Ghosts on the Coast of Maine Read online

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CRYSTAL MAGIC

  At my sister’s soiree last year, a pleasant woman with an infectious laugh sat down to tell me my fortune. Let me rephrase that. Samantha came over to me and sat down; we shared the same sense of humor, and before I knew it, she was fondling my wedding ring. It was a busman’s holiday for her, because her livelihood was being a psychic. The diamond told her several things: 1)1 would take on a large project similar to a teaching experience, that would bring me fame; 2) I should get a crystal; 3) I should go to some place in Maine (she couldn’t pronounce the name). I told her the name that had popped into my mind, “Ogunquit.” My voice was questioning, because I had never been to Ogunquit, and the place held no significance for me. “Ogunquit, yes, that’s it,” she replied, and she got up to leave. That was fun, I thought, gee fame and fortune, but it was just a party game and nothing more.

  Samantha’s words meant nothing until this summer when I started writing this book. Number one, I had begun a big project and whether or not it would be a teaching experience remained to be seen. It had certainly taught me a few things. Number two, I’d been nosing around for a crystal that might help heal my back. Number three, the choice of ghostly locations was up to me, and Ogunquit sounded like a good one.

  My mother accompanied me to the west’ard, and we settled in at our night’s lodging, an 1814 guesthouse. I knew that before we left the next day something would come up, but I didn’t know how or where. It would happen in the house, that was for sure. The low-timbered ceilings and nineteenth-century artifacts exuded that feeling. Our hostess, without saying a word, felt the same thing.

  Mom and I went downtown to dinner, which took much more time than expected because of the summer crowds on the roads and in the restaurant. When I asked the parking valet where to buy a crystal, he suggested I talk to Susie, the bar waitress. Susie directed us to a tiny shop down the road, but she cautioned me not to buy just any old crystal. “Make sure it’s one that you’re attracted to.”

  Not knowing exactly what that meant, we traveled down the over-populated road to the shop, where there was a line of people outside who had just been told that the place was closed. Mom and I looked in the window, tapped on it, and the manager let us in, to the surprise and dismay of all those in line. The man was cordial to us, but he did not let anyone else in. Every time I think about that, it amazes me.

  Following intuition, I started picking up various quartz crystals and held each in my hand for a few moments. There were symmetrically shaped crystals and many with formations pleasing to the eye. I held a nondescript mass of crystal adorned with a small vein of fool’s gold, and shortly afterwards a warmth shot through my hand, all the way up my arm. That was definitely the one in tune with my body chemistry.

  That night, after getting ready for bed, I lay down and started rubbing the stone, passing it from palm to palm, just fooling around. I fell asleep with it in my hand. For the first part of what happened next, I cannot say whether I was awake or asleep or halfway in between.

  All I know is that sometime during the night the figure of a man appeared before me. There were two shades of light that flitted in front of the bedroom fireplace, and then one shade disappeared, while the other materialized into the man. He wore a brown tweed suit with a waistcoat that held a gold pocket watch. His hair was brown and wavy and somewhat slick, while his mustache sheltered a kind mouth. He was a handsome man, in his thirties. He had a good-looking face and a gentle, soothing voice. The voice was making indistinguishable sounds, and it might have been the voice that awakened me.

  Totally startled and very much awake now, because I remember being too scared to look at him directly, I reached over to wake up my mother in the adjacent bed. The man reached over and said, “Oh, please, don’t do that.” Whereas before, his voice had sounded as though it were coming directly from his mouth, now it seemed as though it were right inside my ear. Maybe he realized that I couldn’t understand him at first, so he threw his voice over to my ear. It was loud, but very understanding.

  My hand withdrew and I looked up at him in unabashed panic. He waved his hands and before departing said something like, “Never mind. Some other time.” There was so much psychic energy in the room at this point that it burst forth and caused a huge thud. It was my mother. She had been thrown out of bed.

  This kind of apparition aftermath had happened before. Many years ago right after a ghost had appeared to me, the kitchen stove had exploded and singed my grandmother’s hair and eyelashes.

