Guest Halloween Ghost Post! Author Ashley Paternostro

In the summer of 2010, my husband and I were on an antique buying binge, finishing our home with our eclectic style of industrial repurposed goods.  

My ghost story begins like this...

Tucked in the corner of an antique store in Sandwich Illinois was a beautiful early 1930‘s soft metal icebox. Its tin outer shell had the perfect patina-- a scuffed, aged silver, the most amazing heavy latches and thick worn hinges. It was priced for a bargain-- we had to have it! My husband and I shoved it in the back of our car with dreams of rewiring it into an up-cycled wine cellar.  

When we brought it home, I immediately hired an artist to paint 'WINE CELLAR' on the front. I scrubbed the wire shelves and touched up the places the silver finish had worn thin. I called for estimates on rewiring, and with each day I grew attached to the end vision.  I loved it, and I could picture it in our house. It was perfect.

A few days later, while I was home folding laundry, I heard a tinkling-- like glass being clinked softly--in the kitchen. I was home alone and knew it was impossible, but still I followed the sound. As I rounded the corner into the kitchen, the sound stopped and the room was 'just so': nothing had been touched.  I had gone back to the grind of laundry, when I heard the noise again... only now it was louder. I hurried downstairs, worried that one of my dogs was doing something he shouldn’t be.

In the kitchen, we had wine glasses hung upside down from shelves, seven feet off the ground. It was against the back wall where the bar would be eventually-- where the revamped ice box wine fridge would be. To this day, what I saw still confounds me. 

All of the glassware was gone from the rack-- scattered about the room, unbroken. Some glasses were right side up in chairs, others were across the room on the hardwood floor; some were under the table, and another in a napkin bin.  

It was impossible that they would fallen from that height and not broken into a million pieces upon impact. If by some fate they had fallen on their own, it was improbable that they would have landed as they did-- standing right side up across the room.  

I knew. I felt it-- and how I don’t know-- but I knew... it was somehow connected to the ice box, which was from the prohibition era. I didn’t have to think about it: the knowing of that washed over as I stood there looking at my glasses, and the rack-- which was still hung perfectly. In that instant, my love for the ice box had been replaced with a wary feeling of being unsettled. My husband didn’t believe me, though he saw the glasses. I refused to touch them. He didn’t want to get rid of the ice box, but respected my wishes when I said: “That is not coming into my house”.

I listed the ice box for sale, offering it for a little more than we paid. A woman came to get it: she was so excited-- she shared my same vision. We lifted it into her car and wished her well. A short while later, she called to inform me that she had been driving home on the highway with it when all four tires of her SUV blew out.  

I can’t say for certain what happened that day, but I can say something happened. I’ve always believed in ghosts and the paranormal... but maybe I didn’t believe hard enough. I can say: I do now.  

Visit Ashley's blog at http://ashmp.wordpress.com/