The Oaken Snuggery Part 22

Photos by Suzanne Currie

 THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART 22

BY TED CURRIE

     I think back about my many encounters with what might be referred to as the “paranormal,” or “supernatural,” ghosts by any other name, and reckon that it would have been a rather dull haul through these 62 years of living. Not that Suzanne and our sons haven’t contributed to a happy family life, just that those little unexpected extras always seemed to enhance my outlook, and sense of adventure especially as a writer constantly seeking any crumb of inspiration in order to create something. I will confess this honestly, that I have never suffered from any stiff bout of writer’s block since I joined the profession more than forty years ago now. The reason for this is simple. I have always lived in a dwelling that had residents enchantments. Some of a minor nature, others of a far more aggressive nature. It’s true that I have greatly benefitted as a writer for long and long because of my rather loose but profitable association with ghosts. When I said to Suzanne that I needed a “muse” to get my writing mojo topped-up, at first she thought I meant a Leonard Cohen kind of muse, that I might even write a song about. Well her name is Suzanne after all. What I meant of course, was to have a muse of the spiritual kind, that inspires me to write about paranormal activities and associated hauntings. I suppose I have two minor muses at the moment, here at the Bosevelt’s “Oaken Snuggery,” but thus far, they have been slightly more aggravating than invigorating in the positive sense. I suppose I’m rather a vampire in that regard, because my interest is peaked by the friendly intervention of others relevant to my project. I haven’t quite arrived at that stage yet but I’m pretty sure that there will be a peak reached in this odyssey, such that I can look down on all this gathered evidence, and complete the story that currently is full of holes. I fear, like someone making a puzzle, that I’m going to arrive at an empty box and have a dozen pieces missing. Don’t you hate when that happens. I have no choice in this case but to be optimistic the girls will help me out with a few more details. I’m begging them at nights before slumber to please visit my dream state which lately has become pretty much a carnival of weird scenarios far from a homestead farmhouse and its spirited inmates. 

     The walk back to the farmhouse had become somewhat precarious, as the rainfall had intensified significantly, from when I had been wandering about the property an hour or so ago, and the change in only a few minutes has made the difference between a slow walk back to a sort of rural hustle to boot it home. The mist of the April morning had long since dissipated, and now the deluge had begun proving quite thoroughly that my attire was definitely understated at time of departure for this walk upon the Muskoka moor. I was soaked to the bone, not to make light of the fact that when it began to pour, I was standing at the side of the pioneer cemetery at the top of this gently sloping hillside. I suppose family members who set out this plot for their own, desired that those buried here would have, at the very least, a good view of the small picturesque meadow below, and the permeating perfume of lilac blooms in early June. As I was trying to speed up the travel time back to The Oaken Snuggery from where I had departed an hour earlier, the water in my boots were making the attempt a sensory discomfort, that’s for sure, as well as putting me off any significant gainful stride down the hillside. Several times I felt myself slipping in the newly generated mud along the well trodden-down path, which was averted at the last moment, with an acrobatic, gymnastic prowess I didn’t know I possessed.

     It was after righting myself on the second stumble, that I caught a glimpse of two children running along the same pathway, just a few meters from my position, at the tip of the pond closest to the inn. I had water streaming into my eyes, and being somewhat out of breath, I was sensory challenged at that point, so I had to stop, with a definite slide, in order to get some perspective on the path ahead, and if my eyes weren’t deceiving me. Is it possible that I’ve come upon the wee lasses who have been haunting this property so stubbornly in the year past. The water was stinging my eyes a bit, and the rim of my baseball cap was acting like the shelf of a waterfall, so everything in front was obscured and faint because of the dark sky that was currently offering up this deluge. While I could no longer see the ghostly silhouettes of Cynthia and Francis, I could hear their distant laughter and sing-song voices, chattering away, said but still audible through the much louder pitter patter of accelerating rainfall as a small storm cell seemed to be moving over the property once more this week. I stood my ground and worried less about getting wet, at this point, in order to hear more completely what the girls were up to, running up this lane toward the Bosevelt’s farmhouse. All of a sudden the merry-making of the duo ceased, the only sound being the very distant roll of thunder from somewhere to the west of the Snuggery property. I was pleased however, to have once again come upon the dearly departed young ladies from another era of this homestead history, although it was disappointing not to have witnessed their frolic from a better angle. But then, if I had appeared intrusive to their travels, they most likely would have become nothing more than a drifting vapor as prevailed here, in this small valley, and hour ago while I walked this same pathway.

