I still remember the day I began seeing them. So long ago it was, but yet it feels like it happened yesterday. It all started when my father, Richard, found a journal in the attic. The journal went on and on about the ghosts that haunted the house we lived in. The journal spoke of a young boy that hung near the stairs, and of a black woman in the kitchen. None of these were noted as violent, but the journal also mentioned other places with troubled spirits; some of these were violent.

My father studied the handwritten journal and became upset that such beings should be stuck in the living world. He believed they were only violent because they were confused and upset. Vowing to help them, he began to spend our family’s money on other similar books and devices that sensed the presence of ghosts.

My mother and I, nonbelievers at the time, grew angry with him. More and more money was being spent on such a ridiculous cause. We found it hard to live on the money we were left with. My mother, Jen, confronted him in the living room one night when he was reading the journal once again. I was with her. She yelled for so long that soon, being seven, I lost interest.

I moved around the room to sit on the couch, but my attention was grabbed by the journal. It was sitting on the coffee table where my father had placed it when my mother had entered the room. I glanced at my parents. My father was standing now and yelling back at my mother. I smiled and picked up the book.

When my hand touched the journal images began flashing before my eyes. Ghosts and spirits; both nice and evil, seemed to move quickly before me, but I wasn’t seeing them with my own eyes. I was seeing through someone else, someone who no longer lived. I gained someone else’s knowledge on the unnatural. I now knew the writer of this journal had been killed by an accident involving the stairs. I watched through his eyes as he walked then seemed to suddenly trip and fall headfirst down the stairs. That’s when the memories stopped.

My vision returned and I saw a young boy standing on the opposite side of the table. He was my age no older. His red hair was a mess of tangles. Tears ran down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to hurt him, my Lady.” The boy cried out. “Master Michael knew I lived on the staircase but he didn’t see me sitting on the stairs that morning. I didn’t mean to trip him. I killed him. I killed Master Michael!” The boy closed his gray eyes and buried his face in his hands.

I could see the boy was deeply hurt. I reached out to touch him, give him comfort, but when my hand came close to him he turned into a small white sphere and sped off. He turned the corner, and I knew he was returning to the stairs. That boy was the first ghost I ever encountered and the first one I ever helped move on.

My parents never found out that I could see ghosts. I never told them about what happened when I touched the journal either.

For another year my parents fought until finally my mother left. She told my father he was crazy then tried to pull me out the door with her, but I pulled from her grasp and said, “Dad’s not crazy. There are ghosts.”

My mother had scowled at me then father. “You have tainted her mind with this, too!” She shouted. Picking up her bag, she opened the door and left. My father and I watched from the door as she got in her car and sped away. I would not see her for seven years.

Soon after my mother left, my father and I moved out of the house. We moved to the first house listed in the journal. My father believed he would be the one to help the ghost there move on. The moment we walked into the house he called out, “Spirit, we have come to help you. Please do not be alarmed.” I remember laughing at the ghost’s confused expression.

After a year in that house, I had helped the ghost move on. My father still thought the ghost was in the house for several months after it was gone. That’s when I made the decision my father could not see ghosts. He only knew they were there when they moved something or a made a disturbance. My father could not see them but he observed every change. A misplaced book or a slight temperature change did not go unnoticed.

After, that house was done we sold it and moved into the next house in the journal. This went on for years, one house after the other. Some houses had many ghosts, and some had one. Some took a year, others took only months.

I am sixteen now and live with my father in our fifteenth house. I have saved a total of twenty-seven spirits. Often, I am called by ghosts ‘The Ghost Savior.’