My paranormal night (the beginning)

Everyone in the blogdom is talking about Halloween and all that it entails. So, here I am jumping on that bandwagon (or maybe haywagon). But in true rogue fashion, they actually have nothing to do with Halloween and everything to do with creepy, scary, weird, unbelievable, freaky. Pick your definition of choice.

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Let me start this with a little backstory information:

When I was 16, my mother threw me out of the house. Not because I was some crazy, out-of-control teenage, but because I would not divulge the details of a visit I had with my (also thrown out of the house) father.

So at 12 am one night after work, I came home to locked doors (a la -the actual locks were changed) and my mother opened the door and basically helped me move all my earthly possessions onto the front yard, handed me the phone (no cell phones way back then) and told me to call my father to pick me up. She then closed and locked the door, turned off the porch light and left me and my belongings out in the dark, all alone, in the middle of the night. And this is how I came to live with my Dad, his girlfriend and her three kids.

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Fast forward to months later when I was sharing a room with daughter # 1 (who just happened to be my age). Large room with a private bathroom and on the complete other side of the house as the rest of the bedrooms.

All seems benign and hunky dory, until one night I wake up out of a dead sleep to the sound of music. The creepy music from the jewelery box that is sitting on the dresser. The one where D#1 keeps her stuff that she used every day.

So, I am laying in the dark (which, BTW, I am afraid of, for this very reason) listening to that music box play "Raindrops keep falling on my head" for what seems like several minutes. I am sure, it was only seconds, but I am scared sh*tless and wait for it to stop. By now, my eyes are squeezed shut and my head is under the covers (because, that thin piece of cloth is really going to stop a threat).

Wind up music box, can't play for more than a minute or so, right? Wrong.

The damn thing just keeps playing that song over and over again in it's plinky little way.

So I cautiously peek out at the clock radio to see just how long this thing will play. 2:56 am

My heart is pounding and I am sure not going to look around to see what (if anything) is there. Plink dinky a dinky dink a dink.

I start nudging D#1 to wake up. Nothing. More nudging and insistent whispering, "wake up" . I am trying not to attract too much attention to myself, as I am now shaking D#1. Finally she wakes, and wants to know what the heck is going on.

"sssshhhhhh, listen"

Now, she is scared and we are both clinging to each other in a death grip.

She says, "turn the light on"

" uuhhh no way"

So, she leans over and turns the light on. There sits the closed jewelry box and nothing else. NOTHING! and the music plinks the final notes of its song.

Clock radio: 3:08 am - 12 minutes of spooky, creepy music box playing.

Jewelry box: closed

I was too afraid to move and ended up under the covers the rest of the night. I later tried to get that jewelry box to play for more that a minute after winding it up but had no luck.

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What could it have been? I have no answers but consider this the first encounter with the unknown.

What do you think?