     As I continued on my way back to the Bed and Breakfast, soggy but mildly contented to have made contact with the girls, loosely as it was, I caught another glimpse of the waifs standing still, with their backs to me, just as the edge of the garden path that circles around to the front of the house. I couldn’t believe my fortune at that moment, and I clumsily proceeded trying as hard as I could, not to draw attention to myself by skuffing my water-logged boots along the now gravel pathway. They were both wearing white dresses only a few inches off the wet ground. It was a stunning scene unfolding. I could see through them, in their vaporous form, and they seemed pre-occupied with a stand of lilacs, as if they were both examining it for blooms, yet it was too early in the spring for this to happen. To their right by about twenty yards or so, I could make out the angles of a structure, distinctly made of logs, with several windows facing me, with a chimney emitting a trace amount of wood smoke. My God, was this a ghost cabin, because there was no cabin there when I passed this same location this morning in a clear atmosphere. There was no mistaking that it gave every appearance of a settler’s cabin, much like the ones that had been built on this property in the 1860’s, and then in the early 1870’s, after the first one burned down. As I approached as gently as possible, the girls who had been standing by the lilac bush, vanished once again, yet the vision of the building remained for several seconds. I wondered as I approached, if the waifs had entered the cabin, explaining their sudden disappearance. In a fraction of a second all became invisible, and there was no longer the scent of woodsmoke that had companioned the cabin for those few moments of clarity. I was stunned by the vision and certainly put myself through the paces, trying to disprove my own senses, as being the product of wishful thinking and of course, an over-active imagination. I had been trying to piece this story together for so long now, that I was inventing sightings to pacify my ambitions.

     I took several more steps toward the place where I had seen the girls and the log cabin, beside the lilac shrub I also didn’t remember from my walks in the past couple of weeks, and with the suddenness of lightning at its most intense, I was knocked off my feet by a sharp crack and then explosion of flames off the rock twenty yards to my right. The thunder clap was deafening, and I just assumed I was either dead or close to passing, as the rain pounded down on my exposed face, while I lay prone on my back looking up at heaven. In the mix of fear and the desire to run amuck, if it was the case I was still amongst the living, I felt a hand on each arm, at the elbow, trying to lift me to my feet. I assumed it was a sensation caused by the near electrocution, and yet, as the feeling being more intense, of being pulled powerfully to my feet, it seemed obvious the paranormal character of The Oaken Snuggery was at play once more. I could offer no resistance to my helpers, who I could not see squeezing my arms tightly. Raised to my feet, still shaking from the near death experience, of being hit by lightning, I admit to being too stunned to either panic at the thought of having just been aided by ghosts, or splitting this location in case lightning might find me a second time, and that wouldn’t be good for my mortal constitution. Feeling that my wobbly legs would be able to motor me forward with some awkwardness, I pushed every mortal fibre, emotional and physical, to lean toward the place that would offer me immediate safe haven. I did ponder rather briefly, why no one from the inn had come to my rescue, considering there were people sitting at window-side when I was walking toward the house moments earlier. How could they not have seen me nearly fried on-the-hoof by this sudden bolt from heaven that knocked me to the ground?

     I stumbled the rest of the way up the path, which offers a gentle incline, and by time I hit the front door, I was just about to collapse into a heap from sheer exhaustion and the shock of coming within a whisker of leaving this mortal coil with a bang. I even had to rap on the door, because my hands were too wet and muddy to get a grip on the heavy iron handle. It took a near-eternity for Mrs. Bosevelt to get to the door, and offer me sanctuary from the raging storm. “My goodness Mr. Currie, what on earth has happened to you,” she remarked with a hint of sarcasm lost initially on me, just anxious to gain the inn’s roof for cover. “Did you fall down somewhere,” she asked, helping me through the door, but insisting that I stand on the welcome Matt in the foyer of the Snuggery, to remove my muddy shoes. Getting a little more air capacity in my lungs, after a few moments rest, I answered as politely as I could muster that, “Didn’t you see that lightning strike out front. It bloody well knocked me to the ground.” “What lightning,” she asked with a puzzled look on her face. “We haven’t had any lightning here, and I haven’t even heard thunder, and I think if it was as close as you say, we would have had our power knocked out, and it’s fine right now.”

     I looked out the front door, while Mrs. Bosevelt helped me take off my poorly appointed rain jacket, and the sun was beginning to break through the cloud cover. “How did that storm pass so quickly,” I asked Mrs. Bosevelt. “I was still hearing thunder when I climbed up the stairs to the front door. I didn’t dream this. I was within twenty yards of getting hit by the lightning, that hit near where the cabin was located, and where the girls…..” “Mr. Currie, I think you have just seen ghosts, and witnessed a phantom cabin, in a nonexistent thunderstorm,” she added, leading me into the Great Room to have a seat by the picture windows, where the sun was clearly dazzling the late morning scene here in Rose Hill. “But what about the lilacs bush where the girls were standing only a few minutes ago,” I asked the inn’s proprietor, as she headed off toward the kitchen to boil some water for a cup of restorative tea. “Lilac bush,” she questioned back, stopping and turning to face me once more. “Ted that lilac bush hasn’t been in that spot for more than a year now. It was cut down and the roots dug-up so we could improve the width of the existing pathway that you must have been walking along at the time.” “A cabin,” she asked? “There is a rock foundation overgrown very close to the lilacs, but it dates back to the first settlers who erected their log cabin; at least that’s what our neighbors told us, when we asked about the traces of several rock borders shortly after we began doing the landscape work. But we never went any further to find out if what they say was correct, as we had so many other restoration projects in the works. But one thing is for sure. The cabin has been gone for well more than a century, so you must have been mistaken, or like I said, it was a mirage of a cabin with a lilac bush beside it.”

     I had a lot of questions to include in my day’s notes, that I scribbled throughout the afternoon, with the assistance of strong tea and some stronger cider leading up to the dinner hour at The Oaken Snuggery. I wish I felt enlightened, but I’m still trembling about my alleged near death encounter. Did the girl’s play another prank on the living? That’s yet to be determined.