Submitted by: K. Wilks

Location: Glasgow, Scotland

E-mail: Withheld

I have been teaching German and Maths since 1979 at Notre Dame High School in Glasgow's Westend area. It is a well-known fact that our school was founded in 1899 by none other than four nuns themselves. They had come to a conclusion that they would open the building as a school for girls, since girls never had the chance to get educated in those days. As the years went by, more and more nuns were arriving and teaching at the school along with more young girls wanting to be educated. It has been said that a nun, belonging to the community of establishing the school in 1899, died in the school by losing her footage at a spiral staircase which is still here today, though students are forbidden to go there as it leads to outter-school limits.

I had heard various of my students chat and gossip about the school being haunted by, what they had described as 'The Black Nun'. Though, I never thought it was true until myself and my fellow members of staff had experienced one day after school.

I had been in my classroom, correcting and marking test papers and homework when a sudden draft had swept by me. I got up to close the windows, but realised that none of them were open in the first place. I shook my head and sat back down, looking out of the window near my desk. At first I thought I was seeing things, but what appeared outside of the window, was a nun's head, floating in midair. I did not have the ability to move at all and my brain would not function as to what was happening. She disappeared and just as I turned to look at the door I seen her standing in her black dress, with a silver cross round her neck. She looked sad and angry, I could tell. She gazed at me and glided out of the room as I began to follow her. She did appear to be a black African woman. I followed her to the other half of the school and she lead me to outside.

She stopped at the entrence to under the stage in the school hall, which had a piano inside. She floated right through the doors and as it was a glass door, I seen she sat at the piano. As I put my hand on the doorknob to enter I found that it was locked.

"What are you doing out here?" came the voice of the PE teacher, Mrs Hall. I turned but she too, had seen the woman sitting at the piano. She gazed at her with me and we seen ger play along to the organ. She then disappeared and since then, we try to avoid any encounter of having to enter the room under the stage.

E-mail: Withheld

It was a great summer afternoon. I rode my bike to visit my mother at work, and to make a stop at the news-stand, to pick up my monthly Comics.

I walked into the City building my mother's office was in, and on the way through the marble corridor of the Municipal Building, I suddenly felt light-headed just like when one stands up too fast. Everything went white, I stopped in the middle of the hallway, and suddenly I realized my mother's coworker was standing in front of me trying to get my attention. It did not feel as if I stood there dazed for more than a few seconds, but it must have been longer, as I was started to realize that my mother's coworker was standing in front of me trying to get my attention. Just like some horrible movie clich�, I shook my head, and excused my sudden lapse as feeling faint from the change of extreme temperature between the blistering summer heat, and the cold, stone, air conditioned hallway. I felt just as if I always did after "standing up too fast" except this time there was a gnawing feeling in my stomach. A feeling of nervousness and anxiety. It eventually passed, and I was quick to excuse it. I made my way to my mother's office, and after typical pleasantries, I asked her if my father had received a letter in the mail that day. My mother hesitated, and stammered an answer someplace between "I don't know" and "Your dad's not home from work yet." She then corrected herself by reminding me that the mail usually did not arrive until after both of them got home from work.

Many months later, the following February, my grandmother was visiting. She picked up the mail on her way in, and handed it to my father. As she did, something prompted me to snatch it from my father's hands. I shuffled through it, and I found a letter addressed in red ink to my father, with no return address on it. It was MY handwriting. My very own. As soon as I looked at the red letters, I felt that strange dizziness that I had the previous summer, but this time, I saw something in that white haze.

I saw through my own eyes, that I was dressed in winter clothes, and holding the very same letter in my outstretched hand. What's more is that I was in standing in the exact same place I was the previous summer: My mother's office building, in the central hallway, facing the same direction. I was brought to when I realized that my grandmother was trying to get my attention. My father had swiped all the mail out of my hands, and whisked away to the kitchen. I yelled and begged at my dad to bring it back. However, he lost his temper, and in a gruff but insincere tone, assured me I could look at the mail when he was done with it. I yelled for it again, and was simultaneously met with my father's threat of an "attitude adjustment" (synonymous with a physical beating) and my grandmother wanting to know what was so important.

I explained to her that my dad was holding a letter that I had written. She asked what it said, but I told her I did not know. She asked when I wrote it, but I told her I could not remember. She asked why I sent it in the mail instead of just giving it to him, but I could offer no explanation. She asked how I knew it was from me, and all I could say was "I know it is." I told her about my handwriting on the envelope, but she assured me that it simply "looked" like mine. I was nearly hysterical trying to get my grandmother to believe me, but she merely chuckled with polite defiance, and insisted I was imagining things.

A while later, after my father's temper had cooled down, I asked him what he received in the mail that day. He rattled off the usual assortment of bills and fliers, but indicated nothing else.

I asked him about the letter with the red handwriting, and he told me that it was none of my business. I asked why, and his tone changed from indifference to annoyance, and gruffly spoke "Because I said so." I ceased my pursuit of the topic. However, after everyone went to bed, I started my search for the letter. I looked through the garbage, both indoors and out, and I searched my mother's purse for it. I asked my mother about it, but she seemed genuinely oblivious. Over the course of the next month, I would eventually search the entire house, mostly when my parents were out. I didn't turn up a thing. I never forgot about the strange letter. Later that summer, I asked my father about it again, and he had either forgotten or feigned ignorance.

I really don't know what it all means, but I'm as sure of these events as I am the keys I type this on. I can't be convinced of anything less. I often have Deja-Vu. Very strong episodes of Deja-Vu. In fact, so strong, I have actually been able to predict as much as complete sentences from people in the middle of a conversation... and then the feeling vanishes, leaving friends and passers-by wide-eyed. However, this "Red Letter" was one of the most profound and powerful experiences I have ever had. The only thing that is worse than not knowing what was in the letter, is not knowing if I'm right or was just "confused."