A Grandfather Clock Leads Me to a Spirit

Full transcript of the My True Ghost Stories episode “A Grandfather Clock Leads Me to a Spirit.” Listen to this episode.

A broken clock and a library tour lead me to a waiting spirit. Welcome to episode 54 of My True Ghost Stories. My brother has a big job at a big office at a big college here in New York City. And about once a month, we have lunch together. I take the train.

It's just one train. I take the train from my house to his job and we meet at this diner and we always have a great time. But what we usually do after we go to the diner, if he doesn't have a meeting to go to, or if I don't have to rush off to work, we have this routine where we walk from the diner back to campus and we go to the architecture library. And what we do at the architecture library, we have a routine. So there's books of articles about architecture and they're all on the bookshelves, old school, you know, books.

And written on the spine of each book is the year that it was written, you know, 1925, 1926, all the way up to 2020. But what our routine is is one of us picks a year. And then we hand that book to the other one and then that person takes the book and lets it fall open to a certain page. And then we learn all about what is on that page by reading the article out loud, taking like a paragraph each. Sometimes if the article is really boring, we will, you know, cheat a little bit and find something more interesting.

But for the most part, the page that the book opens up to, that is what we're going to study that day. So we do this routine pretty much every time we have lunch together. My brother and I once ran into Rob, who is the head of the architecture library, and described this routine of ours of finding a book and studying an article in it. And he was absolutely delighted to hear that this was a pastime of ours. So the last time we had lunch together, it was a beautiful day.

I really enjoyed my walk from the train to the diner. And then we sat inside the diner, but then we ate really quick and then we went outside. And we went to walk around campus and it was such a beautiful day outside that we were thinking, maybe we won't go to the architecture library. But we wound up sitting on benches outside of the architecture library, which makes me think that we both really just wanted to go in and pick a book and pick an article. And maybe wondering if the other one wanted to do the thing where we go into the architecture library and pick a book and an article.

But we were sitting outside and eventually we just said, let's go in. Let's go into the architecture library and do our thing. So we went into the building. But first my brother said, I need to use the restroom. So the restrooms are downstairs.

So we went in, we went downstairs. The restrooms are on the basement level. And I used the restroom also and I guess I was in there longer because when I came out, my brother was out there in the hallway and he was talking to a custodian. And they were both pointing at this big grandfather clock that is there in this basement just sort of propped up against a column. And I must have walked past this grandfather clock dozens of times because heaven knows I've used the bathroom in the architecture library dozens of times.

But I had never noticed this clock before and the custodian was saying to my brother, so are you a clock person? Now I definitely don't think my brother is what you would call a clock person. But he is interested in the preservation of antiques and stuff like this. So he was definitely interested in this clock. And as I got closer, I realized that what they were talking about was that the clock is not working anymore.

Now the custodian had a general idea of why this was that the clock wasn't working anymore. He said it has to be wound and like these weights have to be said and somebody used to do it every day, but it's been years if not decades since someone has come in and won the clock and he doesn't know why that happened. So my brother said to this custodian, well, it's a shame that it's not working. And he said, so what would it take to get this clock working again? And the custodian said, well, I don't know much about it, but the person you would talk to about that would be Rob.

And Rob is the head of the architecture library that I told you about before, who was delighted about me and my brother's routine of picking a book and picking an article. And this custodian said that if we wanted to know what's up with this grandfather clock and why nobody winds it, that Rob is who you would talk to about that. And the custodian having told us all he knows, say goodbye and left. And don't you know, less than 30 seconds later, Rob, the head of the architecture library, who the custodian was talking about, appeared in the doorway next to us, next to that grandfather clock. And he said that he had just happened to be walking around the building and for some reason came down here.

So my brother said, ah, just who I wanted to see? So Rob, I hear you're the person I should talk to about getting this clock working again. So Rob, who was quite the enthusiast about this, he might even be what that custodian had called a clock person, he started describing the clock and all the different mechanisms and pointing at the weights and all the stuff I don't really understand that was in there, that would make the clock work. And he said that it was someone's job way back in the day and their job was to come in and wind the clock every day. And then he and my brother joked about how the university should spend some of their budget to hire someone that it would be their full-time job to come in and wind the clock.

