. Peter was away on business and I was in bed asleep when I was woken up by the most rancid breath on my face. I felt myself recoil in disgust and felt my eyes open and then widen at the sight of the woman smiling at me from next to me in bed. I screamed and jumped back so far to the other side the bed that I fell off and landed with a painful thud on the floor. I could hear this hideous creature cackling hideously from the other side of the bed. I stayed on the ground and slid into the gap under my bed. Anything to avoid this thing. Then almost involuntarily my eyes made contact with the woman’s legs hovering above the ground and saw that her feet were hooves. Then like every other time this woman vanished into thin air. Only this time it felt different.
Almost as if it was final. I knew this woman wouldn’t come to me again. When I got the telephone call to say Peter had died in a car accident I screamed and cried and begged for him back. I was having a baby and he/she needed a father. I needed Peter! I wanted to rant and rave and bargain to bring him back. I would’ve done anything. I felt like I had grieved enough for the whole world and shed enough tears to fill all the oceans. Yet i still felt indescribable pain. And I still cried a million more tears. I never felt so miserable and alone.
I know that in time I will feel relief that this woman is gone. I feel like I have certainty this will soon be in the past even though I will always carry it with me. Soon I will have a child and she will soon have her own children. What if they have the burden of this? But the fear of her return will always remain with me til my dying day. I know whatever she was she wasn’t done with me even if she didn’t return. Maybe her final appearance will be at my own death or beyond.
I call this woman the Harbinger.