Ghosts on the Coast of Maine (13 page)

It wasn't easy. The Pythian Knights were a secret society, many in number but few in talkers. There was no reason to divulge any information to the gallery operator, a man “from away.” He had to dig on his own, and this he did wholeheartedly. Stanley wasn't sure he wanted a repeat performance of his first day, and if it happened again, in front of customers, what then? Would it drive away business or bring more in?

He found out through a Pythian wife visiting the gallery that the same incident had occurred after a Fourth of July party in 1957. Six hundred Knights had paraded, performed a drill, and acted out a pageant before they were able to relax and let loose at the evening ball. Their wives had had a long day, too, and were ready to party. They asked the orchestra to play an extra hour, and then people started milling their way toward the door.

Almost everyone had left, except for the wife in question and her husband. As they were nearing the exit, the woman heard piano music and thought that one of the musicians was goofing around after hours. All the musicians, however, were busy loading instruments into their vehicles. When she saw that the keys were moving with no one near the piano, she mentioned it to her husband. “Oh Clara,” he said, “don't you know that's a player piano.” She laughed as she remembered her foolishness.

Arthur cleared his throat and tried to correct her misconception. He said, “Clara, it is a regular piano with a player piano device attached, but the device is not automatic. In order for the keys to operate, a lever under the keyboard must be pulled, and the foot pedals must be pulled out from the bottom of the piano. Then someone has to pump the pedals!” The woman said nothing but her face turned white, and she left the room never once glancing back at the instrument she'd wondered at, twenty years ago.

It was shortly after Clara's visit that Benjamin Dunn, an elderly cafe dweller, told his cousin's story. “Cousin Edward doesn't talk of it much, but he'll never forget it.” Arthur tried to remember Ben's exact words. “In November 1949, a grand celebration took place at the Opera House, to honor the thousandth inductee to the Knights of Pythias. Delegations from Bath, Lewiston, Livermore Falls, Portland, and Rumford attended the function. There was music and dancing till way into the night. Cousin was on ‘clean-up committee,' so he was there with two other fellows after the rest had gone home. Edward was way up on a high ladder when he heard the piano playing from down below. He looked past the streamers of crepe paper over toward the stage, and there set that piano a goin' with nobody playing it. The other men saw it, too, and they all looked at one another. Well, they thought they were too tired to care about anything right then, but I tell you that woke ‘em up some.”

Asa White had been listening in on Ben's conversation in the coffee shop, not saying a word. When Ben was done, Asa, a real old-timer, spoke up. He said to Ben, “That party you spoke about might have been some good, but 'twas nothin' compared to the Two-Day Field Day the Knights held in the fall of 1907. The whole town was jampacked. People from all over come in steamers for the parade, clambake, ball game, races, and fat man's dance. Yes sir, and did we ever have a piano player for that one. Earl Cliff was his name. Gawd, he was so good they called him ‘Fingers' for short. ‘Course, I was just a kid at the time, but I can see it just like it was yesterday.”

Stanley realized he'd never know for sure who the phantom of the opera house represented. It could have been Earl; he seemed to do well at celebrations. Whoever it was he wanted to be remembered in the spirit of the music that played for so many good times at the old Opera House.

B
at is my maternal grandmother. This chapter is dedicated to her, at the suggestion of my brother-in-law, who stood agape at hearing about all her intrusions during the period of my writing this book. She communicated not only to me, but also to my father, my brother, and my daughter.

Helen Ward Batastini died September 26, 1987, at her little cottage in Maine, called The Lone Maple. She was sick and wanted to die, but she did not want to be forgotten, as we all found out.

Her first manifestation was to my brother Lou. He had arrived with my dad in May 1988 for a week's stay at Fernwood cottage, my parents' house, just in front of my grandmother's. Dad was still in the car when Lou walked in the back entry. To his surprise, a potato flipped out of a basket on the shelf and rolled across the floor. Too tired to dwell upon it, he brought in all the luggage from the car and took out his radio to listen to the Red Sox. He had just finished putting new batteries in it, when something caught his eye in the TV room. It turned out that Dad was getting the Red Sox game on TV. The two men watched the game without interruption until a deafening blast of music brought them back to the kitchen. Lou's radio dial had been turned to maximum volume. My brother put the potato incident with the radio incident and came up with one adjective: spooky. He went so far as to call my mother on the telephone and relate what had happened. She said, “Well, you know Grandma always hated potatoes (because they were fattening) and music (because she considered it the downfall of her son).

