Miss Withers

Twin brothers move to an abandoned schoolhouse in rural Oregon with their renegade dad. He’s wild and unpredictable, but that’s not going to stop Miss Withers from giving the boys an afterlife lesson.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Glynn Washington?

  This old man, he stayed home. No one called him on the phone. So he's tic-tac-patty-whack, you're out of the will. This old man has time to kill.

• 0:25Glynn Washington?

  You've crossed over to Spook.

• 0:29Glynn Washington?

  Stay tuned.

• 0:38Glynn Washington?

  Spooksters, you have spoken. We want more Spook, you said. We want to support the show, you said. And, can we please, for the love of all that is holy, please get rid of those ads! Well, prayers answered. Spooked Plus has risen. Ad-free Spook, the entire library, no interruptions. Just you and whatever's lurking in the shadows. Exclusive bonus stories every month. Fresh nightmares you won't hear anywhere else. The Spooked Plus community, listen together. Chat in real time because no one should face the darkest alone. And, and, ask me anything for yours truly.

• 1:23Glynn Washington?

  If you've got questions, I've got answers. Maybe. And we're just getting started. Spooksters, we are a small team, chasing down the big mystery. Your support keeps this flame burning, so come on in. The door is open. Spooked.supercast.com. That's Spooked.supercast.com. Spooked Plus. Don't turn out. The lights.

• 2:03Glynn Washington?

  All over the world, in the oldest stories we know, before sky, before sea, before the dark even knew its name,

• 2:15Glynn Washington?

  the first thing the spirit did was split,

• 2:20Glynn Washington?

  twin itself.

• 2:23Glynn Washington?

  Not of joy, not out of love, but because it could not bear another moment alone.

• 2:36Glynn Washington?

  Spoke starts now.

• 3:11Glynn Washington?

  Today, we're gonna hear from two brothers.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  My name is Ron. I'm here on the right. And my name is Mike, on the left.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  We're identical twins. Ron is 11 minutes older than myself. We just found out we're identical when we were 38, 6, oh, 38.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Ron always thought we were identical, and I always thought we were fraternal. I tend to be correct. Just kidding.

• 3:40Glynn Washington?

  This story, it goes way back, when our brothers Ron and Mike are just four years old. They're living with their grandma and their auntie on their mom's side of the family in California. But one day, this man shows up and he says that the two little guys, they're kind of him.

• 4:02Glynn Washington?

  Spooked.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  I just remember getting into the front seat of a seatbelt-free pickup and riding for two and a half days to Oregon. And just being like, where are we?

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Halfway into the trip, he said something about like, "You're my boy," or "You're my boys." And I was like, "Okay, I guess this is our dad."

• 4:36Speaker 01

  He wasn't around, so it was just a really unfamiliar guy, you know? He was pretty skinny, but with a beer belly. Dirty, brown hair, and he had some very thick sideburns.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  It was just so uncomfortable that this guy was taking my brother and I.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  I recall just being like, "Why do we have to leave? Why are we not staying here with the people we love and trust, who raised us?" But I also had some comfort of knowing that my brother was with me.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  We were looking out the windows, of course. I saw just fields and open land. At one point, there was a river that we passed that was actually really pretty. Other than that, there was not much to see or really that popped out.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  The truck pulls off the highway. We pulled up into a narrow, fairly steep dirt road that had embankments on either side that had clearly been carved out of the land.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  And I see this wood-faced building with a bell, a steeple bell. Just a standalone building on its own with nothing else around it, except for a few sparse trees, very high, overgrown, tall grass. It looked very weathered, and it was extremely old. The bell was rusty on the outside and some broken-out windows.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  I remember thinking, "What is it? Is it a church? Is it a... What is this?"

