The Oaken Snuggery Part 9

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

THE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART NINE

BY TED CURRIE

     I had known about my stay at the Bosevelt’s fine establishment a few weeks prior to actually taking up residence here in the restored farmhouse. During the preparation time, I spent a lot of time reading and cross referencing my archives materials, news clippings and books, of course, in an attempt to face whatever was allegedly haunting “The Snuggery” with a more scholarly perspective. I didn’t quite achieve this, in my own mind, and as I noted earlier, I don’t think I am qualified to speak on the topic of psychic phenomenon if the audience was beyond high school students. But I was fascinated to spend these weeks buried in reading material, looking at ghosts and spirits from, you might say, from all angles, without actually being in their abstract presence. One of the key books was a huge volume written by highly accomplished author, Hans Holzer, being the 1997 hardcover edition of “Ghosts - True Encounters With The World Beyond - Haunted Places, Haunted Houses, Haunted People.” This is the mother of all contemporary books on the subject of ghosts and the spirit kind, but it took almost the entire two weeks to read to the halfway point. There’s a whack of information in this book, and for a slow reader like me, I just wasn’t able to get through all the important information and theories quickly. In fact there were many pages that I read twice because I didn’t get the entire message on the first run through. My most recent foray into the religious writings of C.S. Lewis was pretty much the same. I had to read the book twice in order to, at least partially, get his message. I don’t have a lot of background in religious philosophy so I got lost frequently. With Holzer’s book I was spellbound and did understand the content. I was simply suffering from information over-load.

     “I hasten to state, that those who are in the next dimension, the world of the spirit, are indeed ‘alive’ - in some ways more so than we who inhabit the three dimensional, physical world with its limitations and problems,” wrote Holzer. “Those who fear the proof of the continued existence beyond the dissolution of the physical, outer body, and would rather not know about it, are short changing themselves, for surely they will eventually discover the truth about the situation first hand anyway. And while there may be various explanations for what people experience in haunted houses, no explanation will ever be sufficient to negate the experience themselves. If you are one of the many who enter a haunted house and have a genuine experience in it, be assured that you are a perfectly normal human being who uses a natural gift that is neither harmful nor dangerous and may in the long run be informative and even useful.” He also notes that, “The desire to remain in touch with the departed is as old as humanity itself, and despite the skepticism of die-hard materialists and the denials of conventional scientists, credible reports of ghostly visitations and other psychic phenomenon have flourished through the ages.”

     I didn’t bring Mr. Holzer’s book along with me, on this stay at a haunted inn, but Suzanne is now consuming it at home, just in case we have to tag-team these ghosts, to at the very least, work out a deal of harmonious house sharing.

     Long before I saw the first flashes of lightning reflecting off the dresser mirror in my room, I was awakened by the deep ominous roll of thunder, as the early spring storm began to roll across the rural landscape. By the increasing intensity of the thunder I anticipated that this was going to be a significant event. The wind had begun rattling the shutters on my window, and there was something catching the air currents close by, that was going to be at risk if the storm became seriously aggressive, as this time of year can foster with the warm temperatures but much cooler water and ground, still having snow in shaded pockets in the adjacent woodlot.

     For awhile the thunder seemed to lessen, but the lightning flashes seemed much closer, but I was only guessing by the way the reflection sparked off the window and mirror, pretty much illuminating the room before that first great crash of thunder vibrated the whole farmhouse. The storm cell was probably right over the ghost hamlet of Rose Hill at this precise moment, which was within a whisker of two a.m., and the way the wind had picked up, with a significant roar as it etched down over the hollow of the pond, I worried a little that it might be an early morning tornado, not out of the question here in South Muskoka.

     I pulled up the cover to my chin, and trusted the century-plus architecture to hold fast to this landscape, as it has since the early 1900’s, representing a great many storms more powerful than the one currently bashing about with a heavy wash of rain. When there would be another huge flash of lightning and a booming thunder-clap, I’d recall Washington Irving’s famous tale of Rip Van Winkle, and the mysterious Dutchmen he came upon in the Catskill Mountains, bowling as a most electrifying recreation. The bowling balls hitting the laneways represented the roll of thunder echoing through the valley below. Then there was my favorite Irving tale of the “Storm Ship” on the Hudson River, the tall ship that was illuminated each time there was a lightning strike, passing along the haunted and historic river. I don’t like storms except in works of fiction, that offer no danger the imagination can’t handle.

     I was tired enough that evening, to weather even this powerful April storm, trying to uproot the whole Oaken Snuggery from its foundation, and potentially, send it spiraling through the sky to end up at the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road, a bit of a hike from Oz, and a long, long way from Kansas. I digress once again. Just hope the house, as big as it is, doesn’t land on a witch because that wouldn’t bode well for anyone. Wizard of Oz? Wicked Witch of the West? If I was navigating the airborne residence, I might accidentally land on Glinda, the Good Witch, and then we’d really be in trouble. I was safely in dreamland while the storm raged on, and it wasn’t until the end of the lightning, and the thunder was down to a distant rumble, that I was awakened once more, this time by the strangest music coming from my own room. I lifted my head off the pillow and looked around to see if, in the dim light coming through the window from a patio lamp outside, I could figure out where exactly it was coming from and if a radio, I could detect the red light and then make an effort to turn it off. There was nothing to turn off. I never saw a radio in the room in the four days I’d been a guest at the Snuggery, and there was nothing else that could have contributed to the very low volume music, that sounded honestly, as if it was being cranked from an old jack-in-the-box, like the ones my sons used to have but disliked intensely because of the scary clown that popped out.

