A strange painting haunted my childhood and showed me the spirit world is real.
Rushing in from school, I chucked my bag down and headed for the three-seater sofa in our bright orange lounge.
As I flopped down, I caught sight of something new hanging on the wall.
‘Muuuuum!’ I called. ‘What’s this new painting?’
It hadn’t been there when I’d left this morning.
My mum Dorothy walked in from the adjoining kitchen diner and looked at the 2ft high portrait on the wall.
‘I went shopping and saw it,’ Mum said, explaining she’d nipped into a bric-a-brac place near our home in Sheldon, Birmingham. ‘I just had to buy it. It was as if it was pulling my hand.’
Mum’s eyes drifted to the painting.
I felt the pull she was experiencing towards this image of a little blonde boywith blue eyes filled with tears.
Mum had always been a spiritual and sensitive woman. It ran in our family.
Her aunt had read tea leaves, and for a while, Mum had done readings from playing cards for family and friends.
Yet she’d stopped abruptly when she foretold the death of a close relative. And now, Mum kept her intuition to herself.
But having the same gift myself, I could see things in her eyes, and sense how she was feeling.
Maybe her sensitivity was why she felt such a connection with this youngchild.
My eyes were drawn to it too.
He had a smart haircut, a little jacket on and the sweetest face. But his eyes… Brimming with tears, they bored deep into you. It was as if he wanted to pass on his pain. ‘Do you like it?’ Mum asked. I shrugged, but inside I was screaming: No! I hate it!
Soon after, we had visitors round.
‘Why are you letting her wear that?’ one snapped, pointing at me. Mum bristled.
The next time we had visitors, it was the same. Friends and family who were normally perfectly pleasant seemed snappy all of a sudden, mostly in my direction.
I couldn’t work out what was going on. But that painting seemed to stare at me whenever I was in the room. Feeling uncomfortable, I stopped sitting in the lounge alone. My little brother Steven and sister Shirley seemed oblivious, but I could tell Mum was unsettled too.
Sometimes we would be watching TV, and I would see her eyes travel to the painting and linger there.
Though I tried to avoid the painting, it wasn’t a big house, and I’d feel its negative energy as soon as I walked into the room.
Whenever guests arrived and became fraught, the painting’s energy grew more powerful. It was as if it was feeding off the negativity.
Once, we were all sitting together in the lounge when we heard footsteps running up the stairs.dad Peter said.
He looked all over the house, but co