• 6:29Speaker 01

  We got out of our dad's old truck and shortly after, a car pulled up and it was full of, we didn't know who. And we all got out and walked up and I realized it was some of my family members on my dad's side. My grandmother, who's my dad's mom, his sister, who's my Aunt Pat, and her daughter, who's my cousin Michelle. I don't even know if we had seen them before that. We had seen them, I don't know how. Anyway, they showed up and greeted them and gave them hugs and walked up to this house.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  They were talking to my dad and to each other more than anything. And my brother and I were just looking around. Barren, large open room is what we see and an iron fireplace off to the far wall. And then a staircase, almost vertical, wooden. My dad had cut a bunch of wood and he put kindling in the wood burning fireplace and lit a fire and was showing everyone around the house. And he told them the story of

• 7:52Speaker 01

  how he procured this house. He met a couple named Bennet and Ori, who, he said, "I just want to get the hell out of the city. I'd love to live in the country." And they're like, "Well, funny you should say that. We have a farm in the middle of Oregon, very rural. And if you take care of the animals, you can live there for free." So he said, "Great. I'm gonna get my boys and move to the sticks." We looked at each other, we're like thinking, "Wait, what? Is he serious? Like, is this

• 8:29Speaker 01

  the house?" Because everything was still in shambles. And then he said, "Hey, boys, if you want to see your room, it's gonna be upstairs. So you can go see it if you want to, but watch out for nails." So we walk up the staircase and it's very steep and we have to use both hands.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  I just remember looking around and seeing a bunch of desks with dust on them. Old, old desks. And wondering, how is this a bedroom? This looks like a schoolroom or something. And just being kind of worried that it was so dirty.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I'm facing the back wall. And as I turn around to see the rest of the room, there's a woman standing there.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  I'm thinking, wait, someone's already here? Like, why is she? Who is she?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  She looked to be in her probably early twenties. She had brown hair and she had a lacy white dress. And her lace up boots were brown.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Just standing there with a pleasant look on her face. A smile, partially, kind of like resting, happy face.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  We just thought she was some woman that was in our bedroom. And we didn't know why. We thought it was my dad's friend, maybe, or my aunt's friend.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  And she said, hi, boys. How are you?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  She was definitely friendly.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  And I just felt comfortable for the first time since we left.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  She asked us our names. So we told her that I'm Ron and he's Mike. And then she said, well, I'm Miss Withers. Nice to meet you, boys.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  And then she said, are you boys in school? And we said, no, we're not in school yet. And she said, well, this, you know, this is a schoolhouse where we're at right now. And it was called Old Mill School. And I used to teach here. Do you boys know what math is? And we both said, no. And she said, well, I want to teach you something. And she raised one finger and then her other finger. And she slowly brought them together. And she said, one plus one is two. I remember her on the desk, putting a plus sign and saying, this means more,

• 11:30Speaker 01

  and a minus sign and saying, this means less with her finger in dust. Just the way that she explained things was so clear for our little brains. We talked to her for all of maybe a minute, maybe a minute and a half at most, and thought, well, okay, we've seen, we've seen the room. Time to go back down. So we just said, okay, bye. When we went back downstairs, my dad asked, what'd you think about your room? And we said, oh, you know, we like it. The lady's nice.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  And I remember my aunt, she looked at us and I saw shocked look. And I was surprised, thinking, what did I say wrong? She was like sheet white. She just kept saying, what? What are you talking about? What are you boys talking about? And we both proceeded to tell her about the woman that is in the attic in our bedroom that used to be a schoolteacher in that schoolhouse. She turned and went up the stairs herself, by herself. And shortly came right back down.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  And looks over at my dad and grandma and her daughter and kind of shrugs like huh, and says, no, no one.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  I was like, oh, she must have gone somewhere. And they were like, are you sure that there's a lady in your bedroom? And we said, yeah. And we described her again and talked about math. And no one taught us anything about math at that point in time in our lives. So they were like, wait, what? What did you say? One plus one is what? And they were testing us, you know? They were kind of quizzing us like, are you sure there was a woman up in the attic?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  We didn't push the issue or anything and go back up there. We just went on with the next thing. They quickly changed the subject and talked about the plan. My dad is going to build out the house.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Our dad had got a couple twin beds and put them in the attic. And that was our bedroom. It was very cold and very creaky.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  The days went on that we were there. They consisted of helping our dad to fix up the place. We helped him frame off a room for his room downstairs and got used to things like cutting firewood for the fire, that we think that we had never, never done before.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  We definitely were feeling like we were out of place.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  We were raised in Norwalk, California, which is a small LA County town. So, an actual community and neighbors that we knew well. And then this, coming out to middle of nowhere. And we were definitely homesick for the family that raised us. They would send things here and there in the mail, McDonald's, Happy Meal toys. We were really into Happy Meals. And I would feel like, oh, you know, it came from them, but why can't we go to them?

