When I was a teenager, several older girls from my school went to an old, deserted plantation house to hold a séance. They sat in a circle on the floor, placed a candle in the center and began trying to reach spirits of the dead. For whatever reason, they called upon the spirit of the Headless Horseman. As they held hands and murmured encouragement for the spirit to contact them, a sudden gusty draft blew through the enormous old room and the candle was extinguished. One of the girls began screaming and screaming in agony. In terror, the other girls grabbed her and they all ran out of the house. The screaming girl kept sobbing and sobbing, "My back! My back!". The other girls pulled her shirt up to see why she was in such agony and discovered a lash upon her back, as though someone with a horse whip had dealt her a cruel, warning blow. None of the girls believed that the Horseman ever actually existed, they were just playing around and trying to scare one another. But undeniably, something quite terrifying did actually exist and reached out from beyond to either inflict harm or a warning to a group of young girls dabbling in a realm they were obviously neither safe nor welcome in.
