The Wraith - Classic

A cold wind, a dark shadow, a sudden midnight certainty that something is not right. From Snap Judgment's underground lair, your wait is over. At long last, you're listening to Spoot. Stay tuned. Did you know there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? And they found a way to combine THC with carefully selected functional ingredients to create gummies, baked goods, flour. I'm talking about Mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies. You can get 20% off your first order at Mood.com with promo code SPOOT. Forget one size fits all supplements. Mood's functional gummies are formulated to dial in the mood you're looking for. Like the Sleepy Time Advanced Gummy for mind-soothing calm at night. Or Mood's Pure Relief CBD Gummies for gentle relaxation without any psychoactive effects. Plus, beyond gummies, Mood has a selection of flour, pre-rolls, bakery treats, beverages, and everything ships directly and discreetly right to your door. No dispensary lines, no awkward conversations, just better days and nights delivered to your doorstep. Best of all, every mood product is backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. And as I've mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code SPOOKED. So head to mood.com. Find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for and let mood help you discover your perfect mood. And don't forget to use promo code SPOOKED when you check out to save 20% on your first order. Try it today at mood.com. Okay, so we're all trying to get healthier, but it can feel like shadowboxing. General basic diet plans, general health advice, general supplement stacks. And we know we are not general. No one size fits all. But what if you could measure how your body is aging and know exactly what to focus on next? That's what True Diagnostic does. They test your biological age and key health markers like vitamins, nutrients, and inflammation. Then gives you a clear 90-day plan based on what your body needs without the guesswork. And it's easy. All I did was order online. The kit chips right to your door. prick my finger like they said, sent back the prepaid return package. It takes just two to four weeks to get digital results. My only job now, follow the three most important actions and results say I should for 90 days, then retest to see progress. Easy. That's why True Diagnostic is trusted by top longevity clinics and health professionals, not just consumers at home. And right now, spook listeners can get 20% off at truediagnostic.com using code SPOOKED at checkout. That's truediagnostic.com and use code SPOOKED for 20% off today. Choose True Age, True Health, or the Combo Kit as a one-time purchase or subscription. Spooked is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, for owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit Progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. Eight years old, almost nine, working the farm all day, milking, bailing, hoeing. But mostly, I'm getting everything ready so my dad knows he can trust me. Until finally, finally, the truck pulls up to her house, and a red-bearded man, leather gloves, work boots, comes around with a clipboard. He hands it to my father. My father says he's going to need to see him first before he's signing anything. Well, all right then. The driver ambles over, slides open the back of the truck. We see the wooden crate stacked seven deep, one on top of the other. From the dark of the truck, you can hear, you can hear the sound. Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep. the driver pries the lid off on the crate and we see him dozens and dozens of yellow balls of fluff the driver reaches in and he grabs one of the tiny baby chicks I hold my hands out and he places her right in my open palms she fusses sheep sheep indignant at being plucked from her sisters and she's beautiful. I stroke a little back gently. She quiets down. I hold her right up next to my cheek and I laugh. I can't help but laugh. I laugh. My father signs a paper on the clipboard and as the man unloads the crates of baby chicks next to our brand new chicken coop, my father reminds me, Remember, these birds are not your friends. Yes, sir. I know this, but I keep holding on to the chick. Stroking the back of her head, she closes her eyes and falls asleep in my hand before I place her back with the others. The chicken coop is my job, my responsibility. I feed them. I shovel their crap away. I water them. they grow bigger. Then their yellow fuzz starts to be replaced by white feathers. And as they grow, they begin to attack each other. I separate out the chicks that seem to be targets for the others. Chickens will eat each other if you let them. I will not let them. Then one day, my father says, it's time. I want to pretend that I don't know what it's time for, but this is my responsibility. So I help my father pack the birds back under the crates, and the red-bearded man returns to our farm, and we load the birds full-grown now into his truck. The man drives away. but there are still a few chickens left those are for us my father says he puts a paper bag over the head of one of the chickens so it will not run he gets a butcher's knife presses a bird's neck against a stump I stop him this is my responsibility I raise these birds I raise them I wonder if this one is that first one, the one that fell asleep in my hand. I pick up his axe. He holds the chicken down on the stump. I cut her head off with one swing quickly. My father holds the chicken fast. He doesn't let the wings flap wildly. He doesn't allow the carcass to thrash around. He just holds her upside down and lets her bleed. Then he takes the bird to the outside sink for my mother to pluck. I can't eat that night. Later on, I'm wide awake in my room thinking. And my grandmother comes in. She sits at the foot of my bed and she tells me stories. of Anansi the spider and how to cut High John the Conqueror root we sing songs and we laugh and I wonder so I ask her Granny how