by J A Whiting
“I’m not sure,” Lin hedged and danced around the question. “Have you?”
“I just took a cake out of the oven,” Lila said. “I came down to capture Robert and take him into the house. It’s time to close up the shop for the day. Join us for coffee and a slice of cake?”
Lin and Jeff began to protest, but Lila wouldn’t let them dodge the invitation. “It’s a cold night. I have a fire going in the den. It’s very cozy, and I make a terrific carrot cake so come on in and have a slice.”
After giving a tour of the mansion’s main floor, the woman led them to the den where a crackling fire warmed the elegant room. Deep, rich wood covered the walls, custom-made bookshelves flanked the fireplace, and the far wall was nearly all glass. Soft comfortable chairs clustered around the fire, and a small holiday tree stood in the corner covered with sparkling lights and silver and gold ornaments. A crystal chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling.
“What a beautiful room,” Lin exclaimed.
“The whole house is a treasure,” Jeff told the couple.
The foursome made themselves comfortable, coffee was poured, and slices of cake were passed around.
“We’re extremely lucky to be the caretakers of this house,” Robert said.
“We never feel like we own a place,” Lila clarified. “We’re simply stewards who protect and preserve the home for the future families who will live here.”
“We’ve been here a little more than thirty years,” Robert said. “The time has flown by.”
“I wasn’t sure we’d stay when we first moved in.” Lila sipped from her cup.
“Why not?” Lin asked.
“You asked about ghosts.” The woman raised an eyebrow. “People have reported activity in the house for years and years. We’ve had some experiences in our time.”
“Have you seen a ghost?” Jeff asked.
“We’ve never seen one,” Robert told them. “But there have been incidents.”
“Can you share some of your stories with us?” Lin asked.
Lila said, “Rob’s parents were very wealthy, his father was an investor and his mother was a doctor. Rob was an only child so when they passed, we inherited their estate. We’d lived on-island since we were married and when we received the inheritance, we invested most of it, but we decided to purchase this house.”
Robert said, “My parents and I came to the island every summer and we’d spend hours walking around town. I fell in love with this house way back then. When I saw it was on the market, I talked Lila into buying it.”
“It was a foolish extravagance,” Lila said, “and I was very reluctant. It was far more space than we needed, but now I’m very glad we did it since our son and his wife and our grandson have moved in with us. We all have plenty of space and it’s very nice to have them close. They feel the same way. When they need help or a hand with childcare, we’re not far away.” Lila smiled. “It’s worked out so well.”
“I always hoped to open an art gallery and with the size of this house and with its proximity to town, it was perfect,” Robert said. “It’s worked out better than we could have hoped.”
“I mentioned that I couldn’t imagine staying in the house when we first moved in.” Lila set her dessert plate on the coffee table. “When we moved into the home, there were some incidents.” Her facial muscles tightened. “Our son, Roy, was three years old. Our daughter was about three months old. Roy would be playing in the room off the kitchen and suddenly, he would let out a howl. I’d race to him and find him sitting on the floor crying. He could never really tell us what had happened. Once, he said something like I don’t like him. It was unnerving. I felt I couldn’t take my eyes off my children.”
“You think a ghost was causing the issues?” Lin asked.
“I’m sure of it,” Lila said.
“One day, there had been two incidents. Roy was playing with his toys and then he fell backwards as if he’d been pushed,” Robert said. “I was furious.”
“We both shouted at the ghost. We told him to leave our children alone,” Lila said. “One of us said something about this being our home now and that we didn’t mind if the ghost shared the house with us, but he had to stop terrorizing the family. We wouldn’t stand for it.” The woman smiled. “I don’t know what we could have done, but we didn’t let on we had no idea how to deal with a spirit. We were firm in our tone. We told the ghost if he wanted to stay, then he’d have to be respectful of all us and whoever we invited into our home.”
“Lo and behold, it worked.” Robert wore a broad smile. “The ghost never bothered Roy or our daughter again. Several times, Roy even mentioned that the man was nice to him.”
“Could Roy or your daughter see the ghost?” Lina sked.
“No, they couldn’t, but they could sense him, pick up on his emotions,” Robert said.
“What about now that they’re older?” Jeff questioned. “Have they ever seen him?”
Robert said, “No, none of us have. Our grandson mentioned the ghost to us when he was very young, but he isn’t able to see him either.”
“Interesting,” Lin said. “Can you tell if the ghost is still here in the house now?”
“Yes, he’s here,” Robert said. “There’s something that happens now and then. Maybe once a month. Something is moved around. There’s a great chill in the air that can’t be explained. Latched doors unlatch, something seems to move in or out of the room, and then the door is pulled closed and the latch fastens again.”
Lila said, “Once I was sitting in the chair next to my bed reading, when I heard a sort of shuffling noise and then a part of my bed compressed as if someone sat down on it. I said hello and went back to my reading. About a half-hour later, the ghost stood up and left the room. As I said, I couldn’t see anything, we never have seen him, it was just the bed adjusting to the weight of some invisible soul sitting down and then getting up.”
“Do you ever feel frightened or threatened by the spirit?” Lin asked.
