Haunted Houses

by Nancy Roberts

  “I see some people over at the end of the basement, and the way they move, they’re scared, Al,” he replied. I saw them, too, but I wanted to hear what he thought. He said, “They’re all huddled up together, and I think some are crying.”

  There was a rattling noise and the sound of something dragging along the floor.

  “Chains! Hear them?” asked Troy. Now the smoky figures seemed to mill about, pushing and shoving as if in a panic. Then came a loud crash that actually hurt our ears. It was real; you couldn’t doubt that. It struck me as being like the noise of iron bars falling to the ground. On and on it went, the metallic ring traveling through the house, one clanking echo after another.

  Troy and I took those basement stairs two at a time and slammed the door behind us. It didn’t matter what kind of storm was going on, we were ready to leave. We gathered up our tools and were outside before you could say Jackie Robinson! And you know, the storm had stopped, and the sun was setting in a clear sky.

  “That last crash was enough to wake the dead wasn’t it, Troy?” I asked.

  He took me by the arm, and those big eyes of his wore the strangest look I’d ever seen in them as he said, “Al, what do you mean, wake the dead? Those were the dead.”

  Well, that really gave me the creeps. Every Sunday, regular as clockwork, my wife and I are at St. Paul’s Methodist, and the Bible verse that came to my mind suddenly was “If a man die, shall he live again?”

  I asked Troy, “Were they dead or alive?”

  “Man, I don’t know. We can’t go where they are, ’cause that’s a notch up the ladder. But they sure can get back here.” And with that he drove off in his old battered blue pickup. Now, Troy was just a helper. He didn’t have a bunch of degrees and such, but I always envied him for what he did have: a special way of talking to the Lord and getting answers.

  That was on a Friday, and I wouldn’t need Troy there at the house again until I was finished with some of my own work. That would probably be a couple of weeks, so Monday I was back alone. I spent the entire morning listening to every sound, just waiting for something to happen. But all that week Woodburn was just as peaceful and quiet as you please, and I was beginning to think that the storm had given me a super case of the jitters.

  The second week it seemed to me the house was extra quiet. Sometimes in these places a hundred or more years old, you get used to creaks and the sound of the wind exploring the crevices. After a week or two, it’s as if the house is talking under its breath. Maybe it’s talking to itself or to the folks who once lived there, but not to you. So you don’t pay it any mind.

  On Thursday night I had to go out and have myself a little fun, and I stayed up way too late. I was on the job at Woodburn by seven-thirty the next morning, and by midafternoon I was dragging. There was one more task that I needed to do in the house that day, but it would take close attention to do it just right. Since I had priced the work at Woodburn by the job, if I wanted to take a thirty- or forty-minute nap, it was nobody’s business but mine. I folded up a jacket for a pillow, pulled my coat up over me, and was soon fast asleep.

  At three-thirty I was awakened by a tremendous crash, a noise that rolled and reverberated through the house, apparently coming from the lower level. I got up and looked out the window. It was a gray day, but with no storm in sight. Then a terrible series of rattling and banging began that shook the entire room. I could tell all of this was coming from inside the house. If it had been anywhere but Dover, I would have thought I was in an earthquake.

  It reminded me of the afternoon when Troy had been here during the storm, so I made up my mind to go to the basement. I had no sooner gotten down there than I was aware of smoke, but there was no fire to be seen, and the smoke didn’t smell like burning wood or oily rags.

  For the first minute or so, I couldn’t see a thing, but when I did, there were the figures like Troy and I had seen before. Only this time, three were much clearer than the rest. They were a woman and two men. I saw one of the men lift up his hand and drop what seemed to be a large, fat coil of smoke down over the other’s head. When he did, there were the most terrible sounds I ever heard, for the man’s screams merged with eerie cries of glee from the crowd of figures. A loud, thunderous crash sounded again, and there were such strong vibrations, they went right through me. I don’t know what happened after that.

