My Gran's House 2

Hung in the hall by the stairs, and on the wall ascending the stairs were pictures. 

There there was a framed picture of the Turin shroud. I always found it fascinating and slightly disturbing, an inexplicable image, one I didn't understand. The incomprehensible burn-like marks.

Three-quarters of the way up the stairs was a shallow landing where stood a large plaster Sacred Heart Christ, gesturing to his heart which stood outside his chest, with an appropriate sorrowful-compassionate look on his face. 

On the back wall, high up, somehow ominous and frightening, stood a huge framed print of the Declaration of Arbroath, gloomy there among the shadows. The yellowed tattered ribbons of parchment, the gouts of sealing-wax, frightened me more than the Turin shroud and the plaster Jesus. 

The upstairs of the house scared me somehow. I fancied that the Jesus statue followed me with his eyes. It was gloomy and dark up there, and there was a hatch to the loft, where my brother told me that a mad woman lived, and I believed him.

Up there were several bedrooms... My gran and papa's room: It was completely dark and dominated by a huge bed. Around the walls were cupboards. Hardly any light seemed to filter in. On top of the cupboards were old and fragile stuff, an ancient moth-eaten fox stole, a hat box, things that seemed arcane and ancient to me. 

I began to entertain the notion that the upstairs hall was haunted. I thought about it every time I went up there, to use the bathroom, that smelled of green soap. I was worried that when I opened the bathroom door the ghost would be standing there in the hall. It was the ghost of a woman. I knew this idea was irrational and yet it obsessed me. I would hesitate a long time before opening the door. 

She looked like the Mona Lisa, this woman-ghost, like a woman in a painting. She had a kind, glowing face. But I was afraid of her.