The Writing on the Wall

When we arrived in Texas late Tuesday night, I talked awhile with my friend, Angie, and then went up to Reagan's room to go to bed. I turned off the night light and then, not knowing the room layout, I pulled the light cord and then just got into the bed, right in front of me. I never turned or rolled all night, waking the next morning, refreshed and in the same position.

The next night, I thought I would change things up a bit. I turned out the fan light, made my way around the bed to crawl in from the other side and as I was about to lay down, I happened to look up and there, in glowing neon letters, were the words........

Turn Back

Now, I'm not kidding you a bit. GLOWING, NEON LETTERS. Just like a message from God, directed at me. I felt my way back around the edge of the bed and sat there. Staring at the glowing, neon letters, trying to decide what could this mean.

Obviously, I know what Turn Back means. But what did it mean to me? Finally, I decide I must be seeing things, hallucinating from all the sun. I head through the connecting bathroom to the room where Sherie is sleeping and the conversation goes something like this....

Me: "Sherie!"

Her: "What?"

Me: "Sherie!!!"

Her: "WHAT?"

Me: "Are you in bed?"

Her: "Yes."

Me: "Are you in BED?"

Her: "YES."

Me: "Can you get up?"

Her: "Yes."

Me: "Come tell me if I'm losing my mind."

Her: "OK."

In retrospect, you might have thought she would just say I wasn't, but perhaps she had reasons to wonder. She comes into the bathroom and I tell her to look around the corner and tell me what she sees.

She gets just to the edge of the bathroom and carefully sticks only her head out of the bathroom and looks to the right.

And she sees it, too. And I hear her say,

"TURN BACK"

She turns and looks at me and we both stand in the bathroom for a moment, discussing why this could possibly be there. She goes back to bed, obviously feeling like it was a message for me and not her.

I, however, can't get to sleep without further investigation. I go out and lean over the balcony, hissing Angie's name so as not to wake the kids. No response. Finally, I hiss out "Reagan! Reagan!"

The sweet little girl known as Reagan appears and I ask her why her wall says Turn Back.

She stands there for a moment like she has no idea what I'm talking about. Finally, she says it was from a haunted house she had made upstairs for her friends.

It was sprayed on with hair spray at Halloween and she had never washed it off. It never showed up after that for her because she slept with a bright night light on.

However, I pulled the night light out to sleep in the dark --- thus, receiving the message I will never forget.