Do you believe in ghosts?

The ghost in my grandmother's house did not like the color blue.

That sentence would make a killer opening to a book. I just don't have any characters to go along with that sentence. At the moment.

In the meantime, I daresay that there really was a ghost who lived in the attic of my grandparents' farmhouse, which was built in the early 1900s. This was before the renovation that my aunt and uncle did.

The largest bedroom in the house was directly over the kitchen. It was painted blue. Steep, narrow stairs curved up to the attic. A door was at the bottom of the stairs to keep out the attic draft. And that ghost. 

I hated sleeping in that room because you could feel the menacing presence of that ghost. There were plenty of times I felt like someone had placed a hand on my shoulder even though I was alone in the room. 

Before going to sleep, I would always make sure that the attic door was locked so the ghost couldn't come into the room. Like a lock can hold a ghost back. As if. I preferred the small bedroom at the front of the house. 

An uncle said that someone who used to live in the farmhouse killed himself by hanging himself from the massive pine tree that was caddy-corner to the upstairs blue bedroom. That tree has since been struck by lightning and subsequently chopped into firewood.

I don't know if that story is true or not. Or if uncle D. was trying to freak out me and my cousins.

I will steadfastly insist that the ghost was not a figment of my childish imagination and that the ghost did not like the color blue because during the renovation, my aunt and uncle painted that room white. And suddenly, no more menacing ghost presence.