  When I came to, I was lying on the floor in the upstairs hall, a few feet from the basement door. I got up and went into the big living room, and there was some light coming in the big windows and making a path across the floor. It was night by now, and there was a moon.

  There was also something else—and it was in the house with me. I walked cautiously into the hall. It was coming up from the basement; there was a muffled, clanking sound on each step. I heard it stop in front of the door to the stairs, but the door never opened. Instead, I saw a dark shadow on the door, and the outline of a man’s figure began to emerge. Gradually, it came right through that door, and there, a few feet from me, stood the apparition.

  I gasped and stepped back, but he never once looked my way. He was not so distinct that I could tell anything about the color of his clothes, but he was clear enough for me to know him for a man.

  I thought of the stories about Woodburn, stories of a secret tunnel that connects this house with the St. Jones River behind it, stories of when Woodburn belonged to a Quaker named Daniel Cowgill and was a busy stop on the Underground Railway. In the years before the Civil War, runaway slaves from Maryland and all over the South were sheltered here until Cowgill could help them on their way to Canada or a free state. Sometimes the slave-catchers would raid the house and take runaways back by force.

  I’m ashamed now that I didn’t take off after that strange figure as I watched him head toward the front door, but I didn’t. I sat down on the floor with my back to the wall, and my hand shook so, it took me three tries to light up a cigarette and calm down some.

  I didn’t want to follow any ghost or even get out to my van, for, if I did, I would have to walk right past its destination. If the specter was the slave-catcher who had met his end here, I was sure he was headed straight for the hanging tree. There was no way I wanted to see a body hanging from that gnarled, old tulip poplar out there in the yard, the tree with the hook embedded in its hollow.

  Either I passed out again or I went to sleep briefly, but when I next looked out the window, the moon was high in the sky. I had to get out of there. As I hurried out toward my van, gusts of wind like strong fingers flung wet leaves through the air and sometimes in my face. I didn’t turn my head. Then I recalled my tools. Should I leave them until the next morning or go back to the house and get them? I turned around, and, when I did, my eyes were inevitably drawn toward the big poplar and to the hollow in its trunk.

  There it was! The sight I had dreaded to see: In the moonlight hung the struggling body of a man, twisting and turning, this way and that, suspended by a rope from the hook in the old hanging tree. I turned and ran. On the way home in the van it was hard for me to think, I was so frightened.

  Why should I hear and see all that? My great-grandfather Pennington was a slave in Maryland who ran away from his master. He went through Delaware on his way north—maybe even through Dover.

  But what did that have to do with me? Had I seen my own great-grandfather here in the basement and not known it? Was he one of those ghost figures who had hanged the slave-catcher?

  This is one of several ghost stories in connection with Woodburn, located at 151 King’s Highway SW, Dover, Delaware. In the house also reside a colonial gentleman, a ghost who is a wine bibber, and a little girl in a red-and-white-checked gingham dress. Tours are offered Monday through Friday, from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, by appointment only. Visit woodburn.delaware.gov/ or call (302) 739-5656.

  THE ROMANTIC INN BY THE SEA

  INN BY THE SEA, CAPE ELIZABETH, MAINE

  A nineteenth-century shipwreck occurred offshore from where the Inn by th
e Sea now stands.

  He needed to get away from the pace of speaking engagements, even from his much-loved research. Four days at the luxurious Inn by the Sea in Maine was to be his lesson in relaxation. He had just flown in from Chicago and was sitting in his armchair at home when Lydia handed him a copy of The Discerning Traveler.

  “Look, honey. They describe this inn as “a romantic hideaway,” she said, with a warm, inviting smile.

  “I’m ready for that,” said Mark.

  Driving out of Boston on a Thursday in July, Professor Mark Hardee found himself looking forward to the experience. By afternoon he was driving his black Cherokee out on Cape Elizabeth along the Bowery Beach Road eagerly anticipating his wife’s arrival. Lydia would be joining him in a few hours. He wished that she had not had to give a test at summer school this afternoon so that they could have driven up together.

  “We work too hard. We must take the time to store up more good memories,” she had said.

