He and I used to spend summers with our Grandparents in Virginia. We had cousins that lived about a mile up the winding gravel country road. The year this happened, I had a job so my brother spent the summer in Virginia without me.

It was not unusual that we would walk the mile to our cousin's house to spend the night but mostly we walked during the day. This one evening, my brother decided to spend the night at our cousin's but he got a late start. About halfway through the walk is a particularly sharp bend in the road and the land on both sides is owned by one of the area's older families. They have the main house and several out building, some that were once used to house share croppers and their families. Once you've walked those roads a million times, you tend not to look too closely at the houses that are not used or appear to be falling down - they're just part of the countryside.

On this evening, the sun had already set and there was no moon when Kenneth reached the halfway point. He could see the main house up the road because their house is pretty brightly lit, but something else drew his attention before he reached the main road. Off to the right, sitting way back from the road is a house that wasn't used and was pretty unstable. My brother could see a light inside that appeared to be a candle or lantern. He watched it start at the first floor and work it's way up to the second floor, lighting a new candle or lantern in each room as it went. Pretty soon all the windows were illuminated. Kenneth thought to himself that it was pretty strange because he didn't think anybody could live in that house, but he didn't tarry much longer because he had to get to our cousin's house and he had to also make it past a couple of unfriendly dogs in the dark.

He didn't think of this again until the next day when he and our cousin were walking back to our Grandparents house. When he got to the main house, Kenneth decided to stop and ask if there should be someone with candles or lanterns in the old house. It was possible that someone had been playing where they shouldn't have. However when he told them what he'd seen, all he got was a quizzical look and then was told that it must be his imagination. When my brother insisted that he had seen someone up there, the landowner decided to check it out. When they reached the old house and walked a little closer, it was clear that Kenneth couldn't have seen any lights inside, as every window had been boarded with plywood and when they opened the door to look inside, the stairway (which had originally followed the same path as he had seen the light follow the night before) had fallen.

The old house has since been demolished, but my brother still refuses to look in that direction after dark. His reasoning is that he saw lights in that house once before when there were no windows or stairs, why would a spirit need a house.