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Why can't we go home? I really missed them. When our dad was there, he could be pretty harsh. And as a result, his mom came to live on the property and would take care of us when she could. She wasn't always there, and we'd have to fend for ourselves, more or less. We started school when we were six, and a school bus, believe it or not, would come all the way out there to bring us to the nearest town called Davil, Oregon.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  I think we had a class of six. Us and four people. We'd go outside a lot, find things to do that were not at home. We'd build like jumps for the bike that we shared. We would take chicken coops apart and made those into little forts.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  It was a little bit of a hard situation that we made it through together.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  When we met the lady in the attic, I remember feeling so comfortable and at ease. She did cross my mind, and I thought we would see her at some point, that maybe she would knock on the door even. And we didn't see her.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  I remember being sad that we didn't see her anymore.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Because she was so kind, but you know, as the days go on, you just sort of forget. So we, we moved on from that.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  It was the middle of the night, and I woke up thinking that my brother left the window open. Because it's ice cold in the room. I looked over and I saw what I thought was the curtain moving and being illuminated by the moonlight.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  It was this shimmery blue light.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  I moved to sit up because I was gonna go close the window, but then as I moved, I realized this, this curtain, what I thought it was a curtain, looked like a person.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  It's the figure of a woman in a dress.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  And I'm like, that's not, it's not normal. It looks very weird. Like, what am I looking at? So I just kept staring and waiting. And then the light moves forward.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  And it comes more into focus for me. I'm seeing her eyes and her dress and her hair and even the tops of the boots. And then her legs, they, they basically dissipated just below her knees. She just goes away at the bottom, but she's still walking.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  And then I could see all the way through her.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  My first thought was, that can't be real. I can't be seeing what I'm seeing right now.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  And then I recognize her.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  That's, that's her. That's the teacher.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  I'm immediately remembering everything about seeing her the first day.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  She's got the same hair, same style of dress. But I can't see the color of anything other than this bluish light.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  I'm just terrified because I just shouldn't be seeing this. I'm shaking from cold and, and fear.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  She was looking forward

• 20:25Speaker 01

  and walking away from that window toward us in the room.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  I look over to my left toward Mike and saw that he was completely out cold. If I run, my brother's still gonna be here, so I just laid there and waited because I'm hoping he's gonna wake up and see what I'm seeing and be able to leave with me if we need to. So she keeps walking with feet not there.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  There's a bookshelf that's across the room at the foot of my bed. It's about a waist-high for an adult, maybe. It's just a kid's bookshelf. And she keeps coming across the room and then ends up behind this bookshelf and turns and looks directly at me.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  My heart was definitely racing. I had been slowly pulling the covers up over me the whole time as this happened up to the base of my eyes.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  And I'm holding my blanket tight because this is crazy.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  So she's facing me. And she slowly bends down like she's gonna get a book or something.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  And smiles at me. And she's gone.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  And the room is immediately warmer.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  After this happened, I just was blown away.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  I thought about waking Mike up, but I just felt too afraid to move.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  I stayed up most of the rest of that night

• 22:27Speaker 01

  until the sun came up and

• 22:30Speaker 01

  fell asleep finally.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  My brother woke me up and said, you know, "Let's go." We always just kind of ran down and we would have to do things like chop more firewood first thing. I was really tired because I hadn't really slept much that night. And I was like, "Did you hear anything last night?"

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Thinking maybe he did what I did in the way and just stayed still and maybe he was awake and he was just not opening his eyes out of fear or something. And he's like, "What are you talking about?"