  Making sure that the crystal was out of my hands and on the floor, I tried to rest, but sleep did not come easily after all the excitement. The next morning I was tired and disappointed that I had been too scared for the ghost to remain—but there was an added mystery. Who was the shade that did not materialize?

  A trip to the local historical society pretty much narrowed down my ghost’s identity to John Bakersfield, son of the original owner, and occupant of the house in the mid-1800s. There were no photographs, because not many pictures were taken in those days. People considered photography something akin to black magic.

  Now for the mystery ghost. A-hah! It could very well have been the occupant who put two bullet wounds through his head. He would have been an agitated spirit, as suicides are known to be. Right then and there I counted my blessings. And another thing—I made sure always to know the whereabouts of my ghost “telephone,” that powerful transmitter, the quartz crystal.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  WITCH’S GRAVE

  The woman was hard to find. She eluded me for at least an hour, while I perused Old York Cemetery and pored over volumes in the York library. I was chided for my search, by librarians and villagers alike. “Well, if you are interested in folklore, we can tell you a tale or two. If you are interested in facts, don’t go looking for witches.”

  A witch’s grave had been mentioned in at least four different books in connection with York, however, so I laughed with them and then turned around and studiously went about my task.

  Up to my neck in the town’s historical records, I had precious little time before the library closed. Throwing up my hands and trusting to intuition, I came upon the information in the first book I chose. There it was, the name of the witch buried in Old York Cemetery, Mary Jason. I ran across the street to the cemetery, where a stone with a huge boulder atop, supposedly locking her in for good, marked the spot.

  Tingling with excitement, I approached the nearest grave with a big stone. There lay the body of a Revolutionary War hero, and nearby another large stone above another Patriot soldier. In the middle of the cemetery stood a tall monument, the only other massive stone in the place. It turned out to be a memorial for those killed in the great seventeenth-century Indian massacre. Mary had to be here. This was the oldest graveyard in town. My only recourse was to amble among the stones to see if I could find her family plot.

  All by itself stood a strange memorial that looked like a stone bed, complete with headboard and footboard. It was not tall, but very sturdy, especially the middle stone that formed the “bed.” The massiveness lay underground, not high in the air. There was Mary Jason’s likeness etched in granite, a kindly, maternal image. The large eyes denoted clairvoyance, and the prominent breasts suggested mother of several children and/or sexual proclivity, generally associated with the Old Religion. This member of the Old Religion, another term for witchcraft, had a reason for steering clear. She wanted to make sure I had good intentions, of which I assured her with a small prayer.

  As I knelt there at the grave, absorbing her personality through her epitaph, a heat emanated from the stone that warmed my hands and went halfway up my arms. Startled, a fearful thought flashed through my mind. What would she do next—rumble that stone and make herself appear?

  While in this state of wonderment, I hadn’t noticed a figure approaching from the left. He was a jolly sort, dressed in fisherman’s clothes, who came over and talked to me a
bout Mary. “So now you know who she is,” he chuckled. It was the same villager who had joked with me before. Had he been watching me ever since I’d mentioned “witch’s grave” to him?

  Beneath the jokes lay a sense of responsibility and loyalty. He wasn’t going to tell me anything until he was sure I meant no harm. “You seem to be a little shaken,” he observed.

  “Yes, yes, I am,” was all I uttered.

  He said, “Nothing to be afraid of. She’s not on the black side; she’s a white witch.”

  I was getting that impression. “People around here have been experiencing Mary ever since she died in 1774, ‘far as I can tell.”

  Mary (Miller) Jason began her career at the age of twelve, when she cultivated an herb garden, according to her grandmother’s instructions. The young witch would invite her friends over, and they’d play in the garden. Then Mary would explain each plant’s purpose in healing. Sometimes she’d pluck a sprig or squeeze the oil from a flower, and rub it into a friend’s scraped knee. The next day her friend would return without the wound.

