Readers' Stories New Age Tiscali

Twelve months ago we moved into an old Edwardian house. It needed a great deal of renovation, and we were lucky enough to discover a wealth of original features, which made the house an absolute delight.

Not least of these features are the original windows, the one at the front being a large bay, set at the top with stained glass. The house had been empty for almost two years and the windows were filthy. A couple of months of renovation and we finally moved in.

One of the last jobs I did on the moving day was clean the windows. They sparkled. It was Febuary and bitterly cold, and when we got up in the morning the front window was covered with condensation. Except in the centre, where there was the hand prints of a very small child. All my children are teenagers, their hands far too large to make the prints. We'd had no visitors, so I wondered where they'd come from. I cleaned them off.

That night I closed the curtains on a clean, clear window. When I looked out through the curtains though, before bedtime, the window had misted, except for the centre, where there were two tiny handprints, so detailed we could see the life lines.

In the last twelve months I've cleaned the windows with every product on the market. But still, whenever a mist forms on the glass, 'little hands' as we call him or her, returns. And if you know the right spot and breath on the glass, they appear.

Our little ghost seems quite contented with us, and I would now miss it if it were to leave.