• 23:11Speaker 01

  And then I told him what happened.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  I was immediately upset with myself for not waking up and missing her. Like, oh, that loss of not being able to see her again. I was like, "Damn it." Like, "How did I miss that?"

• 23:29Speaker 01

  But then going, "Wait,

• 23:33Speaker 01

  was that, was she real? Wait, she wasn't real?"

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Realizing that she wasn't a person that was here with us was disappointing, to say the least, you know? If she could have been someone in the house that had the calm and the normalcy that my brother and I so desired as the young people we were without a mother figure.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  I felt sort of almost devastated.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  I really wanted her to be real.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  I think we were about eight or so. My aunt had moved to that town, Dayville, the nearest town. We were in town to hang out with our friend Bobby and his house was only maybe 10 houses down. And I decided to go see if my aunt was home and knocked on the door. She was home, so she said, "Come on in." I remember just hanging out with her and just eating some snacks and just talking. And she said, you know, that when you boys got to the schoolhouse, you told me something that I never forgot.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  And she told me, "I looked into it and I found out some information." I was outside playing with Bobby and Levi and I remember Ron coming out and telling me that Aunt Pat just told me something crazy about the schoolhouse. I could see in his face that it was something that he needed to tell me right at that moment. And I was like, "What?" She told me that she went to John Day. It's the biggest town where it actually has like a sizable library and things like that with public records in it.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  And she went and started researching that area and found records that referenced the Old Mill School. And she kept reading back and reading back and reading back because we told her the name and found that Miss Withers, Mary Withers, was a teacher at that location in the mid 1800s. At some point, she had died on that property and I don't know exactly how. That's all she could find.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Hearing what my brother just told me, I was like, no way.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  It just made my heart race and gave me goosebumps on both my arms. Because hearing actual factual details about it, it became just all the more real.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  I honestly was excited.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  I almost felt breathless.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Because not a lot of people can say that they met someone from the other side. By name. And then verified their name from 150 years before.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  So in 2019, I had gone on a trip and on the way back home, I made it a point to go back to the schoolhouse to see it again.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  As I pulled up to the property, it's gated with several signs on the outside of the gate that say, "Don't come in."

• 28:07Speaker 01

  So I parked the car and jumped right over the gate.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  I walked all the way around the building, and the bell's gone now. And boards on every window.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I was in my studio in LA and my phone vibrated and I was like, "Oh, it's Ron." And I was like, "He's FaceTiming?" I was like, "Why are you FaceTiming me?" I pick it up.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Dude, guess where I'm at? And I turned the camera backward. And I was like, "Oh my God, there it is." It was unnerving, but also like, cool to see it again after all these years.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  I was like, "Dude, you have to get in there somehow."

• 28:58Speaker 01

  And he's like, "Ah, I don't know. It's trespassing. It's boarded up." And I was like, "You know, there's not a soul for miles and miles. Like, just do it."

• 29:09Speaker 01

  He gave me a little push and I was like, "Screw it. I got an L. I'm here."

• 29:16Speaker 01

  So we get off the call and I went up to the front and on the porch, made sure not to fall through any holes.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Pulled on the board to the, on the left window. And it gave away some. So I pulled it off, set it aside, and just climbed through the window.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Everything was taken apart, busted apart, just kinda decimated. But the stairwell was still there, so I walked up the stairs.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  It was very empty and very dirty and dusty. And a giant dead rat, just hanging out, just dead on the floor. But otherwise, just all the way empty.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  I sat there for a while upstairs in the attic with my legs dangling through the stairwell hole and just stayed quiet.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Being there was heavy. A lot of, you know, memories coming back about family things that happened there, kind of harsh things with our dad.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  And then memories of, of her being there the two times that I was aware of her. I did talk to Ms. Withers. And said, "Hey, it's me, Ron. If you're here, just coming to say hi."

• 30:46Speaker 01

  And then I waited, just in case.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  But I didn't see her.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  So then I came back outside and took a deep breath and called my brother back and just said, "Yeah, well, I went all the way in and I didn't feel anyone or anything there."