“Not now,” Lila said. “Not since we had that outburst over the ghost’s interactions with the children when we first moved in. That seemed to clear the air and set the ground rules for all of us living together in the same house.”
Robert chuckled. “This discussion can’t be held with just anyone, you know. We only talk about the house’s occupant with certain people … people who seem open to hearing about spirits and to the things that can’t be seen, but nevertheless exist.”
“How did you know we’d be open to it?” Jeff asked.
“Lin has taken care of our property for over a year,” Robert said. “I have a sense of who she is, and if she’s with you, then you must be of the same mind.”
“That’s all true,” Lila said. “But the other day, Robert also noticed Lin’s fascination with the portrait of Captain Baker.” She made eye contact with Lin. “You could sense something from the picture?”
Lin took a quick look at Jeff, who gave a slight nod.
“Something about the painting draws me to it,” Lin said in a noncommittal way.
Robert smiled. “I thought so. There’s something about you. Can you see ghosts?”
Lin nodded.
“Then I would not be surprised at all, if one day, you are the person who is able to see Captain Baker’s ghost.”
7
“I sold the house to the Snows about thirty years ago. It was too big for us. We decided we wanted something smaller as we aged.” In his early eighties, David Masterson was tall and slender with broad shoulders, white hair, clear blue eyes, and an infectious energy. He swam two miles in the ocean almost every morning in the spring, summer, and fall.
Lin, Viv, David and his wife, Anna, sat in the bright sunroom of their house on a bluff in ‘Sconset overlooking the ocean. The sun streamed in through the many windows creating the illusion that it was pleasantly warm outside, when in reality, it was a cold, raw, windy day.
“It’s a gorgeous house,” David’s wife, An
na, said. The woman had short, white hair and the slim, fit build of someone who worked out on a regular basis. Age didn’t seem to have diminished the sculpted muscles in her shoulders and arms. “We enjoyed living there, but it was time for a change. Our kids were grown and off to college and work. We have friends here in ‘Sconset and we love the area, so we put the Tangerine Street house on the market and bought this place. I can’t believe we’ve been here for thirty years.”
“I had coffee with the Snows recently,” Lin said. “They told me about their experiences with a ghost in the house. We’ve heard you had some ghostly interactions when you lived in the Tangerine Street house.”
“We did, indeed,” David said. “Since you’ve spoken with the Snows, you’ll see that our experiences mirror one another’s pretty closely.”
Anna said, “We made sure we told the Snows about the ghost before they closed on the house. We wanted to be upfront about it and not have them blind-sided once they moved in.”
“The ghost was mean and nasty when we first lived in the home,” David said and then he and Anna shared a look with one another. “For the first six months, we seriously considered moving out. It was that bad.”
“The bad things didn’t happen every day,” Anna said. “If they had, I would have packed our bags and rushed away.”
“What was happening to you?” Viv gave an almost involuntary shudder.
Anna said, “Objects would get thrown at us, some of our things disappeared, banging noises would go on all night so we couldn’t sleep.”
“At times, there was a terrible feeling of danger or foreboding that would come over us,” David said. “A sense we would be harmed, that an angry spirit was near.”
“Honestly, it was frightening,” Anna said. “We were in our mid-twenties. We didn’t have children yet. If we had, there was no way we would have stayed there.”
“Why did you stay?” Lin asked.
“Well, we’d just plunked down almost all of our money to buy the place. We really over-extended ourselves to get it,” Anna said. “We were afraid we wouldn’t be able to sell it so we decided to see if we could make peace with the ghost. We asked around, discreetly of course, trying to find someone who might be able to advise us.”
“You found someone?” Lin was curious to know who the Mastersons might have contacted.
“We did.” David smiled. “Two people you know, actually. Lilianna and Libby Hartnett.”
“Oh.” Lin’s eyes widened in surprise as she returned the man’s smile. “No wonder you ended up living in the house for so long. You got advice from the best.”
“Exactly,” Anna said. A big, fluffy white cat entered the sunroom and jumped on the woman’s lap. Running her hand over the soft fur, she introduced the feline. “This is Snowball. Not a very original name, but it suits her.”
Lin and Viv complimented the cat’s luxurious fur and big blue eyes.
“We hesitated to contact Lilianna.” David returned the conversation to the haunting of their former home. “But things got so bad, we were desperate. She was a lifesaver. We’re sorry she’s no longer with us.”
Lin had met Lilianna shortly before the woman passed away. It was assumed the woman was close to a hundred years old or older, and she had powerful paranormal skills involving ghosts. The older woman had implied that Lin returned to live on the island in order to take Lilianna’s place.
Anna told them, “Lilianna and Libby met us at the Tangerine Street house many times to teach us how to handle the ghost’s anger. We never knew until recently that the ghost had suffered trauma from being killed in a robbery in the house. The ghost’s son was killed as well. A very sad story. Do you know about that?”
Lin nodded.
“We all assumed the ghost was Captain Samuel Baker,” David said. “You’ve heard the name?”
