A Night When Shadows Rose (The Conjuring 2013)
The Story -
They say it began with a door.
Not the grand front one, nor the cellar hatch that moaned with age, but a small, unassuming door beneath the staircase — the kind that shouldn’t open anymore, yet did. Behind it: cold air, stale earth, and a smell like wet coins.
The family was new. Freshly moved into the countryside, with more daughters than rooms and more dreams than caution. The first nights were quiet — only the ordinary creaks of a house settling after a long sleep. But soon, the air turned colder, heavier. The dogs refused to enter. Clocks stopped at the same minute each night.
Someone — or something — wanted their attention.
It began subtly: lost trinkets, broom bristles that bent the wrong way, whispers that seemed to crawl up from the cellar when everyone was upstairs. Then came the shadows — long and thin, too tall for any human, passing the children’s doorways like they owned the place.
One of the girls woke screaming, saying a woman had been standing beside her bed, her neck bent wrong, her eyes hollow as if she’d already been buried once before.
The mother tried to rationalize it — until she couldn’t. Bruises appeared in the night. Furniture scraped across the floor while everyone was asleep. The smell of rot thickened, though no dead animal was ever found.
So she called for help.
Two strangers arrived one afternoon — a man who carried a rosary and a woman who could see what others pretended not to. They didn’t flinch when the doors slammed or when the chill in the air grew teeth.
They walked the halls as if the shadows were introducing themselves. The woman paused by the old fireplace, whispering, “She doesn’t like them here.”
The family asked who she was.
The couple looked to each other before answering, as though saying her name might give her strength. But the name slipped out anyway.
A woman from long ago, rumored to have offered her child to the darkness in exchange for power. She’d been buried not far from there. Some say her body turned to stone before the rope went taut.
The newcomers set up their instruments — crosses, cameras, relics — and the house shuddered like it remembered what they were.
No one knows what hour it was when everything went wrong. The walls trembled. A voice that was not human erupted from the basement. The mother was missing — found later in the cellar, her eyes rolled white, her mouth muttering words older than English.
They tried to pull her away, but she was strong — too strong. One of the daughters swore the room began to bleed light from the corners.
And then, as quickly as it began, it was over.
Silence. Dust. And a woman weeping on the cold dirt floor.
The strangers left before dawn, warning the family to move on, to never look back.
Years later, they say the house remains — quiet, but not empty. People who pass by swear they see a flicker in the upper window, or a woman in a long dress watching from the field.
Skeptics dismiss it as myth, but locals? They lower their voices when they speak of it. They remember the family who moved in one winter and came out different.
They remember the couple who claimed they’d spoken with the dead.
And if you dig through the records, you’ll find their names:
Roger and Carolyn Perron — the family.
Ed and Lorraine Warren — the investigators.
And the one the house wouldn’t forget — Bathsheba Sherman.
So, was it real? Or did grief, fear, and superstition shape the horror into something we could point at?
Perhaps the truth, like the flicker of this fire, dances between both worlds — the seen and the unseen.
But if you ever visit Rhode Island, and you find an old farmhouse where the wind sighs through the chimney just so…
…maybe don’t go knocking after dark.
The Reality-
In the quiet countryside of Rhode Island, a family moved into an old farmhouse, unaware that they were stepping into a story that would ripple through time. The creaking floors, the flickering lights, the whispered footsteps in the dark — all signs that the ordinary was stirring, and the extraordinary beckoned. Soon, the walls held more than just memories: they held a presence.
What the Movie Presents
The film tells of the Ed Warren and Lorraine Warren being called to aid the Roger Perron and Carolyn Perron family, who’ve moved into a sprawling old farmhouse with their five daughters. Almost immediately, things go bump in the night.
Doors swing open of their own volition; clocks stop at 3:07 a.m.; unseen hands tug at children’s feet.
The family uncovers a sinister past: the land once belonged to a witch named Bathsheba Sherman, who cursed the property before ending her life. (In the film’s version, the witch is the mastermind of the torment.)
Lorraine’s visions, Ed’s recordings, and a dramatic exorcism all converge in a climactic battle to save Carolyn and the children from a demonic takeover.
The cinematic energy is high—soaring beds, gore, flyings arms, levitations. It’s a rite of horror, dressed in shadows and screaming.
But What Really Happened That Night?
The Family & the House
The real family, the Perrons, did indeed live in a farmhouse in Harrisville (also called the Old Arnold Estate) in Rhode Island from around January 1971 until about 1980.
They reported a wide range of paranormal activity: moving objects, strange smells (rot, decay), cold drafts, disembodied footsteps, and “friendly” spirits alongside the more malevolent ones.
The legend of Bathsheba Sherman did exist: Bathsheba Thayer Sherman was a real person who lived in the 1800s in the area, married a farmer named Judson Sherman.
But: the connection of Bathsheba to satanic rituals, infant sacrifice, portals to Hell, etc., is widely considered to be part myth, part folklore. There is no reliable historical documentation that supports murdering infants or invoking demons as the film suggests.
The Warrens & the Investigation
Ed and Lorraine Warren did investigate the case of the Perron family—or at least, claimed to have done so, and the family supported that narrative.
That said: the movie’s version of a full-scale demonic possession, beds flying across rooms, and a dramatic exorcism scene is highly dramatized. The family themselves say that the film is about 95 % fiction.
The Hauntings: Echoes of the Invisible
The haunting apparently began soon after the family moved in: broom handles went missing, the kettle scraped by unseen fingers, piles of dirt appeared in the centre of newly-cleaned floors.
The family experienced a mix of “friendly” and “unfriendly” spirits: one example is “Manny” — a benign figure, vs. the more terrifying ones that made the house feel alive and dangerous.
One of the more intense moments: during a séance (led by the Warrens, according to the story) Carolyn Perron allegedly was lifted from her chair, spoke in unknown tongues, and the chair broke. This event is treated as the catalyst for the family to call in stronger help. But the details are murky, and some sources question exactly how it happened.
The Real vs. the Reel
The film compresses years of alleged activity into one dramatic narrative. In reality, the Perrons lived in the house for nearly a decade.
The “doll possessed by a spirit” subplot (in the movie’s opening) is not about the Perron case but rather another case with the Warrens (the Annabelle doll mythology).
Several incidents attributed in the film to demonic possession likely had more ambiguous (or entirely non-possession) origins. Researchers note that the Perron family themselves acknowledge some events were exaggerated or altered for storytelling.
Between Mystery and Meaning
So, dear seeker of shadows, what are we left with? The truth lies somewhere between certainty and legend. Yes—the Perron family reported genuine, terrifying phenomena. Yes—the Warrens claimed investigation and intervention. But the villainous witch Bathsheba with her hell-curse and the cinematic levitations? Those may belong more to the realm of story than diary.
The house kept memories. The family woke those memories without perhaps fully recognizing their weight. And the movie distilled that into a ritualized, symbolic battle: good vs. evil, home vs. haunted, faith vs. fear.