• 31:14Speaker 01

  I think she showed herself when we first arrived to comfort us because we were so disoriented and confused by who the people were in our life at that time and where we were. And I think that she was there to just reassure us that we were okay.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  With all the chaos that ensued there with my dad, it was a very disjointed life.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  But everyone has good in them, I'm convinced of that. And I found that in my dad here and there. We wrote a song with him when we were probably five. Aunt Pat played guitar and my brother and I sang. This is recorded when we were about five and a half. It's called "The Good Night Song."

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Are you doing this, Mary Jane? Okay, go. Ready? Okay.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  Good night.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Louder.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Good night. I'm hoping that you sleep real tight. And I'll see you in the morning and we'll all start a brand new day.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  Well, when you're up in dreamland, you sure hope all your dreams

• 32:31Speaker 03

  With your covers all crunched up on your head and your pillow on top of your feet. Good night, good night. I'm hoping that you sleep real tight. And I'll see you in the morning and we'll all start a brand new day.

• 32:52Speaker 03

  Well, when that sun comes up over the hill Then the roosters begin to crow Well, we grab us some eggs and bacon Then it's down to the fish and oh So goodnight, goodnight I'm hoping that you sleep real tight And we'll see you in the morning And we'll start a brand new day

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Well, when that moon comes up over the hill That's the ending of our day Well, we walk on home and we sing a song About the one who got away So goodnight, goodnight I'm hoping that you sleep real tight And we'll see you in the morning And we'll start a brand new day

• 33:50Speaker 03

  Well, see you in the morning And we'll start a brand new day

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Wow, very good.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Your dad's a real composer.

• 34:13Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Mike and Ron, for sharing your story. Now, spooksters, guess what? Mike and Ron, they are listeners to this show. So if you have a story about your own miswithers, your own teacher, or your own protector from the other side, don't keep it to yourself. Write it down and send it to me, spookedsnapjudgment.org. Spookedsnapjudgment.org Because there is nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. The original score was by Laura Newsom. It was produced by Zoe Fergino and Ann Ford.

• 35:00Glynn Washington?

  So Spooksters, I've got a query for you. I know you love to hear these journeys through the shadow, but would you like to see a journey? Follow Spooked on YouTube, on Instagram, the socials, magic comes in many forms. And do you too have a family member that saw what you saw? Were they standing next to you when it all went down? Well, I want to speak with both of you. Hit me up [email protected] because there's nothing better than a Spooked story from a Spooked listener. Spooked is brought to you by the team who wonders every day what it would be like to have an identical twin.

• 35:45Glynn Washington?

  Except of course, Mark Ristich. The very idea of two Marxists, a notion best not contemplated. There's Davy Kim, Zoe Frigino, Ann Ford, Eric Yanez, Teo DeCatt, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Paulina Kriki, Elizabeth Pardue, Didi Amatu, and Lulu Tumayma. The team Snap, the union representative producers, artists, editors, engineers. Our members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Local 51. The Spook theme song is by Pat Masivian Miller.

• 36:24Glynn Washington?

  My name is Glynn Washington, and growing up in a home that was often unstable, I learned there were other homes that always seemed able to accommodate another chair around the dinner table, where it was never a thing to place some extra blankets on the fold-out couch. And these way stations were a lifeline for me. The power to draw these safe circles that youngsters seek for refuge, it is a special type of alchemy. And I'm lucky as an adult to witness this unconscious magic in dear friends of mine.

• 37:08Glynn Washington?

  Somehow unbidden, they just emanate a signal

• 37:14Glynn Washington?

  that lets the trepidatious know it is safe to come near. It's safe to rest, to heal, a field that promises monsters cannot enter here.

• 37:28Glynn Washington?

  And I marvel at such easy magic. It is no mean feat to convince the desperate that you mean them no harm. And I remember being the desperate, the lost, head bowed, searching for that warm glow, that open door. And to those that mother,

• 37:48Glynn Washington?

  and to those of you that father, that comfort children who are not your own, I thank you. I thank you.

• 37:58Glynn Washington?

  And I ask that you never, ever, never, ever, ever, never, ever, never turn out

• 38:11Glynn Washington?

  your lights.