The Oaken Snuggery Part 19

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

BY TED CURRIE

     “The parson never openly professes his belief in ghosts, but I have remarked that he has a suspicious way of pressing great names into the defense of supernatural doctrines, and making philosophers and saints fight for him. He expatiates at large on the opinions of the ancient philosophers about larves or nocturnal phantoms, the spirits of the wicked, which wandered in exiles about the earth; and about those spirited beings which abode in the air, but descended occasionally to earth, and mingled among mortals, acting as agents between them and the gods. He quotes also from Philo the rabbi, the contemporary of the apostles, and according to some, the friend of St. Paul, who says that the air is full of spirits of different ranks, some destined to exist for a time in mortal bodies, from which being emancipated, they pass and repass between heaven and earth, as agents or messengers of the deity,” wrote author Washington Irving in his 1822 book, “Bracebridge Hall,” the book responsible for the name of Bracebridge, Ontario, the town a few miles south of this place where I dwell today, Rose Hill.

     Irving adds to his story that, “I am now alone in my chamber, but these themes have taken such hold of my imagination, that I cannot sleep. The room in which I sit is just fitted to foster such a state of mind. The walls are hung with tapestry, the figures of which are faded, and look like unsubstantial shapes melting away from sight. Over the fireplace is the portrait of a lady, who, according to the housekeeper’s tradition, pined to death for the loss of her lover in the Battle of Blenheim. She has a most pale and plaintive countenance, and seems to fix her eyes mournfully upon me. The family have long since retired. I have heard their steps die away, and the distant doors clap-to after them. The murmur of voices, and the peal of remote laughter, no longer reach the ear. The clock from the church, in which so many of the former inhabitants of this house like buried, has chimed the awful hour of midnight. I have sat by the window and mused upon the dusky landscape, watching the lights disappearing, one by one, from the distant village; and the moon rising in her silent majesty, and leading up all the silver pomp of heaven. As I have gazed upon these quiet groves and shadowy lawns, silvered over, and imperfectly lighted by streaks of dewy moonshine, my mind has been crowded by thick coming fancies concerning those spiritual beings which ‘…..walk the earth, Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.”

    Did you know that Charles Dickens once admitted, that he never retired to bedlam, without taking a book written by Washington Irving for the final reading exercise of the day? I couldn’t attend this assignment at the Bosevelt’s Bed and Breakfast, without sneaking aboard my dog-eared copy of “Bracebridge Hall,” which has been a favorite book of mine since I was introduced to Irving back in Public School, then being, of course, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

     It was most unfortunate that Angela Collins and her husband were forced to leave early from The Oaken Snuggery, one day earlier than expected, the result of a serious fall taken by her mother, at their home in Toronto. Before she left, later that evening, and having shown me the welded together crucifixes she had found in a shallow pool of water, at the side of the walkway at the front of the farmhouse, removed from the earth by a strong flow of run-off water during the afternoon thunderstorm. The two crosses, joined at the centre by some forging of time and elements, was found in the same general area that it was originally discovered, and rescued, by a guest of the Bed and Breakfast a week or so earlier. I had been awarded custody of the crosses by Mrs. Bosevelt, the Bed and Breakfast proprietor, but not because it may have been connected to the resident haunting go on here in Rose Hill, at the Snuggery. We laughed about it at the time, but it really wasn’t even a clue at that point, in our research about the ongoing paranormal events in the old farmhouse. It was just an oddity found on an old homestead property in the northern clime of South Muskoka.

     Before Angela Collins left the Bed and Breakfast, she gave me back the crosses once again, and explained how she had also experienced a curious dream involving the two young girls, seemingly at play, also running through the pasture and even tossing found stones in the black water of the same pond that we can look out upon each day, from the comfortable chairs by the massive picture windows in the Great Room of the Snuggery. She didn’t know their names, and I know that mine were dream-created and without any hard fact attached to their true identities. In her dreamscape, she felt there was some dire consequence the girls experienced past this point of frolic and outdoor recreation. She felt a deep sense of sadness edging the boundaries of the dream, which was short and mist shrouded as if portraying an end to what appeared initially as endless fun, as sisters enjoyed every opportunity afforded them, possibly after attending a nearby church on Sunday mornings. Angela got the impression the short-cut home was a ritual each Sunday, as they preferred to run than ride with the rest of their family.

