By Deb Thomas.
Some things are better left unexplained. Some things defy explanation. When you get that feeling in the middle of the night; you know you should probably go and see what that noise is that came from the front yard, but you pull up the covers and hope for the best. Or, when what you hear what sounds like footfalls on old hardwood floors…man, you cannot even move the covers, but you lie there silently holding your breath; those things. Those things on moonlit nights in late October, when the winds pick up and the shadows flit across your bedroom wall that truly don’t look like swaying branches, but instead – arms reaching up to the window. You ask yourself, “Did I lock that window?”
Does it matter?
***
When I first moved into the house on the hill, a great joy was decorating for autumn and the coming winter season. I didn’t care for a lot of the commercial spooky decor, I was house-proud of my small Dutch Cape on Ring Street in Putnam and I wanted it to have a unique but tasteful appeal. It was the first pre-cut house in Connecticut, built in 1928 and its upkeep had been meticulous; I was lucky to own it. That year I was going to show my street how happy I was to live there.
Autumn arrived before I knew it. I really love Halloween and invited a few musician friends for a Halloween dinner–a sort of pot-luck asking each of them to bring a favorite food. We’d eat something then have our regular jam session, since I was home at 6 pm on Wednesdays. It’d be fun to pass out candy in costume to the kids on the street too. My good friend and musician-partner Ed, knew someone who read tea leaves, tarot cards and said he’d give her a call. Maybe we could have a séance, he offered. Skeptic or not, it sounded like a fun night. I added more pumpkins from a local stand, and bought a 15 foot long string of the smallest white lights I’d ever seen, to wrap around a garland of greenery around the front door, mixed with orange plastic leaves from the previous owners. It looked inviting. A few black paper bats hanging from the 10 feet tall ceilings and a burned end of a broom for effect – stood in a corner with a black witch’s hat. It was just a hint of my costume. Plus, I’d replaced all the light bulbs in the living room with red ones; it would be spooky and dark and fun.
A few Sundays ahead of the party, a woman knocked at my door at six pm. She was carrying a small black leather satchel, “I am Madame Delphine,” she said with a flamboyant bow, and a deep, rich French accent. “I am a Medium,” she announced. For real? I could barely contain a laugh; I was doing homework for the classes I’d started at a community college and I had a bit of reading to do. “I understand you are hosting a séance on Halloween,” she continued.
Madame was tall, and her voluminous coat and wool wrap seemed to take up most of the doorway. She explained why she needed to come to my house before the party, just as I started thinking that I didn’t have the time right then, needing to get back to reading, although I thought this was a pretty funny stunt Ed pulled. However, there wasn’t any pause in her introduction; she kept right on explaining the relationship between the dead and the living, which was present at this time. Samhain, pronounced “Sa-wen,” is modern Irish for summer’s end, the old pagan festival to mark the end of the growing season that came about long before the day we know as Halloween.
Her knowledge of the celebration of the change of seasons from the light into the dark part of the year, was encyclopedic—and she enlightened my understanding regarding how Christianity took over certain aspects of the pagan calendar. In 609, Pope Boniface IV for example, invented All Saints Day, a day to honor saints and martyrs, cannily similar to how Samhain recognized ghosts of dead ancestors. The day preceding came to be called All-Hallows (“All Hallowed”) Eve.
About two hundred years later, Pope Gregory III came along and moved the celebration to coincide with the festival of Samhain; which signified the beginning of the second half, or – the dark half of the year. Samhain marks the end of the growing season, and is between the autumn equinox and winter solstice. The Christian church capitalized on the similarity to All Saint’s Day; both were times of bonfires and costumes, and honoring the dead.
“The veil is thinnest between the two worlds at midnight on Halloween,” she offered, and if someone had a deep emotional connection to a deceased loved one, a medium could act as a conduit. Most important was to purge the house of negative spirits. No bad vibes. No evil thoughts. Clean and ready for the chance for the wall to come down between the spirit world and ours.
“Do you believe, Madame Delphine?” I asked her.
“I’d be a fool to let any opportunity pass by to learn about other worlds.”
Lordy. At this point, I didn’t have anything to argue about; she simply kept talking and I found myself mesmerized by her accent and knowledge. I did not realize this was to be the center of the dinner and jam session party I planned; I did not know that I wanted to have that kind of party. Immediately, she took a seat in my sunroom next to my desk where I’d been reading and taking notes and continued to tell me about the séance, and how it would proceed, when we were interrupted by loud and frantic knocking on my back door.
