Author Ashley Woo has described an allegedly haunted farmhouse in rural Vermont where she experienced what she called an “absolutely blood-chillingly terrifying” series of encounters.
Woo moved into the historic property with her husband, their two-year-old daughter and newborn son in December 2019, after leaving suburban Massachusetts. The house, built in 1830, stands across the road from a cemetery.
She said the family enjoyed an idyllic first month before she began having disturbing experiences in a guest bedroom with rose-coloured walls.
During a bout of insomnia, Woo went to sleep in the room, lying beneath a white and blue quilt. She later woke to what felt like a pair of arms wrapped tightly around her chest.
“I didn’t see anything, but I felt them,” she said. After switching on the light, she found nobody there, but the quilt had been thrown back and the sheets were wrinkled.
Woo initially told herself the incident had been a fluke, a nightmare or sleep paralysis. However, when she tried sleeping in the room again, she said the same thing happened.
“It was terrifying. Absolutely, blood-chillingly terrifying,” she said, adding that she eventually avoided the room altogether.
She later took a final nap there and dreamed pleasantly about her late grandmother. On waking, however, Woo said she again felt arms wrapped around her before they disappeared moments later.
Woo said she did not believe the presence was her grandmother and could not say what, if anything, had been in the room. “I also don’t think it is malevolent,” she said, acknowledging that the experiences might have been “nothing but some strange process in my brain”.
She has not slept in the rose room since the third incident. Instead, she eventually placed a writing desk there and began working on her debut gothic mystery novel, Wildwood.
Woo now believes the unsettling experiences may have helped her write the book. “I’m thankful for those unsettling experiences in the rose-coloured room,” she said. “I think they unlocked something for me.”
