Mystery tomato
In late 2001 we moved from busy London into an old (circa 1840-1860s) timbered cottage in a semi-rural location. It had wooden beams throughout and dark wood doors. A door closed off the bottom of the walled stairwell, which made the stairs even darker.
I was expecting our first child, and had to get up two or three times a night to go to the tiny loo, which was tucked into the corner of the landing at the top of the steep wooden stairs. As I passed by, I always felt a strong compulsion to look down into the dark stairwell (we closed the bottom ‘stair door’ at night). But I would resist the urge to look with all my might. I felt that something was staring up at me. It wanted me to look down and see it. I got the feeling it was an old woman with wispy grey hair. She was standing on the bottom step, in the shadows – but I refused to look, and would waddle back to bed as quickly as I could.
The feeling never left me over the next two years: that the woman was there at night, looking up at me, urging me to look down and see her on the bottom stair. I eventually told my husband I didn’t like the stairwell door, so he removed it. He admitted he also didn’t like
