A Summer of Fear: A True Haunting in New England (6 page)

“I’ve been hearing things again,” I answered trying not to sound as crazy as I felt. “Actually, I hear things almost every night.”

“What kind of ‘things?’”

I shrugged. “Lots of different things. Sometimes it’s footsteps, sometimes whispers, sometimes thuds. It comes from different places in the house, depending on where I am, but it’s loudest right outside my bedroom door.”

Janet appeared pensive as she studied me closely. “It could be animals, something in the walls. We found a raccoon in one of the attic walls not too long ago. It hissed something awful. Made a racket.”

“I thought about animals, birds and mice,” I admitted. “But I don’t think that’s what this is.”

“You think the house is haunted?” she pressed lightly, going back to her work. I could tell she was finished with the conversation.

“Yes, I do,” I replied firmly. “Is there anywhere else I can stay? Like maybe with the other interns? At least until my roommate gets here.”

“No, I’m sorry. We actually like to keep the interns separate from everyone else. We encourage them to bond, develop teamwork amongst them. They’re meant to learn as a unit and an outside influence might upset that. Do you understand?”

No, I didn’t. I thought it sounded weird.

“What about another room? A guest room maybe?”

“Our season starts in just four weeks,” she answered, obviously frustrated with the conversation. “We are really trying to get everything organized and opened. We just don’t have time to put you somewhere else and then take you back out.”

I didn’t see what the big deal was, but Janet clearly wasn’t open to working with me on this or discussing it any further. I turned around and went back to my “work,” entering data into the computer that really took all of five minutes but I was trying to stretch it out, but the more I thought about it, the madder I got. First, they had me up there alone without any means of communication with the outside world, other than the internet. (Which came and went, depending on the weather.) It was a big house and only the back door locked. The front was always open. I didn’t have a key. There was no way to really protect myself in there. And now she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of me staying somewhere else on the property, despite the fact that I was upset.

An hour later, Kory came into the room. I’d been given another set of data to enter and was busy with it. She, who hardly ever spoke a word to me, stopped and peered over my shoulder. “You’re still doing that?” she asked accusingly. “I would’ve thought you’d been a lot faster. Isn’t this what you did at your old job?”

“I
am
fast at it,” I snapped back. “This is a new set.”

Raising her eyebrows, she stomped away but I could hear her complaining to the director, Linda, about how “rude” I’d been to her when she was “just asking a simple question.” I continued to seethe.

T
hat evening I pulled my laptop out and tried to work at the small table in my bedroom. It was still a little light out but would be dark soon. I’d wanted to go into town for supper but didn’t have any money. Instead, I made do with a bowl of cereal and piece of bread.

The house was quiet, but I wasn’t surprised. Things usually didn’t get started until a lot later. Right now, it was just the normal sounds of an old house settling. Those sounds I could deal with. They might make me jump from time to time, but they were “normal.” I could differentiate them from the others.

I’d left my bedroom door open on my last trip up and the room across the hall was closed. I was still aware of it, though, and knowing there was a direct line between it and me at my table made me nervous. I was having trouble concentrating and kept looking up, expecting to see something in my doorway.

Shaking my head at my silliness, I finally got up and walked over the door. I’d never get anything done if I didn’t close it. As I placed my hand on my own door, however, the one across the hall slowly slid open, like a gust of wind might have caught it. Curiously, I watched as a thin, pale shadow of light appeared in the opening of the empty room. It wasn’t enough to be an overhead light, or even a lamp, but it illuminated the room enough that I could see some of the boxes. The door wavered for a moment and then, just as slowly as it had opened, closed to again. I could see the light peeking out under the door and casting rays on the hardwood floor in front of it. Then it simply went out, leaving the hallway in darkness again.

T
wo nights later I was taking a shower after returning from supper and after wrapping myself up in my robe, I was halfway up the stairs when I heard an unmistakable bang from the empty room. That alone made me jump, clamoring for the handrail as I nearly lost my footing and went flying down the wooden stairs. But the noise was followed by a long, weary sigh that reached right down into my soul and turned and twisted it until I found myself leaning back against the wall, tears forming in my eyes. The sigh was lonesome, pensive, drained. Whoever or whatever had made it was exhausted, beyond sad. Just tired.

In my own frustration, I began to cry. I couldn’t help it. Naked, wet, without anyone to talk to or go to, I felt like I was slowly going insane and was as defenseless as a person could be. They were just noises, I thought to myself, why can’t I live with them? Noises couldn’t hurt me. But the sigh had been so human, so sad and desperate. It sounded the way I felt.

