One of my first memories was seeing him. I must've been four, judging by the bed I was lying in (I remember getting a new bed for my fifth birthday). Black Peter was standing in the corner of the room, black face, white eyes, big grin.

The name comes from Belgian folklore. In our children's tales, Black Peter is the assistant to Saint Nick. He has a face as black as soot due to the many trips down the chimney. When I saw the figure that would continue to appear to me, I thought I was merely getting visited early by Black Peter.

Due to this he never terrified me. He would be standing in my room, not moving or floating before the window, smiling at me. I thought he came to check if I was a good kid and never gave it much thought. When I told my parents, they assumed my fantasy had run away from me.

I was eight when I realized Saint Nick was a story, and the consequences of that must be that Black Peter was as well. Still he remained present and the older I got the more he terrified me. I'd see him less and less... Instances, when I opened my eyes and could swear that for a split second I saw two bright white eyes disappear into the darkness.

I would wake up finding items moved in my bedroom. Sometimes I'd be the one moved. Waking up in odd places like the bathroom, or standing up in the room. The only logical consequence was that I was a sleepwalker, but no one ever saw me sleepwalk.

We lived in an old house, the wind making the house moan from time to time, so it wasn't a surprise that no one took me serious when I told them about being haunted. I'd hear faint knocking at night, 3 taps... 32 seconds of silence...3 taps. Over and over again. I'd started counting and knocking along.

At school they started asking me about the bruises on my legs. I wasn't physically abused, nor did I feel any pain, but sure enough both my legs were covered in bruises and scratches.

As a teenager the presence of Black Peter became a faint memory and I started believing that I must've had my imagination run wild with me.

I had changed rooms, and my old room was being left for my sister. I was thirteen, my sister seven, and I was home to care for her. From my bedroom I could hear her sing an old song about "Black Peter". That wasn't too strange, it was around December and she must've picked it up at school. Yet it was late so I got out of my bedroom to tell her to sleep.

I came to her room, outside the door I could sweat I could hear her singing, but as I opened the door she was lying soundly asleep. I told her not to play games with me, woke her up (thinking she was already awake), and she looked and frowned at me and, in her groggy sleep, asked me if I was Black Peter.

I told my parents about it. Both me and my sister and they told us they had had similar experiences but kept them secret from us. There were nights when they were sure they could hear me, or later my sis, making noise in our room only to find us asleep. They even had started putting up crucifixes in our house (my mother was quite religious) but at one point removed them all when a cross was flung from the wall to the other end of the room as they slept.

We had a dog that wasn't allowed into the house. Every time he did he made his way to the room I used to have and started growling like mad.

To this day I have no idea what this figure was, and thinking about terrifies me. We've moved since and, whatever it was, hasn't come along.

I wish I could say that it was just my imagination acting up.