But he said he didn't know when the practice of someone coming in and winding the clock had faded away. He said that for a little while it happened sometimes, but it was so inconsistent that they just sort of gave it up altogether and now it had not worked in many, many, many years. And then he started to describe that the clock needed a little key to even start this whole process. And he points out this little tiny square that's in a hole which was sort of like a key lock. And he said there's a special key that exists that is specific to this particular clock and that you can't wind this clock without the key.

And as he was describing this key, I started to feel this vibration in my chest that I get when a spirit is nearby. It was a very slight vibration so I could tell that they weren't like right next to me, but I knew something to do with this key and this clock was involving a ghost that was somewhere in the vicinity of where we were having this conversation. And so Rob started to go on. He said, you know, there's something very interesting about this particular key that winds this grandfather clock. This key is the same key that is used for the historic bookshelves in the stacks in this building.

And this key is used for this very intricate mechanism for changing the shell fights in the stacks. And it is the very same key that is used to wind this very grandfather clock. Now these shelves in the stacks were the original shelves built in 1887 and they are being maintained to this day. Now I could tell that I was talking to an architecture director because his level of enthusiasm about these shelves in the stacks was amazing. And it got me and my brother very excited to learn more about these shelves.

And Rob said, do you have time for a tour? And we said, yes, we have time for a tour. Rob said, oh, I hope this won't be boring. And me, my brother said, no, no, we're geeky this way. And these shelves were in a different room in this library than the one my brother and I went to pick a book in an article monthly.

So this was very exciting. As we approached the door to the stacks, which was on that basement level, the vibration that I described earlier while standing in front of the grandfather clock talking about the key, that vibration started to grow much, much stronger. So I knew that we were getting closer to the ghost that was probably trying to contact me. So we entered the stacks on the ground floor right there, level with the bathrooms. And here on this ground floor, Rob started showing us the shelves and the little keyhole that was indeed identical to the keyhole in the grandfather clock.

And he told us about how the key was used to adjust the shelf heights. My brother and I and Rob were totally geeking out over these historic shelves, the grandfather clock key and the shelf heights. But as intently as I listened and as fascinated as I was, this ghost vibration became overwhelming and I could not focus on what Rob was saying anymore. So as I often have to do, when I'm dealing with a ghost, I pretended to continue to focus on what Rob was saying. And I turned my body ever so slightly so that it would look like I was still listening.

But I looked over to my right and I looked between the shelves and I could see that between this stack and the next sitting on something very low like a stool reading a book that was in her lap was the ghost of a woman. She was wearing a white shirt waist and a brown tweed long skirt. And since she was sitting the skirt was touching the floor around the bottom of the stool. And I've since researched it and it was a 1900 style trumpet skirt that she was wearing. So I looked at her and she looked up at me.

And it was plain to me that I was here to help her cross over. And it seemed to be plain to her that I was there to help her cross over. And as we looked at each other, me and this woman ghost, we acknowledged silently that I was here to help her cross over. Rob's voice was going on in the background. And as the woman ghost and I continued looking at each other, I sort of indicated that I can cross her over now.

And she took a pencil out from behind her ear, the ear on the other side that I couldn't see. And she pointed at Rob with this pencil. And she said, finish your tour. So I nodded to her. And with this exchange, I knew that there was some sort of plan.

Somehow this tour was important and I was going to learn something that I need to know about her. And then I would come back to help her after I had learned this thing. And I knew that the rest of this tour would teach me whatever I needed to know about this woman. And then after that, I would be able to come back to this ground level floor and help her cross over. So I turned away from the ghost.

I looked back at Rob. I began focusing again on what he was saying. And Rob said, right as I started focusing again, he said, let's go up to the first floor. And I'm going to show you some of the shells that I'm talking about. And I guess I had missed what he was talking about here because I was busy focusing on this ghost.

But I figured I'd be able to catch up pretty quickly. And I don't know what it was exactly about Rob, but I did not get a spiritual vibe from him. So I opted right then and there to not mention that there was a ghost waiting for me between the stacks on the ground level. And I was just going to finish this tour with him because he most likely would not get it. When we get up to the first floor, Rob started showing us these rows of shelves on this one particular stack.

And he started talking about the composition of the wood and how they had tried all these different types of wood. And they had decided which ones worked best. And then he started talking about the possible restoration of these entire stacks and how it would cost like a million dollars because a lot of these little mechanisms that use the key, they don't work quite right. But then he started talking about the way this library used to be set up. And while we were standing there looking at the stacks, there was a big glass partition between us and the next room.