All week long I’d been slightly annoyed by kids walking behind my house, and I thought at first this was one of them doing “ding-dong-ditch” – only with knocking on a door. They liked to take a short cut across my backyard into the woods, and up into the hill. But as I got up to see who it was, Delphine indicated she would begin smudging my house. I knew then I had to get blinds as soon as possible for that back door. Seeing kids in the afternoon walk by was one thing, but a face pushed into one of the French door glass panes was unsettling. It was my nosey neighbor, Patrice, whom I nicknamed, “Gladys Kravits.”
Patrice was a nervous neighbor; a nurse, she lived with a niece who worked nights, and she was actually a wonderful neighbor to have when every now and then I didn’t get home in time to feed my cats. I kept her keys too–she insisted that I have her car keys as well in case she ever locked herself out; she was that way. She was concerned about the kids walking through our yards and was upset because someone took her large pumpkin and wondered if I noticed any thievery as well. This back door – sidewalk was set up at the time to connect three houses on this end of the street. It was a convenience for these neighbors in 1930, to have a level walkway to make it easier for the ice-man, mail carrier and the milk deliveries to be made to the back doors the homes. We all had small insulated milk boxes built into the back wall of the house; mine had been made over into a cat door, but the mailbox was still there, and the very large, zinc-lined insulated ice delivery box that was once at the back door and served as a bench, was now in my basement—I used it to take off shoes and boots at the bottom of the stairs. I hadn’t gotten around to using it for storage—it remained empty.
It was a busier life with deliveries forty years before I moved in and certainly neighbors visited more often. I told Patrice I’d keep watch over the backyard in general, and tried saying so long, saying I was busy with school work. But, that’s when she noticed the woman in my living room chanting and raising her arms, kind of flapping them over her head. I could only say that I had a classmate over and we were going over some dramatic dialogue for a class and I escorted her out the back door before she could confront my other guest. What Patrice said was true – that a lot of kids were cutting through from the sidewalk out in front, through our driveways to the hillside via our back yards. I spied a few every now and then, going up the hill, but never worried because I talked to them and gave them permission to cut through. The chain link fence running around the entire backyard had a gate they used, and I’d often come home to find it swinging open at night. Yet, I’d rather be a friendly neighbor and have the kids be able to go through my yard. I would try to talk to some of them though, and maybe hire a couple for yard work.
Patrice had been an intrusion into my night, and now going back into my living room, it looked like the good Madame Delphine was here for an extended visit, setting up a kind of small altar on my piano. I asked what else would she be doing, and the next thing I knew, she lit a thick bundle of sage and started wafting it around. She said she needed to go upstairs to the bedrooms, bathroom, and attic space. She chanted something that sounded like, “Spirits I humbly ask you to help cleanse this house of all blackness, all negative energies,” and then some other things in French, as she moved throughout the space. I left the living room to make coffee; I sensed a long night.
***
The coffee percolated on the stovetop, and it was time to feed the cats who’d been alarmed first by a stranger in the house and then the nails-on-a-blackboard voice of Patrice, and they’d vanished into the basement. However, the sound of fresh kibble got them running to meet Madame Delphine who was flowing back down to the living room, and now purred in her silky, dark voice, crooning to them, “Mais oui….deux tres beaux chats noir!”
Finished with the upstairs smudging, she indicated the basement was next. I told her to be careful because the floor of the basement was blasted out of rock and was uneven. The foundation of my house was pinned to exposed ledge on the side and back of my house, next to the old coal chute. She found this fascinating, and examined every inch of the rock’s surfaces as she glided down the stairs murmuring in French and waving now, a white feather and burning sage ahead of her descent. “You are sitting on a very old piece of the earth,” she mentioned.
The business of being a medium came easily to her she explained over coffee; her family had been farming and were in touch with the natural world, and her mother had been a natural healer. They had been part of the aristocracy before the French Revolution as well, revealing that her lineage included democratic visionary Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre–from her mother’s side. He was one of my idols due to his ideas on anti-slavery and democracy. Still not convinced of her authenticity, I thought she may have gleaned this from titles in my bookcase, or perhaps Edward, but she was extremely fascinating to listen to, and I was drawn to her.
