Silver ankle bells on ankle jewelry
Have you ever read a story about a dancing ghost? Have you ever seen or heard a ghost dancing? Were you ever afraid of a ghost living in the same house? This is my story of a close encounter with a dancing ghost.
I was a visitor at a home, in the outback. I stayed as a guest, for a fortnight, in the house, on a lonely street. The street was cut out on a piece of land, and surrounded by the wilderness.
During the day, the traffic that came down the road was few and far in-between. The village taxi/ cab/ bus drove by occasionally, to pick up passengers, who wanted a lift out of the estate.
Sometimes, a hired car would drive past, driving home a passenger. If the hired transport was an automobile, the driver would toot his horn occasionally, to alert potential passengers of his arrival. If the public transport was a horse drawn cart/ wagon, the horse would trot past, with bells jingling, to signal its arrival.
Once in a blue moon, a trader would come by, hawking some wares. he could be the milk delivery man, fabric seller, or a hawker for anything else.
Basically, it was very quiet.
The house had an open air roof top terrace. It was used to hang the wet laundry out for natural drying by the sun. Nobody went up there, save for the lady of the house, who was my hostess.
I used to hear the jingle bells of the horse drawn cart/ wagon in the day. I heard the clopping sounds of the horse’s hooves on the unpaved street. The sounds of the horse’s trotting hooves were accompanied by the jingle of the bells that were attached to the horse drawn cart.
Sometimes, I heard the sounds of the bells from far away, but the bells never reached my street. The horse was probably a couple of streets away. The sound of bells carried farther than the sound of the hooves. I thought that was the logical reason for why the horse carriage never arrived on our street, but the bells could be heard, like from a mile off.
My brief stay in the house ended and I left for my home. I told a mutual friend the anecdote of how AI used to hear the sound of bells but the horse never came down our street. He listened and then looked quizzically at me.
My friend asked me if I had told my hostess about hearing the bells and never meeting the carriage down the same street I was on. I told him I had never thought about relating that experience to my hostess. She wasn’t open to chatting and I didn’t know her that well to talk about something as mundane as bells.
My friend told me a bloodcurdling story about the alleged truth behind the sound of the bells. He said a ghost was known to dance on the roof top terrace of the house.
My friend said the story had been passed down many mouths, like a gossip tale, via the local grapevine. A mysterious dancing woman who wore bells around her ankles used to like dancing on the terrace of the house. The sound of bells was actually coming from the dancer and not the prancing horse who drew the cart ferrying passengers. My friend’s explanation solved the mystery of why I heard bells but never saw the horse come down my street.
My friend said that the hostess’ sons also heard the dancing bells and they were among those who knew about the mysterious bells.
I felt goose bumps down my arms and a chill ran down my spine. I could hardly believe how close I came to meeting a ghost in real life.
Why didn’t my hostess tell me about the dancer on the terrace? She probably didn’t want to frighten me.
My friend was cheeky. Unknown to me, he went to communicate to my hostess to inform her about my experiences hearing the bells. He later returned to tell me he had related my experiences to the lady of the house. She told him that I had heard the bells of the horse drawn cart. The cart was far away, which explained why it never came down my street.
The lady of the house probably didn’t want to spook me for fear that I would never visit her home again.
Which version of the story would you believe in? Do you believe in a ghost dancing on the roof top terrace? Or would you go with the explanation that the jingling bells were sounded from a mile away where the horse was?