     I was pretty sure there was a logical reason why this sound, this strange music, was happening somewhere near my bedstead at two thirty in the morning, on the tail end of a rather rough thunderstorm. I pondered, while having just propped my head up with my nest arm, head cradled by my hand, what Washington Irving might have written about the out of place children’s music box, playing so close to my ear that I could even hear the gears of the wind-up mechanism. Possibly the Bosevelts, owners of the Bed and Breakfast were playing a joke on this ghost researcher, thinking that I would get a laugh out of the less than spirited intervention. But then this kind of joke wouldn’t be all that funny, considering the reason I was staying at The Oaken Snuggery, in the first place, was to attempt a detailed identification of the paranormal activities running rampant in the old homestead. They didn’t seem like practical jokers, and frankly, I hadn’t seen or heard them laugh since I took up residence on the Friday, actually Good Friday, of the Easter weekend.

     It was when I heard what I suspected was a jack-in-the-box, being re-winded, close to where I was laying, that I reached beside me, with a considerable stretch, to switch the dresser lamp on, in order to find out who, or what, was trying to scare me, at that moment in the post storm calm. The light initially hurt my eyes, and it took a few seconds before I could see much of anything in the room clearly, most of it being somewhat out of focus. But the second the light was engaged, the music and the winding of the box ceased entirely, and the only noise was the run-water from the storm, draining along and down the eaves trough, and overflowing down upon the cement patio slabs that bordered the front portion of what was my present room. I listened for a long while, trying to ascertain if the run-off water could have in any way, tinkled and vibrated in such a way as to sound musical, or mimic the sound of a music box being wound tightly. Had I simply been carrying a dreamscape into the reality in this room, under the influence of the passing storm and all this wind activity and heavy rain pounding down on the roof and concrete just beyond the window pane? There didn’t seem to be any logical explanation, other than the dream potential, but I don’t understand how a music box, or jack-in-the-box became part of my dream experience, when all that prevailed upon my conscious-self, in the moments before I fell back to sleep, was the very real possibility, the old house was going to be lifted from its foundation and sent spinning through time and space. It wasn’t a lead-up to a musical theme that’s for sure, but that’s the enchantment the mind prevails when it is in a jovial disposition. This jovial aspect was lost on me, because it seems as if the wee ghosts of this allegedly haunted domain, have once again manifested a spirit to mortal liaison, for some good reason though it escapes me now in muddled contemplation.

     I turned the light off, and after fluffing-up my pillow, decided that my best defense, for all concerns, here and now, depended on a well rested mind and body, and laying awake for the rest of the night trying to figure this one out, would degrade and hinder the process of ghost-hunting, best resumed with a clear head and an unfettered approach starting post breakfast, as I do very much enjoy the Bosevelt’s grand hospitality.

     I was jostled from a sound sleep twice more that evening, once at four, and again at six a.m. much as the way my wife would wake me to check some strange noise in the house, or to get up early for a morning appointment. You know the “rolling” back and forth procedure, that gives one in slumber, the feeling of rocking in a boat upon stormy seas. Each time I engaged the bedside lamp, and on each occasion there was nothing to see. No perpetrator, and certainly not my wife, who would definitely have remained hovering over me to make sure I didn’t fall back asleep. There was mischief going on in this house that’s for sure. I wasn’t scared of these entities, of which I was confident represented more than one spirit, or ghost playing silly ass with the fellow given the responsibility to find out who and what they were, in life and in the afterlife. After these intrusions upon my slumber, and what I had experienced personally since I had arrived, and then what Mrs. Bosevelt, my kind host, had confessed the day before, it was certainly giving the characteristic of child’s play in the paranormal context. These wee ghosties were trying hard to make contact with me, sensing possibly that I would make a suitable conduit to their situation, of being bound yet to earth and mortal-kind, likely the result of having experienced a sudden unexpected death in the midst of great unbridled contentment at their lot in life. An accident? A tragic misadventure that couldn’t have been avoided, unless they had never been bored. A terrible twist of fate? A childhood left unfulfilled and the spirits determined to have their fun if only to be played-out in the ethereal sense of a home haunting, all in good fun, of course.

     When I lived in the former home and medical office of Bracebridge’s Dr. Peter McGibbon, on upper Manitoba Street, on the north corner opposite St. Thomas Anglican Church, my work-space of choice was in the large open third floor attic, with its panoramic view of the maple line Memorial Park across the road. It was, by far, the most haunted part of the early 1900’s building. I would work at my desk, positioned below the long horizontal window, as I very much enjoyed the privilege of looking up from time to time, to see who was, at that moment, crossing the triangular park with its cenotaph and bandshell on the south end, and the huge Norway Maples flourishing along Manitoba Street and Kimberly Avenue, just to the west. I would sometimes work until well past midnight, and there were many times that I heard footsteps creaking upon the wood floor at my back, and feeling the cool drafts of air that seemed to companion the footfall. I’d always look around half expecting a human visitor, but suspecting that in more than likely was the immortal remains of a former lodger in this beautiful old home with its own historic maples giving it a venerable distinction. I might, at points, hear voices near the back stairs, but no mortal would ever emerge from the darkened doorway. As a fledgling writer I knew that this experience of being in a haunted attic, in a very haunted house, was a gift to any aspiring author, looking longingly for sources of raw inspiration. This was an apprenticeship with a ghostly, spirited energy, apparently looking for someone to haunt, and seeing as I was available, and wouldn’t run away, the tutoring continued for the next six years, and although my office location changed, the apparitions and the footfall always wound up in my general area to interpret and exploit free of charge. It was an incredible learning experience in psychic phenomenon, and I was sad at having to move away, after Suzanne and I were married. The apartment wasn’t big enough for all our belongings and Suzanne wasn’t nearly as interested in sharing our residence with the, well, largely unknown. I still think fondly back to those days spent at the McGibbon house, but feel quite confident that the ongoing experiences there, will help me sort out the entities occupying The Snuggery in the present tense.