  The neighborhood parents became alerted to Mary’s special herbs and powders. They allowed their children to play, but they kept a watchful eye on the Miller household. As a matter of fact, they kept an eye on Mary the rest of her twenty-nine-year-old life.

  By the time Mary had become a parent, she had gone beyond the healing arts or “white magic” and made herself useful as an exorcist of sorts. This aspect of her career began with the old widow Wilcox’s house. The widow was dead, and her cottage remained empty, except for one thing, an evil spirit. It was definitely a negative presence, and so viciously threatening that no one would sleep in the place or even approach its doorway. Eventually, the townspeople called upon Mrs. Jason to see what she could do. She took the job.

  One evening, at dusk, Mary walked over to the haunted house, carrying a candle and her Bible. She bolted both doors, lit the candle, and began to read. Pretty soon the moon rose, and the following hours seemed to pass by in slow motion. Not a creak of wood nor an owl’s hoot disturbed the peaceful night air. When Mary finished reading, she put down her book and upon inhaling discovered the foulest odor she’d ever encountered. Through the candlelight appeared a dark-hooded female figure of black but not Negroid skin. Her bulbous nose and long fingers pressed closer, but it was her eyes that were most formidable. In place of the normal eye structure burned two green rays of light. The figure reached out to envelop Mary, but the stouthearted lady stood up and shielded herself with white light. She cried, “Begone, thou servant of Satan!”

  The evil thing’s eyes flickered and went out, along with her malodorous presence. The rest of the night in the cottage remained calm, as well as the following nights.

  In this century, Mary’s fondness for children was apparent in the play area that used to be across from the cemetery. More than once a child went home telling his or her mother about “being pushed” on the swings when nobody else was around. Adults would also tell tales of “flowers that picked themselves” about dusk, by the graveyard’s edge.

  After the fisherman talked to me, the sun had just about spent its last orange rays on the old gravestones. I leaned over Mary’s grave for a few parting words and got up to go. There to my right perched four shiny black crows, looking at one another and then at me, as if to say, “What is she doing here?” Mary’s familiars, of course, sticking around to protect her. I stopped to look back—or was she one of them?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  PHANTOM OF THE OPERA HOUSE

  The Boothbay Harbor Opera House has had about everything in it but an opera. The impressive 1894 structure has housed minstrel shows, plays, town meetings, movies, talkies, basketball games—and a ghost.

  Nobody knows who it is, but he lives on the second floor in a room that used to be the Knights of Pythias headquarters. The high courtroom ceiling bordered by heavy decorative plaster looks down upon a huge room built to let in plenty of sunlight. A grandfather clock, usually a towering piece, looks diminutive against the massive walls. At the opposite end of the room stands the only original article from the early Pythian days, an upright piano. The room reeks of ghostly energy; a happy, festive feeling floats about the dust-covered furniture.

  Next door lies the adjacent art gallery, which takes up the rest of the floor. If it hadn’t been for the director of the gallery, the memory of the ghost probably would have disintegrated with the cobwebs. Mr. Arthur Stanley relates his experience.

  The year was 1977. Mr. Stanley of Philadelphia was looking around for a building suitable for a gallery, and he’d heard that the second floor of the Opera House was available. He fell in love with the place before he even opened the door. The late nineteenth-century architecture struck his fancy as he traveled up the staircase past the stained-glass windows. The front upstairs room was cluttered with old things, including a podium and rugged wooden benches draped with flags. Definitely a man’s sort of place. Where dust now filtered the air, so did tobacco smoke many years ago.

  Stanley’s attention turned to the well-lit open space adjoining this room. A perfect setup for artwork, especially large sculpture. He was imagining where the pieces would go when he heard music coming from the direction of the front room. Thinking that it must have been coming from the street, he walked over and stood aghast at the sight before him. The piano keys were moving, but there was nobody playing the piano.

  The rent was so reasonable (now he knew why) and the place so ideal, that Stanley went ahead with his plans, in spite of what he had seen. After the gallery’s grand opening, he took time to look up the history of the Pythian room, in hopes of finding a clue to the “piano player.”

  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.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  BAT

  Bat 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.