One is the Big House. Of course, it is very big, which always lends itself to bumps in the night. As the books progress past where I have written up to this date, bumps in the night will turn into more sinister occurances.
For now, it has been revealed that the children have heard, from time to time, voices whispering. Carson, as a young boy, even hears words within the whispering telling him something about "The watch and the gun on my head", as he tells his parents. His parents believe it to be a dream referring to a traumatic event in Carson's past. But, is it?
So, are the odd unexplained occurrences true? Well, as visitors to the real "Big House" have often found, unusual sounds and events have happened from time to time there, for many years. The author herself...that's me...has experienced two or three that cannot be explained away.
Ghosts? Well, as a character in the books points out; ghosts are not Scriptural (except the Holy Ghost), but a spirit world of angels and demons is. Whether it is angel or demon would seem to depend on whether there is fear involved during the event, since the Bible says that "fear is not from God". That narrows the field a bit.
And, what about the truly outlandish adventure of Brynn and Fiona when they are chased in broad daylight by, seemingly, an invisible horseman? As is footnoted at the end of the book, this is an absolutely true event that happened to the author...myself...when I was about 9 or 10.
As unbelievable as it seems to be, it happened. And, although my companion at the time and I were hustling at break-neck speed to avoid getting run over by what we thought was a horse and rider bearing down on us, we were never afraid. We were just trying to get out of the way.
So, what does that say about what it actually was? I've thought about that a lot. The only thing I have come up with was that it was a warning, chasing us away from something that could have hurt us if we had continued in the direction we were going.
There are a lot of things in this world that we cannot see. There is a lot that no one has explained yet. We keep trying to get everything figured out, but it seems doubtful that we ever will. There is always more, just out of sight and around the corner.
The McKennas are, by and large, practical people. There are a few dreamers in the mix, but even they tend to look life directly in the face and deal with it as it comes. But, they are also a spiritual bunch, realizing and recognizing that God is real, that the Gospel is true and that He holds the big, unexplained things in the palm of His hand. That reality gets them through a lot.
It gets me through, too.