The Girl Who Played The Harp

by Jacob
(Boise, ID, USA)

Okay, I know this is weird, and I don't care if anybody believes me or not, but I read some of the stories on here and thought I would share...

So this all started back when I was about 10 or 11 years old. My parents had divorced and I lived with my father in a house out in the country about 150 miles from where I had grown up. I didn't really get it at the time, but my mom had some serious depression issues and was pretty checked-out most of the time.

There was a lumber mill in the town we lived in and my dad worked there on the swing shift (from about 5pm to 1am). He was old-school and figured at 10/11 I was old enough to be on my own, which freaked me out, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

I went to a really small school in town with about 50 other kids in various grades. After school I would walk home and spend time by myself. My dad was usually home right when I got back then would leave for work.

So, anyway, for the first few months nothing really happened, and I would just watch TV or whatever after school or do my homework and make myself whatever canned dinner that my dad had left for me. I didn't really mind, I actually thought it was kind of cool to be on my own, but it was pretty lonely.

We had this storage shed off the side of the house. It was unattached, basically just had a bunch of crap that the people before us had left there. My dad just ignored it, so I did too. Until one night.

My dad usually wanted me to go to bed around 8pm but I would, I guess just to be young and rebellious, try to stay up late, but usually just fell asleep on the couch watching TV. Well one night I woke up after having had fallen asleep on the couch and I turned off the TV and was about to head up the stairs when I heard this weird noise coming from outside. It wasn't a bad noise - it was actually quite pretty. It sounded like classical music, but there wasn't anyone who lived close enough to us to have been somebody's radio playing too loud. At first I wondered if my dad had gotten home early and was playing classical music in his truck. He had never done that before, but that was the only explanation I could think of.

I looked outside but my dad's truck wasn't there so I just went to bed. It was weird, but not really scary or anything. So the next night the same thing happened. I didn't fall asleep on the couch, but I was up late watching TV and I turned it off to go to bed and I heard this music again. I looked through all the windows but I couldn't see anything unusual. I wanted to figure out what it was but I was too scared to go outside at night, so I just went to bed, though my mind was racing and I didn't sleep that well.

This went on about every night for the next couple of weeks, I think, except on the weekends when my dad was home at night. Those nights I didn't hear anything, but I always looked out the window to see if there was anything out there.

So about 2 weeks had passed and I kept hearing the same music so I finally got the courage up to go find out what it was. I remember is was a Friday because my dad would be home the next two nights and I knew the music wouldn't play while he was home. I think that was my only real motivation to brave the mystery outside, because I was still pretty freaked out, but more than that I was impatient and didn't want to wait until Monday to figure out what was going on.

So I grabbed my dad's flashlight and for some reason a screwdriver (I guess I thought I would stab something with it if it was dangerous?) Anyway, I went outside and tried to follow the noise. I realized it was coming from the shed with all of the old stuff in it. I was super freaked out and did not want to go in the shed, but for some reason I did it anyway. I remember just feeling kind of numb with fear.

As soon as I walked in I felt instantly better. The room had a bunch of old junk in it, but in the far end of the shed there was a sight I will never forget. There was a single light on and beneath it there was a young girl in a white dress playing a harp. She was about my age at the time, had long blond hair, and just looked down while she played. It was the same music I had heard this whole time, but somehow I hadn't realized that is was just a single harp. She didn't look up at me once, she just played. She didn't look creepy or dead or anything. She was just bathed in this warm light and played this harp perfectly.

It was the weirdest thing. I knew she wasn't "real", but at the same time I wasn't the least bit scared. I just stood there and watched her play. In hindsight, I probably stood there for about 30 minutes, but it felt like no time at all. She just played and then she finished and the light went off and I suddenly felt afraid again and I ran back to the house as fast as I could.

That weekend I asked my dad if we could go look in the shed, because I didn't want to go by myself. He didn't know why I would want to do that, and I didn't explain, but he went in anyway. Where the girl had been there was a bunch of junk, but the rest of the shed looked the same as when I had seen her. There was no harp there, and obviously no girl.

I never saw or heard her again. I don't know who she was or why she was there. I thought maybe she was a ghost who had lived there before, but why would she be playing a harp in the shed??? It still doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it was a dream, but I know for sure that I heard that music for weeks before I went out there, so I wasn't dreaming every night. I don't know what any of this means, but it was such a weird experience. If anyone has any insights, or has seen this girl, please comment.