     I am sitting here this evening with pen in hand, and notepad opened and ready for something to be written onto the shiny white paper. I could have written copious amounts of editorial filler about how wonderful it was to be sitting in this spacious, attractive room by a crackling fire on this chilly spring night, and about the din of conversation with four new guests who showed up late this afternoon just before the Angela and Mr. Collins said their farewells, promising to return in the summer for a longer stay. The longer period of daylight stretching into the evening has made this a most interesting portal onto the countryside, and just a few minutes ago the guests seated around me, were treated to a number of deer and fawn ambling along the far ridge, and before that, a large number of geese, finding that the pond and shoreline, made for a comfortable respite after a long flight. It was a wonderful panorama and the sky colorations were impressive, such that I wished to have had my camera phone nearby to capture the image of the setting sun.

     The hauntings at the Snuggery have become more intense but in a more defined area of intervention. Mrs. Bosevelts doll collection hasn’t been toppled in two weeks, and the books have remained on the shelves, and neatly so, since I arrived for my stay on the first of April. I would have like to see the havoc that was allegedly inflicted upon the kindly hosts prior to me arrival, so that I’d have something more to add to my story than vague accounts that might be explained in many other ways beyond the pranks of two neighborhood sisters, of long ago, with unresolved issues with this property. As for interactions with Cynthia age 12 and Francis age 10, Angela Collins actually had a clear sighting of the wee lasses, as they were lounging on a small couch in the hallway of the Snuggery, when she and her husband checked in that first night. She knew I had experienced them as well, in a variety of spirited forms, and knew as well of the fused together crucifixes found in a puddle alongside the path. She explained that she had been gifted in life, since childhood in fact, with psychic capabilities, even her husband wasn’t aware of, or did she ever want him to know about. We agreed before she left, after a short discussion about ghosts and their interests  in securing validation, for their unsettling appearances, that both girls were determined as paranormal qualities, to have someone at the Snuggery, at some point soon, appreciate why they were unsettled spirits in the first place, not being able to leave this property being unresolved. The fact that Angela left me with this burden of investigation was unsettling by itself, beyond simply worrying about the obsessive interests of two youngsters playing games with mere mortals. Wouldn’t the spirit-kind have the upper hand when it comes to communicating with humans. If they can pull out books, as if to read them, dump them on the floor to get attention, knock over a row of neatly positioned dolls for sport, invade my dreams and steal icons from my room, why can’t they just whisper in my ear what they’re looking for, in terms of redemption or resolution. I wrote these questions on my notepad so that I wouldn’t have to stare down at an ink-less page any longer. I was stumped by the children, presently unknown but often experienced by the inmates of this fine establishment.

     There was something about the welded together crosses that I needed to know, and based on my level of frustration, I decided that it was probably best if I just asked they questions audibly, and as a backup plan, in psychic messaging, to see if I couldn’t connect directly to Cynthia and Francis, and give them an opportunity to bypass the Hollywood script stuff, and tell me why they feel it necessary to impose upon the Bosevelts, who run this Bed and Breakfast. Based on the reality that they didn’t own it when these rascals were running through this property in their heyday, it doesn’t seem at all fair that they should be burdened with a haunting-without-portfolio, so to speak. I would ask these questions in private, in fear that I might strike these guests as a nutter-with-portfolio. My notepad was filling up with other questions I thought worth asking, if and when I was able to get their attention.

     Shortly after the Bosevelts had served another delicious dinner to guests, myself included, I offered my sincere thanks for their hospitality, and retired early to bedlam, to follow through on my mission, to engage the spirits of The Oaken Snuggery, if of course, they wished to play my game with my rules. I had a feeling I was opening a big, really big Pandora’s box by doing this, but there was no way I was going to pull out a Ouijia Board I knew was kept for the recreation of guests, kept on the board games’ shelf back in the Great Room of the Snuggery. I had been previously warned by psychic friends that by enlisting the help of a Ouijia Board I could inadvertently pull in some unwanted and undesirable spirits, that had been awaiting any opportunity to sneak back into the mortal realm, to scare the wits out of the unsuspecting players, believing that the board was nothing more than a folly of pure imagination.

     I had a plan. Mortal to spirit. Nothing more, nothing less. At the very least I would demonstrate a willingness to hear or, sense, their side of the story, and what could be done to satisfy their interests in this old farmhouse and property, that they once had some relationship with, or so we assume based on the fact they seem particularly at home here at present.

     When I look down upon the lower pasture and the pond, from the portal I have been afforded in the Snuggery’s Great Room, especially interesting as panoramas go, at dusk, imagining for a fleeting moment, the ride of Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman, thundering along the handpicked dirt walkways trailing down from the hilltop pinery, into the open of this picturesque field. I am guilty of an over-active imagination when it comes to the work of Washington Irving. I have to keep it all in check when sleuthing here at The Snuggery for ghosts and assorted hobgoblins.