We finished coffee, and she left, offering that the negative energies were gone from my house but she would be there early before for the séance next Sunday, to re-charge the space, as she noted a discernable imbalance in the energy field. Lastly, she wanted to know if I realized….that I had someone still living with me? I laughed and said no. She arched an eyebrow, further highlighting the bizarre nature of the evening, and disappeared out the front door into the night. “Oh, joy. Wait until I talk to Ed,” I thought and was immediately distracted by one of the cats playing with my lost scissors which he twirled on the hardwood in front of me. “So, you took them!” I said scooping him and the scissors off the floor. The scissors had been missing for over a week.
***
House cleaning, for me, meant using a mop and detergents, but after Delphine’s visit, I was not so sure. I did some further research in the college library and learned that burning sage or smudging, was supposed to clear away negative energies. I promised her I’d keep an open mind. Although this event challenged my way of thinking; I did not believe in the supernatural world, but I was curious. I’d never known a psychic, palm reader, or a medium, and she really didn’t seem like a kook. “All the energies that once lived in a house, if you believe in these things”, she’d offered, “could be affected by misguided forces, so you need to clean house first to make a hospitable landing place for the spirits we will call upon to visit us at the séance.”
I learned sage had some vague medicinal properties, and had been used by indigenous people to create a cleansing smoke bath to purify a sacred space. Wafting this smoke around, or smudging, did not always resolve conflicts of prior owners, or occupants of the land on which the house was built. There may have been violence in the house, or argumentative owners and these things build up a negative charge. Additionally, if the property fell within the well-traveled Native American pathways, or had been on customary tribal homestead, this could translate into conflict in the energy field around the house. I did not research fully additional subjects like energy portals and vortexes, and Ley Lines; there seemed to be more written on the subject of empathic relationships than I was aware of.
Five days a week, I worked at Route 12 Pizza— a well-known small Mom & Pop eatery in the next town. It was there at the Breakfast-Ice Cream Shop-Pizza Place from ten in the morning until four each afternoon when I’d leave and go directly to evening classes at a community college four nights a week. The owners of the restaurant were flexible about my hours which allowed me to pick up extra work bartending and waitressing on weekends.
It was on one of those Indian Summer type – October nights only a week before the party that I walked home from the steak house, only a half mile or less from my house. It was beautiful and the moon was almost full. The guy I’d been seeing drove me to work after we went to an orchard earlier that afternoon. I knew him in high school and after a few years and a few upheavals in both our lives, we’d seen each other by chance and picked up again in an easy relationship. Tonight, however, I turned down his offer to come for me after work, since I didn’t drive there. The bar had a full crowd with a local band on stage until nine or so, and the tips were great. I was in a happy mood walking home. Small town life had its amenities; there was a sidewalk with streetlights the whole way, less than a half mile to my driveway. I loved seeing the houses at night and at this time of year especially because of all the Halloween decorations.
Walking to my garage I looked up at the pumpkins still lined up along the edge of my sidewalk, and slid my key into the lock of the big barn-style garage door, and found to my amazement, that it was not locked. I chastised myself, and figured something distracted me when I parked my car this morning after going grocery shopping. After I stepped into the garage this time, I had the distinct feeling that someone had been in there. “Hello? Patrice? Are you in here?” calling out to my neighbor who sometimes fed my cats for me. I turned the old brass deadbolt listening to the satisfying “thunk,” as the bolt locked. I came upstairs calling to the cats. In a flash I heard them running across the wood floor coming to say hello and to get fed. After picking up clothes from the dryer, I went upstairs to bed. Again, I heard another thud in the house somewhere. I was reminded that the vibrations traveled great distances through the bedrock onto which my house was fixed. There were always noises in an old house, besides. I was just tired.
Around midnight a sudden new noise startled me out of sleep. The sound came from the kitchen and I reasoned that one of the cats had probably jumped off the counter and knocked over something; it could wait until morning. I was going with the flow.
***
Monday came early; I was at the restaurant by six that morning to help with inventory and I could catch up on classwork with a bigger lunch break; I was thinking all day about what to serve at the Halloween party coming up in about a week. Eight people were coming plus my boyfriend and Madame Delphine; that made ten. Norma, one of the pizza place owners said she’d loan me her crock pot and I decided to make tomato-basil soup in one and keep the other one for hot pulled pork sandwiches on big soft bread rolls. My friends usually brought guitars and we’d park them under the piano, and probably play after the séance; which was sounding more like an elaborate prank from my wonderful friend and guitar buddy, Ed. I got the idea then to dress up as a Queen of the Night needing only to find a wedding dress to dye black.
