This story was sent in by Dorothea Langevin. Dorothea grew up in Sigmaringen, a small city in the lovely upper Danube River valley in the south-west of Germany. The city’s history goes back to the Middle Ages. The house described in this story “sits on a hillside with great views of the town and the very impressive castle towering over its center.” (Castle seen in image above.)

The house I grew up in was built by my late grandfather, Karl, for his wife and six children. The site is on a steep hillside, and part of the rock face had to be blasted away to make room for the dwelling. He was an engineer and aided in some of this blasting work. The house is solid stonework, three stories high.

Sadly, my grandmother died not too long after they moved into their new home. My grandfather was left to raise the children, ranging at the time from 10 to 16 years in age.

Though I never met either of my grandparents, growing up in the house I always felt close to them.

One night, when I was rather little, my older sisters, a cousin of ours, and I were allowed to have a sleepover in the basement. It was a partially finished space. We had built a comfy tent in a corner of the room and were soon all settled in for the night.

In the late night hours, I woke up. There was no sound, and all the others were asleep. It was pre-dawn, so the light in the tent and in the room was dim, but just enough to clearly see an outline of a figure in the doorway of the tent. More a shadow than a crisp silhouette of a person. It just seemed to be there, unmoving, quietly present. I got so scared, I crawled deeper under the blankets and eventually fell asleep again. Not wanting to appear like a scaredy-cat, I never mentioned any of this to any one. No one else brought it up, either.

For years after that night, I often felt this same presence when I went into the basement. Sometimes it would surprise me, and I’d run up the stairs as quickly as I could, even though it was not a scary presence. It simply startled me. Though soundless, the energy felt protective rather than vicious. 

Years later, long after my family had moved away and the house had been rented for a while, the family renting it asked my oldest sister if there had ever been an unexplained presence in the house. My sister said no but was curious to hear details. The family reported that they noticed their youngest child seemed to be speaking to someone during nap time, although there was no one else in the room. 

When they asked the child who she was talking to, she said, “Oh, that's only Karl.”