The Haunted Painting

There is a painting that I have had for over 10 years. I purchased it after watching it painted live during an art installation at the Voodoo Art Bar where I used to work. Unsurprisingly, the Voodoo Art Bar was in Louisiana and rumored to be haunted. Aside from the occasional feeling of being watched, the only experience I had with that haunting was when a screw (from who knows where) randomly flew across the room and hit me in the back. Pretty harmless overall.

I’ve always loved this painting. It’s a beautiful piece of a woman painted on a wooden board. In the beginning, the board was perfectly straight and upright. Over time, it has warped and now curves throughout the middle section.

I kept the painting in my bedroom for most of the 10 years I’ve had it. It’s traveled from Louisiana up to Colorado where I live now. Before moving into my new house down valley a few months ago, I had the painting in my bedroom. But it started to feel a little creepy with it facing the bed, so I moved it across the room. After that, I was sleeping much better.

When moving into my new house, there wasn’t room for the painting in the bedroom, so I put it in the back “craft room” of the house. I thought she’d be happy there with other paintings I had gotten from the Voodoo bar.

My first night of moving in, during the middle of the night, I heard a loud CRASH! Not something you want to hear during your first night in a new house.

I jostled my partner in a panic and asked him if he heard that. He did, so he got up to investigate. Turns out, the painting had randomly fallen over and caused the crash sound.

The next day, I moved the painting to another area in the craft room, so she wasn’t looking at the doorway.

Fast forward a couple of months to just a few days ago—I am in the craft room doing some yoga. I find myself staring at the eyes of the painting and thinking that she needed some pupils to complete her eyes. At that exact moment, I hear a scratching sound coming from the closet, just beside the painting.

I was freaked out by this, but not enough to run away in the moment.

That night, I have nightmares about a spirit in the house. First, I am lying in bed holding onto my pillow (just like I am in waking life), and a spirit is trying to pull the pillow away from me and out of my hands. I am yelling “No!” But it doesn’t stop. I am feeling so overwhelmed and powerless. So, I do what I sometimes do in nightmares that I can’t control and begin to pray a “Hail Mary.” (You’ll see in previous entries that I do this during dreamtime…old habits…) At the very end of the prayer, I forcefully conclude “AMEN!” And I wake up instantly.

It’s about 3 in the morning.

After some long attempts to calm myself down in bed, I finally put the pillow over my head to block out the unknown, settling sounds of the house. And I fall back asleep.

This time, I dream that there is a spirit in the kitchen. It’s an actual apparition of an old man. He is throwing pots and pans at me. I look at him and yell, “GO TO YOUR ROOM!”

I instantly wake up as I am now talking in my sleep, or more accurately, yelling “Go to your room!” in my sleep. As I come back to waking life, I hear a strange sound come from the back of the house.

But I’m too scared to investigate. And I’m too frozen to wake my partner up (who has now become so accustomed to me talking/yelling in my sleep that he sleeps right through all of this).

Since then, I’ve been too scared to go back into the craft room out of fear of what may be lurking in there.

And now I’m wondering…do I keep the painting? Get rid of it?

Is it really the painting?