When I was in the third grade I started my first "coven". We didn't call it that, however. It was our group. We met every recess at the old tree in the back of the play ground. It had a hollowed out area that was filled with quartz crystals, and this is what made it sacred to us. We discussed strange events, ghosts, and the like. When some of the others tried to leave the group, I warned them not to. They did, however, and a few days later one girl's sister died in a car wreck the same day her appendix burst. I said it was because she would not listen, and that's when our group was disbanded by the teachers.

My next big experience was of course when my father died. As I stated elsewhere, for days before his death these massive birds sat in the top of the tallest tree on a hill in our yard. I had never before seen birds that big and never again have since his death. To go into more detail, when a robin flew up to where the other birds sat, it looked like a flea and they still looked the size of robins. The birds weren't the only thing, though, that should have clued me in. I woke up that morning feeling the prescence of Death around us. I knew someone was going to die that day. My brother, Jesse, felt it too and was afraid that Death was there for him. He spent the entire day crying that he didn't want to die. My mother apparently felt it too, and spent the day making preparations. Paying bills and writing letters. Me, however, I sat out on my swing and watched the birds and sang an old country western song that my dad always played on his guitar - "Oh bury me not on the lone prarie, where the wild coyotes will howl o'er me". That right there should have gave it away, but being 11 I didn't stop to think about it.

I think that's when darker things set in. After the realization that he was dead, I became very bitter about it, and all the while I was becoming more attuned to supernatural things. My father haunted our house. Everyone who came in saw him here and there. Brushing his teeth or going to the kitchen. I was afraid at first. I knew it was my dad, but he was a ghost. No one would even go into the room where he died. Finally we all got tired of the sleeping arrangements (my grandma and uncles were staying with us, my grandma and I sharing a half bed as well as my uncles sharing a half bed and my mom and brothers sharing a full bed). My grandma decided she was going to sleep in the full bed where he died. After a few days I went to sleep in there too, giving my mom her own bed to sleep in. I was more than a little afraid, but after I went in there I didn't want to leave - for anything. My dad was there and he wasn't scary. My grandma didn't like it though. I guess he tried to push her out of the bed and would hit her at night, but I felt at peace - safe and secure. My mom apparently had problems too, and within six months we were moving. We'd lived there for 9 years and all of a sudden we were moving. I was more than just a little upset. My mom had already sold my dad's vehicles and now was taking me away from him, from the house.

We moved to the house where my mom lives now, and amazingly my dad came along. I think in part it is because they had talked about buying the house several years earlier and were unable to at the time, so it wasn't unfamiliar ground. We didn't find out until several years later that the house was actually built on a cemetary.

The new house was very active with supernatural occurances. My mother had the pentycostal church come in and perform their version of an exorcism several times because of this. There'd be voices and footsteps and apparitions. An old woman hung in the kitchen, a dark haired woman in a long dress wondered downstairs, a blonde in the upstairs bedroom, and several men, some more hostile than others wondered the rest of the house and outside. And of course there were my imps, mischievious demons that had been with me for some time.

At some point in time when I was about 10 or 11 I had my palm read. I was told I'd marry my first true love and have three children, I was also told, however, that I would die when I was 23. I took this all to heart. I refused to go with any boys because I was waiting for my true love. I eventually gave up on this concept when I was 14 and evryone started calling me a dike.

I had a cassette of recorded off songs that my mom would not allow me to listen to when I was 12 or 13. The song I remember most was Helter Skelter by the Beatles. That is one of my favorite Beatles songs, but the version on the tape was a bit scary. There were other things at play with that tape. My cassette player used to eat it and every other song on the tape was messed up where you couldn't hear them, but not Helter Skelter. Even if that was the song playing when the player ate it, it never messed up that song. After a while you could hear screams coming from the tape when it played. I got scared and tried throwing it away, but it always came back. Finally I gave it to the pentycostal church to burn at one of their tape burnings. I guess they had some problems with it too, but eventually destroyed it.

