When Leland first told me that his Dad had bought a cabin in the mountains and we could live there and fix it up after we were married I imagined this.
Thankfully, it was not the dilapidated building I had imagined. It was a beautiful ski-in/ski-out chalet located in Alta ski resort.
Once it was repaired we started managing weekly rentals. On a particularly busy day preparing for a new group of renters we decided to split up the work. Leland went down to the valley to do laundry and pick up groceries for our arriving group. I had started cleaning the 5,000 square feet of the cabin that needed to be cleaned.
As I was finishing in the kitchen, wiping the counters, I heard something. A muffled woman’s voice. At first, I thought someone had wandered in from the ski hill looking for a bathroom. I went to the entry and checked. No one was there. I yelled out “Is someone there?” I got no answer. As I stood near the entry I heard the voice again. This time from within the room I had just been cleaning. A tightness ran down my spine and into my fingertips, my heart began to race, my palms got clammy. It sounded like it had come from the hallway leading downstairs. Confused, I searched the rooms, trying to figure out if an alarm clock in one of the bedrooms had turned on and was playing music. I didn’t hear the sound anymore.
I felt flustered but I had a job to do. So, I ran up the stairs to the top story and searched the whole cabin systematically room by room, closing and locking doors to rooms and closets I had checked until I got to the bottom story. I found no one.
I breathed a sigh of relief and I got back to work. Then, I heard the obscure sound again. Now I was really scared because I realized that maybe, I was going crazy. People don’t just hear muffled voices. I tried to find the voice again but whenever I thought I was close it seemed to be coming from within the walls and then it would just stop.
At this point, I knew two things. First, I was completely alone in the cabin. Second, I was hearing a woman’s voice. I started to feel a bit panicked. Do you know you’re hearing voices if you’re hearing voices, I wondered? How do you tell your new spouse you’ve started hearing voices?
I decided it was best to be straightforward, I had to just tell him, and soon.
Once we had gotten our renters all settled and we were alone I said, I have something really serious to tell you. He said “ok”, so, I recounted that when I had been cleaning that morning I had heard a woman’s voice but no one was there. I had checked the whole cabin and couldn’t find the origin. His eyes widened for a split second, I could tell he was trying to stay calm. He said, “maybe there’s a logical explanation”.
We tried to find an explanation but found none, at first we assumed maybe someone was hiding in the cabin. This was no ordinary cabin after all with its hidden passageways and storage hideaways. It was indeed quirky. Leland assured me he’d be listening and watching in case someone had snuck in and was living in the depths of the cabin somewhere.
The week went by smoothly. As the renters were leaving they mentioned they had heard the resident ghost, but couldn’t find exactly where it was coming from. They were actually quite excited to have stayed somewhere that was haunted, for a whole week. At this point I was more relieved than they could fathom, I was not in fact insane. My husband could breathe easier knowing that I was not the only one who had heard “the voice”. We had not told them about the voice since I had been the only one to hear it so far.
The group left and once again I was cleaning. This time Leland had stayed and was cleaning upstairs. We were on separate floors of the cabin when suddenly we both heard the sound of a woman speaking as if through a pillow. He began running up and down the stairs to different stories of the cabin quickly, almost frantically, trying to find out where the ghost voice was coming from.
We determined that it was not coming from the upper story of the cabin, it was either the middle or bottom stories. Then the voice within the walls vanished.
While making beds on the lower story later that night we heard the voice coming from within the walls and ceiling above us. As we walked up the stairs passing the landing the voice was much louder. We opened the door to the hidden utility closet and there above our heads was the voice.
“Change my batteries”, it said in a British accent, it was a smoke detector.