come you're back? You know why baby but I don't know why not really My grandmother turns away from me that, you named her baby. Probably you shouldn't have named her. And I remember I would never have remembered unless Granny told me like I had locked it as far away as I could But it's true. I did name her. Up against my cheek that first day, I named her Birdie. And I accidentally made a promise to take care of Birdie. And to keep Birdie safe. forever. And even if she's fading away, Granny looks at me serious. Don't do that again, baby. Never do that again. I want to ask her more questions, but she waves old hands and vanishes utterly from my room, Granny. And even now, I don't know if my stain will ever go away, but I wonder if it's the price of passage to experience certain things, to walk certain paths, to know with absolute certainty that what we see is not everything there is. Perhaps. Perhaps everyone has to pay something to go on this road. And we must all decide whether the cost is too high. From Snap Judgment's Underground Lair, my name is from Washington. Please find a hand to hold because spook starts now. Now then, we're walking a precarious road between this world and the next, and our first storyteller, Teresa. Now, Teresa knows something about the other side. Spirit. The first time I heard this poem was at my Aunt Jean's funeral. It was printed on the back of the program. It was the one that says, Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. And thinking, oh yeah, I know. I was about five or six. My mom's cousin, who was in his, I believe he was about 40 years old. He was this healthy, strong, huge man. He was such a big man, I was a little intimidated by him because he was just like this big towering figure. And he had cancer. We kept visiting him in the hospital. And then one night, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I sat up in my bed and I had this thing that I would do when I would wake up in the middle of the night and see something there. I would touch my eyes and make sure they were open because I would have confusion, was I dreaming? So I remember touching my eyes and they're open and I'm sitting up and, you know, just sort of like being awake and my mom's cousin, Gary, was sitting on the end of my bed. I wasn't scared of him. And that was the first thing I noticed was I didn't feel nervous. And I thought, you're in the hospital. How did you get to the end of my bed? And he just looked at me, and I can still see it in my eyes now. He waved, and he said, I love you. Goodbye. And I remember feeling just sort of love. sort of wash over me. And I went back to sleep. And the next morning, I told my mom. She made some phone calls. And her face just kind of dropped and went white. Like, uh. And she said, Gary died last night. Did you know there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? And they found a way to combine THC with carefully selected functional ingredients to create gummies, baked goods, flour. I'm talking about Mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies. You can get 20% off your first order at Mood.com with promo code SPOOT. Forget one size fits all supplements. Mood's functional gummies are formulated to dial in the mood you're looking for, like the Sleepy Time Advanced Gummy for mind-soothing calm at night, or Mood's Pure Relief CBD Gummies for gentle relaxation without any psychoactive effects. Plus, beyond gummies, Mood has a selection of flour, pre-rolls, bakery treats, beverages, and everything ships directly and discreetly right to your door. No dispensary lines, no awkward conversations, just better days and nights delivered to your doorstep. Best of all, every mood product is backed by 100-day satisfaction guarantee and, as I've mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code SPOOKED. So head to mood.com. Find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for and let mood help you discover your perfect mood. And don't forget to use promo code SPOOKED when you check out to save 20% on your first order. Try it today at mood.com. Spooked is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, for owning a home and more. plus can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit Progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates' potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. Not very long after that, my aunt, who was only in her mid-20s, had cancer, liver cancer. I woke up in the middle of the night. There she is, standing at the end of my bed, walks toward me. She was beautiful and young, and I remember looking at her face, and she said the same thing. She waved and she said, I love you. Goodbye. Shortly after, there was a phone call. And my uncle had gone in that morning to give my aunt her medicine and she was gone. So I remember my mom and my grandmother in particular looking at me and looking at each other and making a decision. Okay, Teresa sees stuff. I started thinking of myself as someone who has this ability. I have the ability to see and hear people that have passed. And my friends knew that. I would tell my friends. They thought it was cool. However, I wouldn't mention her. She was like taboo for me to mention out loud. The experience was so completely different. Aunt Jean and Gary felt like someone you love coming in the room and giving you a hug. And she was just terrifying. The first time I saw her, my mom and I had fallen asleep on the living room floor on a bean bag. And the front door was open with the screen door closed. Very small town America, you know, it's probably summer or whatever. and this woman walked up to the door. She was sort of a petite woman, lean. She was dressed all in green and she had brown hair and it was cut like that 1970s, 80s bowl cut that women had. She was sort of nondescript, sort of mousy looking. She was not an ugly or scary looking person. She just looked like a woman. She walked through the screen door, and she said my full name Are you Teresa Lynn Morligan And I said yes And I sat