Meanwhile, George—the guy I was seeing, was coming over after class that Wednesday, my early night — to bring me a bench from his horse barn for extra seating, thinking he could just drop it off, but I didn’t mind some wine that he offered to bring over, too. I backed my car into the garage, and headed up the stairs from the basement expecting him to be there shortly. I reached into the fridge for one of the oranges to eat before he came over; funny—I thought I had three—one was missing; I must have eaten it already. He brought the bench in from the front door and told me I’d left a light on upstairs.
We made a plan to go out that Friday night – as I had a rare Friday night off as well as both Saturday and Sunday from the steak house too, so he would pick me up at six. What a treat; we were going over to Rhode Island to a favorite place known for their seafood. I didn’t have to work the whole weekend; I could finally get some wood at my parent’s house and do some pre-cold weather chores, plus decorate for the party on Wednesday. In a few days the weather changed to become seasonably cool. Still, it was nice enough to have the fireplace going each night. I thought about all these things the next day at work and at school.
When Friday arrived it was a welcome change to come home and wash away the smell of pepperoni and put on dressy clothes. Racing up the basement stairs I paused, startled – because I heard my television. I called out, tentatively, “George?” thinking maybe he let himself in early; he did have a key, just in case, but I had not seen his truck out front. At the same time – I distinctly heard the television. Who was in my house? I froze.
***
There’s something that happens to you in the nanosecond your brain realizes there is a threat, just as fright kicks in. Your adrenal glands send out a quick chemical shot of adrenaline. This is the thing that precedes your next step, your next breath. Your next thought. Continue to go upstairs—and it may lead to an attack of some kind. I could go back down the stairs too, out the garage basement door, the way I came in, and —what if that led to someone waiting there for me, too? Stop analyzing; react. Stop breathing. Quiet. I could FEEL some THING; a PRESENCE on the OTHER SIDE OF—-And the ONLY thing I could do—–
—–was to——heart pounding and needing to exhale—-was to—- fling open the basement door into the now upstairs kitchen hallway – where in the same instant I heard the back — screen door slam. I did not think—
***
We perceive fear as a reasonable response to something that has the potential to harm. Something dangerous. It’s different for everyone, of course, and while you can choose to be frightened by something, you cannot choose how you react until that thing is exposed. Our primitive part of our brains still tells us: flight, fight or freeze. At this same time, the adrenal glands pump out a little spritzer into the nervous system. Your pulse races, muscles tense, hair stands up, and pupils open wide—the anticipation primes you to be hyper-aware. It is this reflex which can save your life.
***
—-I RAN!
I screamed and ran. I ran out of the front door, pounding down the old cement steps to the sidewalk, as fast as my feet would go, without looking behind once. I ran and ran down the hill, now pounding down the street towards town, convinced someone was at my heels, about to reach out and GRAB me as I zoomed across the only darkened section of the street in front of the old Episcopal Church. I ran across the street then to Rovero’s gas station parking lot, spying the owner in the window in front of the counter. I burst through the door where we nearly collided, and he caught me before inertia allowed me to smash into the counter, “Whoa, slow down,” he said.
“Danny, can I use your garage phone?” eyes wide and breathless inside the brightly lit room. He just locked up the garage bay doors. I’d left without money or a coat, didn’t even have the dime for the pay phone outside. “Are you alright?” he questioned, “What’s going on?” and handed me the desk phone, craning his around to see behind me as if someone were behind me. Catching my breath, I explained my phone was not working, and I was trying to catch him before he locked up, needing to ask my boyfriend to bring over a tool for my car, and, I’d just ran here without thinking about carrying money. I hoped Danny would not ask why I didn’t take the car, or why I didn’t go to one of my neighbors’ houses and, that he could not see through to my real fear; that someone may have been following me. I was safe here, with the large and imposing figure of Danny Rovero. And, if I was lucky, George hadn’t left yet from his house and he could come to get me at the bar next to LaPointe’s Jewelers. I was scared out of my mind.