Resorting to an old childhood trick of combatting fears of the dark, I turned to music. In a voice as loud as I could, through my tears I began singing the first song that popped into my mind–“The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness.” It just seemed to fit. The shuffling in the upstairs started and became more pronounced as it neared the top of the stairs, but shutting it out I let my voice grow louder and louder as I closed my eyes and held onto the rail. I couldn’t see around the corner at the top of the stairs, but my overhead light was on in my bedroom and this made the landing glow. Opening my eyes, I peeked upwards and nearly lost my voice as I saw a tall shadow poised in the landing, standing as still as I was. Neither one of us offered to move and I didn’t know what to do. Slowly, still singing, I began moving up the stairs. As I did so, the shadow faded away, moving as deliberately as I was. The door to the empty room closed with a thud. When I reached the landing, nothing was there. By the time I was finished I’d sung the song three times and the house was quiet.

I popped a CD into the player, turned the volume up, and lay down. For awhile, at least, everything was still.

Y
ou’ve been awfully quiet,” Janet remarked. It was Thursday afternoon and everyone was getting ready to pack up for the day. “Everything okay?”

“Just a headache,” I answered and I wasn’t stretching the truth. I had a horrible headache and stomachache, too. Everything felt a little “off.”

“Well, if you’re
ill
, maybe you’d better go lie down,” Janet said sharply. Her words were nice, but her tone was cryptic and stringent. Perhaps I was feeling too sensitive but I felt a little bit like the problem child who was being a burden on everyone.

“I’m fine,” I shrugged. “I’m thinking I might go to Boston for the weekend. Get a change of scenery.”

“That’s a good idea,” she replied absently as she thumbed through a file. “Better go while you can, before everyone gets here.”

I started to ask her what she meant but decided not to. Still, her words bothered me. One of the reasons I’d taken the job was because she’d told me in my interview that I would have the weekends off and could travel. I was working for a travel review site and posted my reviews online; writing reviews was how I made most of my extra spending money. I needed to be able to continue that throughout the summer. One of the big reasons I’d turned down the other jobs was because I was expected to join in all the activities and participate with few days off throughout the week. I knew a lot of people liked that about summer jobs, and that’s why they applied to summer camps, but that wasn’t what I was looking for and I’d been clear about that from the beginning: I was simply looking for a summer live-in position that would allow me the flexibility to move around and join in when I wanted to.

But maybe she hadn’t meant anything by it.

F
riday afternoon rolled around and I made my way to Boston. I have to admit, my step was lighter as I walked out the door and said goodbye to everyone. In fact, I all but danced out the door. After all, I was on my way to my favorite city in the United States and would be spending three nights there since Monday was a holiday.

The time away was just what I needed. I did a little sightseeing, a little shopping, and ate some great meals. Being in a big city alone didn’t bother me since there were so many people around at all times. I made friends with a girl from Hong Kong who was staying in my hostel room and we even drove down to Newport, Rhode Island for the day and looked around the mansions and beautiful seaside town.

On Sunday night, several of the girls in my hostel gathered in the common room to talk about their weekend. I was reading but still felt included. We’d all had dinner together and gone out for drinks afterwards. Now, everyone was tired and trying to relax. One of the girls had whipped out her curling iron and was working on my hair. Two others were doing each other’s nails. An Irish girl sat in the middle of the floor on a ratty rug, reading us Hollywood gossip from a tabloid. It was the first time I’d been included in a group, and actually felt included, in a long time. I needed to travel more. I’d forgotten just how much I enjoyed it and liked the camaraderie it provided.

When they brought up Salem I joined in their conversation. I’d only been once, and that was to go to the House of the Seven Gables, but I kept meaning to go back and explore. After several hours of talking, laughing, and drinking a few glasses of wine with the girls I began telling them about my summer home and job.

“I just can’t wait until my roommate gets there,” I finished at last. “I think the being alone is the worst part of all.”

“Just one question,” a Polish girl from Warsaw asked in impeccable English. “Why are you still there? Why don’t you just leave?”

The others nodded their heads in agreement.

“That’s a very good question,” I answered. “And I don’t have a single
good
reason. Money, mostly. I need it to live on and to take with me for grad school in the fall.”

“Aren’t you terrified?” a Chinese girl asked with wide eyes. “How do you sleep?”

“I don’t,” I laughed. “I’ve slept better here than I have in weeks.” And that was the truth.

“It sounds scary as hell,” Jenny, an American with jet black hair and two nose rings, snorted. “And it doesn’t just sound like a regular ghost, man. This thing, whatever it is, sounds like it KNOWS you. You know what I mean? It communicates with you.”

“Well, I’ve never talked to it and had it answer back,” I interjected.

“Doesn’t matter,” she shook her head. “You sing or play that music, it stops. It can hear you. So it’s not just one of those leftover energy shits. This thing has feelings, has a brain. You’d better be careful; it might not be a ghost at all.”

Telling these strangers about my nights in the farmhouse did make it sound scarier and more terrible. It was as if the distance in miles gave me an emotional distance with more clarity. Suddenly, I felt stupid for continuing to stay.