up and I touched my eyes and I touched my arms. And she said, well, I've come to take you with me. Because no one here loves you and no one here wants you. I said no and it was so mean it was just eerie you know if she hadn't been saying these horrible things to me she might have almost looked sweet and she pointed out the door and said well all these children came with me and there were all these children behind her and they were sort of running around behind her It was almost like they were on a playground. But they were with her, so my assumption was that they were lost. That they were somehow not with their parents anymore, or not with people that cared about them. So the idea of joining these lost children was a chilling thought. And I said no. And I just grabbed my mom and buried my face and closed my eyes, and then she's gone. I would say I saw her so often that I couldn't distinguish the next time. And it wasn't even correlated with anything. It wasn't like I'd have a stressful day and I'd have this encounter. But my fear around it never diminished. She was always standing in a door when I saw her. And she would stand either in my closet door or she would stand in the door to my bedroom and do the same thing. Say, nobody here loves you. Nobody wants you. It would always be that. Nobody wants you. And you need to come with me. My sister and I had twin beds in the same room, and a lot of times I would get up and get in bed with her, or I would walk to my mom's room down the hall and get in bed with her. And it felt, like, so scary to get there, you know, like to get down that hallway to get to my mom. And as soon as I'd get in bed with someone else, I'd feel safe again. There was a real darkness that she brought into my life that I don't think I could have come up with on my own at that age. I don't know that I could articulate what I ever thought she could do to me, but when she was around, it felt like the loneliest, saddest, darkest feeling you could have. it almost you know it almost made me feel a little shameful that I had this presence in my life like it made me feel like I had something yucky on me I uh I don't know how else to say that it's like like you just have like a bad smell or something I did surround myself with people often even when I was a teenager, you know, my mom was in school and my stepfather worked nights at the hospital. And so I would go out every night. I would get out of school and I'd maybe come home for like half an hour and then I'd go out with my friends and I'd be gone until I knew my mom was going to be home from school. I just didn't like being alone because I was scared of what I was going to see. I had so many things up. I had like crystals and sage and candles because I wanted to make like a boundary around myself. And I was very much searching for ways to keep her out of my space. How do I manage this? Because I have to manage it so it doesn't manage me. at some point I decided in my mind that maybe I was like a beacon that I was like a lighthouse to something like her and it's like a moth to a flame it's not like you're special you're just a light but I was scared of her it was exhausting to have my heart pounding that way and as I got older the children weren't there anymore She began to show up alone. And I started feeling a little bit more like I had to stand up to her. When I was probably 15, she'd come in. I do remember sitting up in my bed and putting my hands out in front of me and just saying, Get the fuck out of here. you're telling me nobody wants me? I don't want you. You get out. And she would leave. And I felt like I won the fight, but I also knew she could show up again. And she did again and again. It was pretty much the same thing, just that same tape playing. When we return, Spooked, the Rape continues. Stay tuned. Did you know there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? And they found a way to combine THC with carefully selected functional ingredients to create gummies, baked goods, flour. I'm talking about Mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies. And you can get 20% off your first order at Mood.com with promo code SPOOT. Forget one size fits all supplements. Mood's functional gummies are formulated to dial in the mood you're looking for, like the Sleepy Time Advanced Gummy for mind-soothing calm at night, or Mood's Pure Relief CBD Gummies for gentle relaxation without any psychoactive effects. Plus, beyond gummies, Mood has a selection of flour, pre-rolls, bakery treats, beverages, and everything ships directly and discreetly right to your door. No dispensary lines, no awkward conversations, just better days and nights delivered to your doorstep. Best of all, every mood product is backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. And as I've mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code SPOOKED. So head to mood.com. Find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for and let mood help you discover your perfect mood. And don't forget to use promo code SPOOKED when you check out to save 20% on your first order. Try it today at mood.com. Spooked is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, for owning a home and more. plus can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit Progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. Now then, Teresa can see the dead. Ever since she's been a little kid, she's been haunted by the same woman, the wraith in the green dress. Now, she's a grown-up. And that woman, that ghost, just won't go away. Spooked. I was maybe 21, 22 I was engaged to my ex-husband at the time We were living in an apartment in Portland I had never told him about her I was trying to not have her in my life I was trying to grow up and I was also moving into a phase of my life where I was sort of trying to deny these things where I was sort of trying to grow out of the ghost thing So one night I dead asleep and I have a dream about her And Terry, it was his name, he wakes me up and he is freaking out. like he