  She had read about the Cape and described its picturesque old buildings with her usual boundless enthusiasm. He saw several thriving family farms, spotted two state parks on the Cape, and noticed with amusement that the town had taken a former fort and turned it into a recreation area. Mark also liked Cape Elizabeth’s red-roofed houses, the lighthouse, and the nearness of the water. Looking around him, he saw much that was typical of New England.

  His first glimpse of the Inn by the Sea came as something of a shock. Lydia had given him no idea of its size. It was an immense, gray-shingled complex, bordering Crescent Beach State Park. Strolling into the marble-tiled lobby, he was surprised to see the walls decorated with original oversize Audubon prints of coastal birds. A biology professor and occasional birder, Mark’s spirits soared. He knew already that he was going to love this place.

  Lydia had reserved a very luxurious suite. It had contemporary furnishings, a living room with a window wall, a two-story cathedral ceiling, and an oversize bath with a deep soaking tub big enough for two. Picking up one of the brochures on the bedside table, Mark saw a picture of an outdoor pool, a tennis court, bicycles, and a boardwalk that he presumed led to the beach beyond the park. He lay down on the sofa to read it and before long was obeying Lydia’s admonition to relax: He was soon fast asleep.

  When he woke up, someone was kissing him.

  “I’m here, Sleeping Beauty,” said his wife.

  They had a late dinner on the porch of the dining room, selecting a table with a view. Champagne and appetizers of grilled shrimp served with fig and date chutney preceded a tender duck entree.

  “Not at all bad for two teachers,” said Mark. “I like this place. You are a woman of taste.”

  “Aunt Margaret would have approved,” said Lydia, whose aunt had left her a small inheritance.

  The next morning they went bicycling down Route 77 to the Portland Head Lighthouse, took the usual tourist pictures, and lunched at the Lobster Shack. Then they returned to the inn, pleasantly tired. On Saturday they cycled south to see Winslow Homer’s studio at Prouts Neck.

  They saved Sunday, the third day of their long weekend, for a lazy afternoon and evening out on the beach. Carrying a hamper with a picnic supper, Mark and Lydia ambled along the boardwalk leading from the inn. When they emerged from the state park, they found not a rock-lined shore but a magnificent sand beach stretching for miles beside the Atlantic. Mark wandered along near the water watching for unusual shells and sea creatures. Lydia read a book on the area.

  She was a history teacher, and it amused him to hear her say things like, “I wish I could have lived back then,” or “Wouldn’t it be exciting to go through an experience like that?”

  “You mean like the French Revolution or the San Francisco fire?” he would sometimes counter teasingly.

  “Well, what have you learned about Cape Elizabeth?” he asked now, sitting down on the sand.

  “I’ve found out that the Jordans were a very prominent family here.”

  “I’m sure they were, if they were your ancestors,” quipped Mark. Before their marriage, his wife had been Lydia Jordan.

  “I have no idea whether these particular Jordans were my ancestors or not, only that they were here in the 1630s and lived through three wars—the war of King Philip of Spain, King William’s War, and Queen Anne’s.”

  “They certainly suffered a long streak of misfortune,” said Mark. “But you sound as if it had just happened.”

  “You aren’t very sympathetic. I feel sorry for them,” she said indignantly. “Just imagine. They had to leave during every war. Then, when they did come back in 1715, they were attacked by pirates.”

  “I’m glad they survived it, especially if they were your ancestors; it wouldn’t surprise me if some of them were pirates. They settled all along the coast.” Lydia made a wry face at him.

  “Do you think Blackbeard ever got up beyond Philadelphia and New York?” Mark asked.

  “Of course he did. They say he caroused with his pirate friends at Newport and buried treasure on an island off the New England coast. If you didn’t work all the time, we could go searching for it.”

  “A biologist would rather search for rare bugs, my dear, but tell me more.”