“They’re just noises though, right?” I posed this question to Vickie, my roommate, once we were back in our room. “That’s what I keep telling myself. I mean, it’s not like I’m seeing ghosts or a lady in white or anything. Just sounds really.”

“Maybe,” she said slowly. “But even with ‘just noises’ it’s obviously bothering you. I don’t think any one person can say, ‘That haunting is not so bad.’ It’s how it affects YOU that matters the most. And if you can’t learn to live with them then you don’t need to be there. Honestly, I don’t see why you would stay if you’re not happy anyway. Just the way you describe the job would be enough for me to say my goodbyes and quit.”

“I don’t like the job,” I admitted. “I feel lonely, sad. Afraid in the house, but sad in the job. Maybe if I enjoyed the job I could deal with what was going on in the house, you know? Like it would even it out a little.”

I
was feeling much more like myself on Monday afternoon when I checked out and started back to New Hampshire. With extra time I pulled into Salem and did a little more sightseeing. I was charmed by the town itself, and even with its cheesiness and tourist traps it was a quaint place with easily navigable streets and shops and I enjoyed myself there. There were loads of shops selling crystals, charms, and books on witchcraft and after walking past a few and window shopping I decided to go in one.

The shop was empty except for the manager, a middle-aged woman in a black shirt and long blue skirt. She had a necklace with a fairy pendant on and sat on a stool behind the desk reading a Sherlock Holmes novel. I approached her cautiously, having taken in all the crystals and herbs, and asked for her help the best I could. I tried not to feel silly. After all, this was a store that sold books like “Reincarnation for Beginners” and crystal balls. Once I was finished explaining my situation, she laid down her book and took a long look at me, her eyes searching.

“Let me ask you something,” she said at last.

“Yes?”

“Have you seen or heard anything in your room?”

“Well,” I replied, “I hear most things in my room, but sometimes I’m downstairs. And the shadow on the landing was right outside my door.”

“No,” she shook her head, “I mean have you actually
heard
anything that is
originating
within your room?”

“No, I haven’t. It seems to stop before it gets that far. It plays with my door, stops outside my door. It’s never come in, though.”

“Well,” she tapped her fingers on the counter and tilted her head thoughtfully. “That’s a little unusual but not implausible. If you hear the noises in the rest of the house but not in your room, and yet the spirit is obviously trying to come
in
your room, then I’d say you already have something keeping it out. Do you know what that may be?”

“Huh?”

“A talisman, dear. A protector. There’s something in your room that is protecting you. What could it be? Because that would be helpful to know.”

I honestly had no clue. “I don’t have anything with me like that. I was hoping you could
give
me something,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“I can help,” she said with seriousness, “but you’ve already got some of the most powerful antidote with you. It is something protecting you: a talisman, a good luck charm, a picture, a letter…”

I thought about the things I’d packed and brought from home with me but nothing was very sentimental, just clothes and makeup and books. Except, of course, for my pictures. “I have a picture of my grandmother on the wall,” I said. “She died when I was seven. Could that be it?”

“Yes, it’s very possible. Somehow her spirit is reaching out for you and holding the other one back. Has she appeared to you before and done this? Protected you from something?”

I nodded. When I was a child we’d lived in a haunted house for four months. My mother and I thought we were going crazy. Not long after we moved in, I’d come down with a terrible illness. A friend was staying with me and had woken me up from a feverish dream with a scream. She claimed to have seen the ghost of my grandmother sitting on the bed beside me. My fever broke later that afternoon and I became well again, as if nothing had happened.

“She has,” I answered. “Only once, but I think it was important.”

Again, she looked at me with those deep eyes, as though measuring me or reading my mind. Maybe both. “You feel things don’t you?” she finally asked. Her tone was gentle. She had such kind eyes and a gentle voice I wanted to cry. I felt like she was reaching out to me, seriously trying to help.

“Sometimes,” I said carefully.

“Not just ghosts, spirits, things like that. You feel things from people.”

I shrugged. “I’m no psychic. I can’t read minds.”

“But you can read feelings. You know when someone is sad when they act happy to the world. You know when someone doesn’t like you but pretends to. You know when someone is looking at you with disdain, being disrespectful even though their words and body language says differently. You can read people.”

Yes, that was true. I’d always read people well. Even as a child I’d disliked those everyone else wanted to fawn over, just because of a feeling I got. Sometimes, it was hard for me to make friends because I felt their true character emanating within moments of meeting someone and after that it was just too difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“You’re a sensitive, child. You hurt deeply. You feel things deeply. You try to cover this up by being alone, by acting confident, even by lying. But you carry a hurt in you for the world. This thing, and I don’t know what it is, it feels that. It’s drawn to you. And it won’t be the last. I’m quite sure it wasn’t the first.”