is white he is hyperventilating he is really upset and he is pissed he said who is she and i was like oh how do you know what's going on he said i was sleeping and I woke up and looked at your face and your face changed into this other person's face. What do you mean? And I said, who? What would she look like? And he said she had this like bowl cut, straight hair, brunette in green, eyes to kill. Who is this? And why did she say, I don't love you, I don't want you? And she just kept repeating, I don't love you, I don't want you. He yelled back at her, you're not Teresa. And she said, yes, I am. I, my heart just sank. I had not told him about her. I had purposely not told him about her because I knew he wouldn't want to hear it. And I could feel her in the room. I just felt her right there. I don't know how else to describe it. Like a person's presence was there. She was there. He wanted to pretend that never happened so desperately. He said something to the effect of, I don't even want you to think about her if you can, because I think that brings her energy in. So I just kind of let that be. And we got married, moved to Berkeley, living in North Berkeley. She's there. She's in that house. I do the same thing. Get out of here. You know, you're not welcome here. Nobody invited you. I started, like, getting a more extensive, you're not allowed to come back, you have to stay away. But I continued to see her. A friend of Terry's, a friend of my ex-husband's, said, you've got to meet my friend Sharon. She's a groovy homeopath in North Berkeley, awesome person. So Sharon invites us over for tea. We go to her house, and I walked in the front door and met her and met her husband. And we sit down for tea. And they started talking about how they did these solo camping trips. and I said, there's no way in hell I would ever do that. I'm not sleeping in the woods by myself. Are you crazy? I can't even sleep in my house by myself. And Sharon just starts staring very intensely at me, and she says, why wouldn't you sleep in the woods by yourself? And she starts to get really pushy. Like, why can't you be in the woods by yourself? Are you afraid of the dark? Are you afraid of wild animals? Are you afraid of other people? She starts listing all these things. What could you possibly be afraid of? What is it? And I was like, no, not animals, not people, not the dark. No, no. And then finally she says, then what are you afraid of? I just start bawling. And I don't even know where it comes from. I mean, I was at her house for 20 minutes and I don't even know her. And I'm sitting there bawling my eyes out. And she said, is it her? The woman that came in with you? I just was stunned. And she said, you're afraid of her, aren't you? And she said, you've got to get rid of her. You've got to get her off of you and out of your life. Next thing I know, she's like, she kind of like scooted up close to me. there was a part of me that was just so shocked that I was in the middle of all of this all of a sudden with these people I'd never met and we went back and forth and she started saying where did you foresee her what does she look like why is she with you what does she want from you when Terry saw her when he looked at me and saw her he said something else He said, your face became her face, but your body also became her body. And she was moving and she was fighting someone. She was fighting somebody off of her like somebody was hurting her. It clicked. Someone hurt you. Somebody hurt you badly and ripped you from this world abruptly and left you alone, left you looking. and when Sharon said, what does she want from you? She wants me to help her. She wants my help. She wants to stop suffering. She wants someone to tell her she's okay and that they want her. I said that, and I just repeated that. You are loved. You are loved. You are loved. You are wanted. You are wanted. You are wanted. I won't let anyone hurt you. You're going to stop suffering. And it was like, gone. Split. She just split. Gone. It was pretty much instantly, I was done with her. She didn't have any more power over me. and I think what I realized, though, was I'd been fighting her, and I had been using this sort of violent response to her, and that was just feeding it. It was making it worse. I recently decided to change my career, and I've been volunteering at an emergency department. It's funny. I think of her whenever I'm there. Because when people are in pain or desperate or scared, for whatever reason, whether it is they're hurt because they had a car accident or they were just attacked by another human being, they all need the same thing. They need someone to say, I'm so sorry you were hurt. I'm so sorry someone hurt you. That was what she, that's what she was seeking. so if I wake up and I feel like something's watching me or if I feel like I see something I don't get upset because I know it can't hurt me we hurt ourselves other people can hurt us but spirits, beings, whatever they are I don't think they have access to that they can just mess with your head a little That's right. No matter who you are, no matter what your plane of existence is, no matter if you are dead or alive we all need the same thing spread your love big thanks to Teresa Morligan for being courageous and helping even the scariest of spirits cross over and thank you so much for sharing your story of the spooked and special thanks to Stephanie Phil for bringing Teresa's story our way this journey this exploration of mystery it is just getting started spookpodcast.org be afraid the team walking this dark path includes Mark Rischich Nancy Lopin Eliza Smith Anna Sussman Jody Colley and Teo Ducat the original spook theme music is by Pat Messini-Miller original soundscape for The Ray by Leon Morimoto And though you might hear voices begging you otherwise, you might even see visions imploring you to make another decision. Please ignore what they say. Stay true to what I am telling you. Never, ever, never, never, never, never, never. Turn out the lights.