The Ball Rolled Back

My sister has always been interested in old abandoned places, so when we had the chance to tour Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, she talked me into going with her. I knew it had a reputation for being haunted, but I didn’t know any of the specific stories connected to the building.

At one point during the tour our group stopped in a hallway while the guide talked about that part of the building. I noticed there was an old ball sitting farther down the hall. I assumed it was a prop they kept there for the tours.

While we were standing there, the ball started to roll.

It didn’t shoot across the hallway or do anything dramatic. It just slowly rolled several feet and stopped.

A few people noticed it, but nobody made a big deal about it. I figured the floors in a building that old probably weren’t level. If anything, I thought it was funny because of where we were.

A little later the group started moving again and we walked past the ball. I don’t really know why I did it, but as I passed it I gave it a little push with the side of my shoe.

It rolled away from me and stopped.

Then it started rolling back.

My first thought was still the floor. I actually remember looking down because I wanted to see which direction it sloped.

The ball kept rolling toward me and went past where it had been sitting before I touched it.

I looked at my sister and she was already staring at me. She’d seen the whole thing.

Neither of us said anything. There were other people around and I didn’t want to be the person on a tour of a supposedly haunted building yelling that a ghost had moved a ball.

We caught up with the group and finished the tour.

It wasn’t until afterward that my sister asked me what I thought had happened. I told her I assumed the floor was uneven, but she pointed out the same thing I’d been thinking. If the ball had rolled on its own because of the slope, why did it roll back the opposite direction after I touched it?

Later we started looking up stories about Waverly Hills and found references to people having experiences with balls in the hallways and stories about a child spirit people call Timmy.

Neither of us knew anything about that when we were there.

I still think there’s probably some explanation involving the floor. It’s an old building, and I’m sure there are plenty of places where things aren’t perfectly level.

But I watched that ball roll in one direction by itself.

Then I watched it roll back.

And my sister saw it too.