Good; he was still home. “Where’s your car?” he asked. “I’ll explain when you get here. Pick me up at Jasper’s, ok? I will tell you everything. Gotta go now, but please hurry ok?” Danny locked up and brought me to Jasper’s, never asking why I didn’t want to go home instead.
When George got there – he agreed I’d had something happen, but what? We each had a beer; and he convinced me that there were logical reasons, and then we agreed to go back to the house to look around. After a thorough investigation, I agreed that the events could be attributed to a combined windy day, an unlocked back door, and someone with an electric garage door opener. Satisfied, I took a shower and then we set out to the restaurant and a long enjoyable dinner reprieve. Before we left, I noticed that a hand-sized Pegasus statue carved out of onyx which George had given me, was facing the other way and on the other side of the mantle. I put it back in its original place.
“And you still want to have a séance?” questioned my boyfriend with a smirk over dinner. I relayed the meeting with Madame a few nights prior. He replied, “Sure, that will liven up your dull life, you know?”
***
Halloween showed up; my friends did too, along with George and Madame who walked through the main level of the house once more with a lit sage bundle, and especially concentrated on going to the front door, saying it could be a major portal of energy so that if the weather permitted, could we leave it unlocked during the séance? It was a wonderful night for a party with both my friends Lisa and Kathy dressing up as Wizard of Oz Witches. There was a scarecrow, a male and female hobo, and two Draculas— one of whom was my dashing friend Ed, who had winked and nodded when I commented that he’d “done good, with Madame…” I became the Queen of the Night in a black dyed and tattered wedding dress, gold child’s dress up crown and black veil, draping myself in a red feather boa and silver lame boots for fun. George was dressed as a zombie cowboy (his regular outfit but with blackened eye sockets and a red rimmed mouth), and Madame was splendid as herself.
We’d played music intermittently before we ate, and then took the party outside to my porch, and had been playing some old favorite folk music, with the front door open wide; still enjoying late seasoned warmth. Deciding to follow a group of kids up the street had been a spontaneous decision after we ate; my friends Lisa and Peter stayed behind to clean up the kitchen and Madame too, to set up the table for the séance. Lisa offered to also start a fire in the fireplace. Before we left I reached behind the clock on the mantle for the matches, and noticed that Pegasus statue was now missing from the fireplace. While standing at the fireplace, I turned to face the bookcase behind a big wingback chair and saw that the large green glass chunk, usually on top of my dictionary, was not there either. It had been from a trip to Williamsburg, VA Glass Factory when I was a little kid and went everywhere with me. Then I remembered how my dad liked to play games with me regarding things in my house; it had to be him moving things around. I’d have to return the favor, I thought smiling to myself. Good one, Dad.
We’d followed the kids and walked along the street blending in with the crowds of people moving along. I hadn’t realized so many kids were out after 8 PM on a school night; still, the weather was so nice. Moms and Dads hovered in the shadows; we moved as a ballet troupe, out on the road, kind of dancing and using exaggerated arm movements as we walked along, the anonymity of costumes and masks can be fun. We only moved back when a car came along. We realized we’d walked all the way through to the town, so we made the walk back to my place by going through the woods on that trail behind my house that all the kids used. I wanted to see what others could see if they walked along the pathway.
***
Having returned from the walk, Madame Delphine tapped on her wine glass when it was almost midnight to get us situated around the card table set up in the living room, and draped it in layers of white tablecloths. We pulled chairs as close as we could, and held hands. She reminded us that in summoning the spirit world, there may be some angry spirits who could interfere. Should anything go awry, we were to break our hands apart and someone had to turn on the lights immediately. The lights were then turned off, leaving only a large candle burning in the center as she intoned, “Mediums, or seers like me, were forbidden at one time. In a strictly puritanical world, free-thinking – was also forbidden; however, as modern ideas were exposing more people to science in the 1800s, many were hungry for some spiritual salvation. Conversing with the dead, through a conduit, a Medium such as myself — became one way to seek answers…. I am here, friendly spirits, to offer myself as a pathway for you to speak to the dead,” after which she snuffed out the candle. “Let someone ask to speak to a deceased loved one, now….”
There was a brief moment of thoughtful quiet, and Lisa asked to speak with her grandmother who replied if we believed it – through Madame, telling Lisa that she was not the grandmother Lisa wanted to talk to, but a much older grandmother from several hundred years before, who came to America from England. Also that Lisa would have a child soon, and she and Peter would be owners of a bakery.