Dad just pooh-poohed the whole thing. He didn't believe in ghosts. Besides, it was “against the Catholic religion,” according to him. (This argument I could never figure out, because in the old days the third Person of the Trinity included the Holy Ghost.) Even in 1976 when NBC came to the Fernwood house to do a documentary on psychic phenomena, Dad refused to witness the proceedings. “Oh, come on,” was his standard response for ghostly tales. He never lost a night's sleep at Fernwood as opposed to my mother, who always kept three baseball bats under the bed. Don't ask me how the bats would have fended off a ghost.

Anyway, it was my dad who got Grandma's next dose of mischief. One night he went to bed early, over at The Lone Maple. He must have been asleep about an hour when a sudden chill awakened him. He shivered and drew the covers up to his chin, but what happened next gave him a greater chill. Something tugged at his blanket and made it land at the bottom of the bed. Tail wagging between his legs, Dad told Mom the whole story, but I never got wind of it until Mom inadvertently said something. “You knew I was writing this book on ghosts, and you weren't going to tell me?” I exclaimed to my father. He said, “Well, I didn't want to hear any ‘I told you so's.'”

You might wonder how Helen came to be called “Bat.” Primarily, “bat” is a symbol of watchfulness. Helen's first manifestation to me was the appearance of herself about twenty years younger than at her death. She was sitting at a window inside The Lone Maple, happily rocking and watching her great-grandchildren play on the porch.

Secondly, bats are clean, tidy animals equipped with excellent radar, and lacking in any desire to harm humans. That was Helen, fastidious, generous—and talk about radar. When we were kids, she knew what we were doing and where all the time without even being around. Of course, with a twinkle in her eye, she'd always tell us she was a witch.

The first time I walked into her house after her death, I was on a cleaning mission because my eldest son was going to stay there. I mentally heard her say, “It's about time somebody came over here to clean this place up. I knew it would be you, Carol.”

The whole time I was there, I could feel her following me around, as if she were supervising the job.

Thirdly, Grandma's last name includes “Bat.”

Lastly, at the Northport meeting where I met the two women who collaborated with me on the Sally Weir search, I had announced prior to the meeting that I felt my grandmother had led me there. And what do you think was flying around the rafters towards the end of the evening? A small brown bat.

Helen had a ready sense of humor, so I shouldn't have been surprised when she played a trick on me. I had brought downstairs from my room in Fernwood a bottle of Amaretto di Soronno to use in a birthday cake for Dad. I put it on the dining room table and plunk, it made a noise. I hoped no one had heard, because it was supposed to be a surprise. Then I went over to the kitchen to join everyone for supper. After supper I went to the dining room to get the liqueur, and there on the table was the paper bag in which I'd brought it down. Only thing, it was empty! I asked if anyone had seen the bottle. The answer was “No.” Had anyone removed anything from the dining room table? “No.”

I said, “This is crazy,” and went about the house looking in the most stupid places. When I reached the top of the stairs, it dawned on me what had happened. “Okay, Grandma, please tell me where the Amaretto is. You know I can't make this cake without it. Please show me where you put it.” I found myself walking down the hall and into the front bedroom. There it was, atop one of the bedspreads. I sensed her chuckling at me.

The final oddity to date was what sounded like a bowling ball rolling down the upstairs Fernwood hallway and crashing into some glass at the end of its journey. My daughter, my brother, and I all heard it in the middle of the night. The next morning there was no evidence of either ball or broken glass.

…Is there an end to this chapter?

T
hey both occurred on my journey to the west'ard. In the Ogunquit chapter I didn't mention that my search for a crystal led me to stop at this place that had gypsy pictures and astrological signs painted all over. Upon setting foot inside the door, I was accosted by a female voice croaking out of a very short body. The voice immediately started in on what sounded like a Garment District sales pitch. “Readings for five dollars, cards for ten, stones for twenty.” She asked, “Where are you from?” I wanted to say, “You're supposed to tell me.” She said, “How old are you, forty-five?” I was forty-one. She said, “When were you born—are you a Pisces?” I am a Capricorn. That did it. I beat it out of there before she started guessing my weight.

In passing through Saco, my mother and I saw yellow letters painted on a brown background: “Visit the Haunted House of Captain Isaac Cutler.” Gee, we thought, what a break. Haunted houses aren't usually advertised like that. We were right. After we drove in the driveway and met a whitefaced actor with a stiff-legged gait, bearing a fake sword, we realized that it was all part of the amusement park next door.