When I was about 13 or 14 my youngest uncle (he's only 6 years older than me) was into darker magick and decided one day to try some of it out. He came over to our house and grabbed my hand, said some words, and then told me that he had just opened "a gate to Hell" in my bedroom mirror. Well, we ran upstairs to check it out and nothing. I was actually relieved. Who wants a gate to Hell in their bedroom? Well, he didn't manage to open anything up in the mirror, but he did open something (exactly where it leads to I'm unsure) in my closet behind the mirror. A doorway of sorts. Some nights you could just see this earie red glow coming from the closet. That became the doorway for the imps as well as a whole new montage of beings. And so begins the most supernatually active times of my life.

When I was 14 I began having dreams about events that would usually take place within the week. Some were good, some were bad. It kinda scared me at first. I didn't know what to think. I first became interested in prophesy - dreams, palms, and cards - at this time.

Around the same time I agreed to let my friends do a makeover on me. I was tired of being called a dike by egotistical males who I'd turned down. I needed a new look if I was going to find a decent boyfriend. I was always very particular about what boys I dated, though. They had to have some mystickal aspect to them, even if it was as minor as being an active member of the local DnD roleplaying group (though they usually had more potential than that whether they knew it or not). My friend's makeovers didn't last long, though, and I eventually converted my look to be what you'd now call goth (even though it wasn't called that then). I kept to myself and only talked to select people. I was learning to read palms and could do a decent dream interpretation. I became labled a witch, even though I wasn't practicing any real magick at the time, but people always label what they don't understand.

Being labled just made me more curious. I started reading books and decided I was going to summon up some demons. What a feat for a novice. I wanted to summon up satan himself as well as florous, and one other whose name escapes me right now. I set everything up in my back yard (remember the house on the cemetary?) and began my first real incantation. It worked. Whether they were who they were supposed to be or not, I can't say, but three angry spirits arose. I freaked and ran inside as they followed me right up to the door. My mother had the house anointed by the pentycostal church and I'm not sure if that's why they didn't come in or if they were just having more fun messing with me. I ran to my room upstairs, but they were right outside the window - tap tap tapping. When I looked outside the whole yard had changed. It looked like an old abandoned cemetary, with dead bodies hanging from some of the trees (we still didn't know that the house was built on a cemetary at this time) and they were flying around the window in a frenzy. I sat up all night and at sun rise they vanished. I decided then that demon summonings were not for me.

After a while I decided to try some stuff again. Not sure what my next big incantation was, but I know it back fired too. It became a joke amongst my friends that if you needed it to rain you went to me, because every time I tried a new spell I ended up making it storm. Something I still have a problem with today, though now all I have to do is get really angry to cause some sort of storm.

I went back to prophesy techniques, and by the time I was 15 I was able to read an acurate prophesy with a simple deck of playing cards. I carried them around with me everywhere and would even use them to help me with my homework. I didn't care if I was called a witch and after a while several other "witches" came to be my friends. We started our own little coven - The coven of the Cresent Moon. "Tanzas" was our high priest as he was the son of a high priest, I dealt mainly with prophesy while "Krystal" was gifted in seeing auras and such. The coven didn't last long and we soon went our seperate ways. I remained friends with "Tanzas" up until his death. He told me of one of my past lives and also predicted my death at the hands of my first husband if I was not careful. He used to always get mad at me because I could call the imps out. On one occassion he gave me a list of demon names to keep. Said I would know what to do with them when the time came.

Well, while all that was going on there was still that gateway in my closet. One night I awoke to find a giant spider on the ceiling. Now by giant, I don't me tarantula size - I mean basketball size. It scuried across the ceiling over to my bed. I freaked. My bed was under a slanting part of the roof and there was no way for me to get out of bed without hitting the spider, so I covered my head with the blankets and tried to scream with no luck. I felt it jump down onto my stomache and heard it when it hit the floor and scurried off back into the closet. I jumped out of bed and started screaming at the top of my lungs. I got my mom up there to find and kill this giant spider. She said I was dreaming. No spider could be that big in our house, and besides, where did it go. I would have agreed, but over the years that spider's been seen on numerous occassions by various people.

Some of my other experiences from my mom's house can be found HERE.