As we settled in the dark, I was becoming aware that there was a soft padded noise like that of someone walking down the basement stairs in stocking feet, and attenuated my hearing toward that direction. Madame had taken on the voice of another person, with a change in her voice now like a soft Irish brogue. I was concentrating on the events of the past few weeks when suddenly she asked speaking to me, “Aye, my darling girl, ye have been out among the cornfields on the way home again.”
Something about that voice, and the words resonated deeply; it could only be Margaret Curtayne, our much loved next door neighbor from long ago when I was a little girl. Not wanting to give Madame any hint of hitting on my past, I kept my eyes shut but could not hold back, and I asked if Mr. Curtayne was with her. Madame-as-Margaret replied, “Aye, he’s nae here; he is fiddling in the band tonight.” It was as if I were dreaming.
***
Where or how I was transported in that moment is not known; I can only say I was thinking of the orange marmalade she made for my brother all the time, and the delicious tea and cookies she made for us on weekends. She was the sweetest grandmotherly person on the planet, full of wisdom and goodness, often popping over after school to take care of my younger brother and me when my mom worked late at the beauty parlor. Her time with us was a gift; we were lucky to know her, and I missed her greatly. I sighed and we all became silent again, when Madame cried out, in a man’s voice, “THERE IS SOMEONE UPSTAIRS!”
BANG! The basement garage door solidly closed. At the same instant, something fell to the floor from upstairs and Madame in her natural voice now, exclaimed loudly, “Lights! Turn the lights on!”
***
And just as quickly, up jumped George and Peter, with Kathy, Lisa and I behind them – going upstairs first, and then through the living room back down to the basement. The garage door was unlocked, no surprise there. What a way for a party to end.
Life went on for the next day at work, my head still buzzing from the whole thing. Not only that, but all the odd things that occurred leading up to the party. The missing things, doors unlocked, television going on, lights on and off, and always feeling like I was being watched. But then again, it was Halloween and anything can happen, right?
That night, I ran into a familiar face in between my evening classes; it was the previous owner of my house, Barbara. She moved back to town with her daughter and son and was so glad to see me again, as she’d been to the restaurant where I worked and that’s how she found out I was in school.
She told me she and her husband were now divorced; selling the house—my house— and moving wasn’t what she wanted to do, and her children were upset. This town was where their friends and all their family lived, so she and the two kids moved back. She went on to explain that her daughter had run away several times that fall, but had now returned home for good. “I have to apologize for Jacqueline; who also confessed to breaking back in, and wanted me to give you back the Pegasus. I hope you won’t press charges.”
In an instant, it all fit. Jacqueline had been sleeping in my house, eating my food and taking things. She had been surprised my coming home sometime too, which explained odd noises and unlocked doors. She told her mother she would come and go after school and on several occasions, and had slept in my spare room as I hadn’t touched it; I left her posters of Led Zeppelin on the wall, and had not removed the wall paper. She said it hurt so much to leave the house that when she was there, it was almost as if she still lived there.
***
As for the chunk of glass? It fell to the floor upstairs after being on a windowsill in Jacqueline’s old bedroom; the slamming of the garage door must have vibrated it off the sill. There wasn’t any harm done really, and I wasn’t mean spirited enough to want to get that girl in anymore trouble. She’d also confessed to bumping into my neighbor’s pumpkin on the sidewalk one night in the dark, so she’d taken it with her and threw it away in the woods. How sad she must have been to move away.
And George stayed with me for a long, long time. Finally going separate ways when I also moved away. My friends all scattered too. But, one afternoon I did have the good fortune to almost run into Edward. He was a lawyer and I became an insurance underwriter, and of all places, we almost collided in a crosswalk in front of the Old State House. Meeting for a drink after work that night, we had a lot of fun remembering the séance. “You really freaked out that night,” he said. I did, I admitted.
So, after all these years, I asked him, “You never told me how met her, anyhow? She was worth every cent you paid her.” Hoping she was someone he’d met in school in the dramatic arts department. “That woman should be given an Oscar for that performance.”
And, then after all these years, it will not surprise anyone to finally know this; “What do you mean?” he replied, “I didn’t know her; I thought she was a friend of yours.…”
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! BE SAFE OUT THERE!
And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—
So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
(From the poem, Haunted Houses, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
