"The bathroom upstairs was small," she says, "like it could have been a child's nursery. Between the bathroom and the bedroom there was a corner where I sensed a presence. I didn't like to go upstairs at night. I'd only go up for a very short time, like if I had top take something up there or close a window. I was always very, very uneasy up there.

"Then I began to hear, like in my head, my name being called by a young woman. I'd hear, 'Nancy...Nancy.' I would say, 'No, don't bother me.' I would be very tense.

"At the time, I was taking a course in photography at the Art Institute. One night there was a terrible storm, and I wanted to take photos of the trees in the wind. I went outside to take some. Later on, back at school, I developed the negatives, but I didn't make prints until a long time afterward. When I did, there was the face of a woman. The features seemed young, but the tone of the complexion seemed drained, washed out, gray. The features were small, delicate. The face was rounded. There was no makeup. I had the impression that the hair was pulled back and that it was white, but the face had an expression that was almost childlike."

Some time after taking the photos, Nancy was alone in the house. Her parents were out, and she was in the kitchen preparing a meal for their return. "I heard footsteps coming down the stairs," she relates, "a definite sound of someone walking. I heard my name called, first quietly, in my head, 'Nancy,' then audibly, 'Naaancy.' I was very frightened. I turned the stove off and went outside till my parents came home.

"Later, that evening, I was upstairs in my mother's bedroom and suddenly again I sensed a presence. For some reason, this time I was not frightened. Perhaps the energy came more gently. I sensed a weeping young woman, not more than in her early twenties. It flashed through my mind, the whole story. I sensed the loss of a child, a little girl about seven, due to a virus. It was like the loss had just happened.

"I spoke to the young mother. I told her that I had just read a book that said that death comes at a set time. I said, 'You could not help it. It was meant to be this way. You loved your child very, very much. Your child knows this and returns your love. You did everything you could, but this was the time for your child to leave.'

"Almost immediately, I sensed a gentling. From that day on, there was like a gentle feeling in the room, there was peace. Never again was I aware of any restlessness there.