  “Fishing was big here in the 1800s. During the winter men sailed to the Caribbean islands with cargoes of fish and lumber and brought back sugar and rum. But the part that interested me most . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “It was the number of shipwrecks off this Cape. I began to wonder why people settled here. There were bad storms, and over there near Richmond Island,” she pointed, “is a ridge of rocks, under the surface of the water near shore. It’s called Watts Ledge. I can just visualize fog and ships heading for Portland Harbor, getting off course and wrecking on it. Can’t you?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Sometimes I think you’re not very imaginative,” she said reproachfully.

  “Maybe not, but isn’t one of us in the family enough?” He grinned at Lydia.

  Unfortunately, the day that they had selected to spend out on the beach was cooler than anticipated.

  “It’s darned chilly out here without jackets, honey. Let’s talk about all this back in the room. Better yet, we could go into the dining room and settle the seafaring history of Cape Elizabeth over a cup of hot coffee and dessert.”

  Mark was beginning to unwind, and he knew that he had been working too hard. There never seemed to be any time left over for themselves. They went to bed about ten o’clock, but he was unable to sleep. He always liked to walk while he thought about problems, and he was tempted to do so now, but where? At eleven o’clock he got out of bed, pulled on a pair of chinos, a shirt, and his hooded red anorak. On an impulse, he decided to go down to the ocean.

  “What are you doing?” murmured Lydia sleepily.

  “Dressing. I just want to walk for a while.”

  “Want me to come, too?”

  “I won’t be long. Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

  She closed her eyes.

  The noise of the surf drowned out the sound of his footsteps on the board-walk. A heavy sea was running, and fog swirled over the dark, turbulent water. He felt its mist on his face. Mark was not much happier walking than he had been in bed trying to sleep. What time was it? Almost midnight, he thought. Lydia would be worried if he was gone too long. It was while he was trying to wipe off his glasses and check the luminous dial of his watch that he heard it: A sharp crack, followed by the noisy wrench of shattering spars and timbers. For a few seconds there was complete silence.

  Then the night was rent by a woman’s screams. They came from across the water but not far from shore. Loud shrieks floated toward him—those of women and children, their voices full of terror, and the hoarse shouts of men. Mark strained his eyes staring out to sea. He thought that he could pick out a dark mass silhouetted dimly between billows of mist. His heart was pounding. A ship had struck Watt’s Ledge! It was in the direction of Richmond Island, and
the calls for help were terrible to hear.

  Mark raced across the sand to summon help. As he ran, he heard one last piercing cry from the direction of the water—the voice of a young woman. When he reached the boardwalk he almost collided with a shadowy, hooded figure.

  “We’ve got to get help!” he shouted breathlessly to whoever it was. But the figure moved to block his way. He tried to push past when suddenly the beam of a light almost blinded him.

  “Mark! It’s me.”

  Lydia was standing with a raincoat over her gown, shining a flashlight in his face. “What’s the matter?”

  He caught her arm. “We’ve got to hurry. There’s a wrecked ship close to shore!”

  “How do you know?”

  “My God! Can’t you hear the screams?” he bellowed at her. “People are drowning out there!”

  “I don’t hear any screams. Just the roar of the surf.”

  The chorus of cries was ringing in his ears.

  “Mark, stand still for a minute. You’re trembling.”

  The cries were fainter and farther away now. Why couldn’t Lydia hear them?

  “I can’t imagine what’s happened to you. It has to be overwork,” she said soothingly as she put her arm through Mark’s.

  Perhaps she was right, he thought. They walked back to the inn.

  “Your nerves are strung tight—too many deadlines.” She helped him off with his clothes. “Can you sleep now?”

  “I think so,” and he did. He was utterly exhausted.

  The next morning Lydia tactfully avoided mentioning the incident of the night before. They breakfasted on eggs Benedict with fresh lobster meat, and afterward, to her surprise, Mark suggested stopping by the library.

  “I just want to see their clipping file on shipwrecks,” he explained.

  “So now you’re the one who wants to go to libraries and look up history,” said Lydia, as they entered Thomas Memorial Library. Mark opened a manila folder and began searching through a huge pile of clippings.