Lin said, “We have. Captain Baker owned your former house. We know he sold it and moved to another home in town, but was murdered during a visit to a friend at the Tangerine Street mansion.”
“That’s right,” Anna said.
“How did you get the ghost of Captain Baker to stop harassing you?” Viv questioned.
“Lilianna’s advice to us was to be firm, but kind when dealing with the ghost’s antics,” Anna said. “We were to be respectful towards the spirit and in return, he had to be respectful towards us. We told him so using a firm tone of voice.”
“Lilianna also told us to tell the ghost what we expected of him,” David said. “We told him that we were going to co-habit the house with him, that we meant no harm, and expected no harm in return. No throwing things, no threatening intentions. We were going to live in the house and we were fine with having him remain there with us. That was it. We had to repeat the statements for about two weeks and during that time, the frightening incidents declined until they stopped altogether.”
Anna added, “We could tell when the ghost was present in the room. However, he didn’t do anything unexpected. He didn’t do anything mean or worrisome. I guess Captain Baker decided to accept us.”
“A couple of interesting incidents happened after our son was born,” David said. “He was about three years old. We always kept the doors locked in the house. It was a big place and we didn’t want our little boy getting outside if we happened to be in another room.”
“Well, he did get out.” Anna looked anxious as she spoke. “Davey was outside on the sidewalk about to cross the street right in front of an oncoming car. The car was going beyond the speed limit for that section of the road. It was barreling down on our little boy. I knew I couldn’t get to him in time so I yelled out his name.” The older woman looked stricken.
David took up the story. “I wasn’t at home at the time, but Anna told me that before she could get our son’s name out of her mouth, it was as if an invisible hand grabbed onto Davey’s shirt and yanked him back from the road.”
“Davey fell onto his butt,” Anna said. “And then he seemed to be looking up at someone in front of him. Davey nodded, got up, and started up the steps to the house. I ran down the stairs to meet him and pulled him into my arms. I was sobbing.” Anna cleared her throat. “Davey told me not to cry, and then he told me the nice man helped him. That’s what he said … the nice man helped me, Mama. I know it was our ghost. He saved Davey from death. I know he did.”
“Wow.” Lin’s eyebrows raised. “The ghost went from being a threat to being a guardian.”
“That’s an amazing story,” Viv told the couple.
“There was a similar incident years later,” David said. “I was driving with the family. Anna was in the front passenger seat and our two kids were in the back. A snowstorm came up as we were driving home. In an instant, the roads became slick. We were approaching an area of the road where the cross-street had a stop sign. I slowed and was about to enter the intersection when I felt a hand squeeze my shoulder in warning. I braked quickly and skidded slightly to the side of the road.”
“Just as that happened, a tractor-trailer truck raced through the stop sign,” Anna said. “If David had not braked, we would have been in the intersection when the truck ran the stop sign. It was a huge truck. We all would have been killed.”
“Anna didn’t squeeze my shoulder,” David said. “The kids didn’t either. I know it was Captain Baker. He saved our lives.”
“This is unbelievable.” Viv shook her head. “Oh, I don’t mean I don’t believe you. I do. I mean the story is incredible.”
“It certainly is,” Anna said, nodding. “Most people wouldn’t believe us. There are a lot of ghosts on this island. And luckily, one befriended us.”
“I must say, it was difficult to move away from the Tangerine Street house,” David said. “We explained to our ghost why we felt we had to make the move. We told him he was welcome to come and live with us in the new place, but if he chose to stay in the mansion, we understood.”
“We told Captain Baker we would miss him if he didn’t join us,” Anna said
as she brushed at her eyes. “Even after all these years, I still do miss him.”
“What happened when you told the ghost you were going?” Lin asked.
“Nothing. We knew he’d heard what we’d said,” David told the cousins. “The captain didn’t come around during the weeks we were preparing to leave, but on the last day, Anna and I were carrying the last boxes to the car. As we approached the front door, it slowly opened for us.” The man smiled.
“The door was latched,” Anna said. “It couldn’t have opened without someone turning the knob. We knew it was our ghost helping us out of the house.”
“Have you felt the captain’s presence since that day?” Lin questioned.
“We have not,” Anna said with a touch of sadness in her voice. “That was the last time.”
“It was the pleasure of lives to have shared that house with the spirit,” David said with a sigh. “It was an incomparable experience. We feel blessed to have known him.”
8
Jeff’s small Cape-style house was located in the Tom Nevers area on the southeast part of the island where there were large open spaces and beautiful, high-surf beaches. The neighborhoods were quiet and secluded which had suited Jeff just fine when he’d returned to his native Nantucket from serving in the military.
Born around 1725, Tom Nevers was a Native American member of the Wampanoag tribe who was hired by settlers to keep watch at a whale lookout station that was located in a corner of the island which eventually became known as Tom Nevers Head or Tom Nevers.
In the 1960s, during the Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, Naval leaders chose to build a 1900-square-foot bunker in the Tom Nevers area to shelter President John F. Kennedy and his family from fallout of a nuclear war. The bunker was built under a dirt mound, and although closed to the public, it was still there on the site of a now closed Navy submarine surveillance base.