And Rob said that where this glass partition is, there used to be a big desk. And he told us that now students just go into the stacks themselves and get their books. But back then, you had to bring a call slip up to this desk and give it to the librarians. And the librarians were these women who worked there who would take your call slip and go get your books from the stacks and bring them back to you. And he said it was like the computers of that day.

And he told us that this was how it worked from 1886 to 1912 after which they removed the desk and the students could go into the stacks by themselves. And as he was describing this scene of the students bringing the call slips to the librarian and the librarian going to get the books and the librarian coming back with the books, I realized that this woman downstairs, this ghost woman, was one of those librarians. One of the reasons I realized this was because she was older, maybe mid-30s, she was definitely not college age. And something about her authoritative tone when she took that pencil out from behind her ear, pointed at Rob, looked at me and said, finish your tour. Made me think that she was not a student.

So as we finished up, our tour, Rob said that he had a meeting in five minutes and we thanked him for showing us all this stuff. It was truly fascinating. We said goodbye to Rob and he headed out. Now as I said, Rob was clearly not a spiritual guy. I don't know exactly why I'm saying that.

I just could tell my brother, however, is quite spiritual and believes all this stuff. So after Rob was out of ear shot, I looked at my brother and I said, I've got to go downstairs. There's a woman spirit down there and I need to go help her cross over. And he's like, go, go, go. He seems to think this stuff is pretty cool.

So I headed down the stairs and my brother waited upstairs. I went down and there she was sitting between the stacks, still reading her book. And she looked up at me as I came down. I came around the stack so I was standing at the end of her aisle. She looked up at me.

She closed her book, put it down someplace, I guess. I don't know. She didn't have a book anymore after she closed it and she stood up. After she stood up, I could see that she was indeed a librarian and not a student. She was clearly a grown-up.

So she and I stood facing each other and I communicated with St. Michael who tells me what to do to help somebody cross over. And sometimes it's something that they need to know and sometimes it's just like what stands to take. And this woman was clearly not confused about crossing over and she was not fighting it. She wanted to do it and she had been very patiently waiting for God knows how long.

So St. Michael told me to tell her to stand up straight and look up. And it's different stances for each spirit. But this particular one he told me to tell her to look up. And so I did that.

And at first I thought she should put her arms out to the side, but then Michael told me that's wrong. Tell her to put her arms down at her side. So it was it was almost like she was going to ascend like a rocket ship or something. It was pretty cool. Michael told me now thank her for her service as a librarian, which is why I needed to finish that tour to learn that she was a librarian.

So I thanked her. To me it was obvious that she had been a devoted servant of this building even after death and now she needed to go to her next level. Maybe a librarian this guy? I don't know. So after I thanked her, she was standing there, arms at her sides looking up ready to go.

The vibration in my chest was very very very strong because that happens when they're about right about to cross over. The vibration gets very strong and I called in the guides because I can't send them up through my body anymore. I called in the guides. One came in on each side and they took her arms and she went up. It's always slightly emotional for me because I can feel their relief as they cross over.

So I paused for a moment, felt that relief and then I went and I walked over to the middle of the aisle and I sealed up the portal with my hand hoping that no one was watching because me just standing there waving my hand in circles, which is what it looks like. It's pretty weird, but anyway I went and sealed up the portal just hoping that no one was looking and I don't work there. So you know, nothing terrible is going to happen if somebody sees me waving my hand around in a circle on the ground floor of the architecture library. And I believe that this whole thing was meant to be. I believe that our walk brought us to that grandfather clock.

My brother and I were meant to have that discussion with the custodian. The custodian was meant to tell us that Rob would know and Rob then appeared immediately, which was obviously meant to happen. And he appeared immediately so that he could explain the clock to us and that key. And then bring us to the stacks where I would see this ghost who was clearly waiting for me. For as I said, who knows how long.

After I sealed up the portal and took a quiet moment of meditation, I went back upstairs and I told my brother about this spirit that I had just talked to downstairs. I hadn't given him any details before. So now I gave him some details. And after I told him about that, we decided not to do the thing today where we let the book fall open in the architecture library and that the tour today and the key and the grandfather clock and the stacks and the shelves. That was our lesson today.

And as we were walking out of the building, my brother, who was pretty connected himself. He turns to me and referring to the ghost. He said very excitedly, he said, it was her job to wind the clock. And I'm sure he's right. As always, if you have enjoyed this episode of My Two Ghost Stories, please take a second to subscribe, review and share it with a friend to help this show grow.

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