certain things you don’t talk about, so just let me say that my fears of discovering, too late to do anything about it, that “saving it for marriage” was the worst mistake of my life, have proved unfounded. I feel like a kid living in a candy factory!
“Enough of that, though; I didn’t write to tell you about the new Mrs Allen’s sex life (superb though it may be), or even about the beauty of the Catskills. I’m writing because Tom’s downstairs for the nonce, shooting pool, and I know how much you love a “spooky story”. Especially if there’s an old hotel in it; you’re the only person I know who’s read not just one copy of The Shining to tatters, but two! If that was all, though, I probably would have just waited until Tom and I got back and then told you my tale face-to-face. But I might actually have some souvenirs of this particular “tale from beyond”, and that has caused me to pickup my pen on this beautiful full-moon evening.
The Mountain House was opened in 1869, so it certainly qualifies as an old hotel, and although I don’t suppose it’s much like Stephen “King’s Overlook, it has its share of odd nooks and spooky corridors. It has its share of ghost stories, too, but the one I’m writing you about is something of an oddity-not a single turn-of-the-century lady or 1929 Stock Market-crash suicide in it. These two ghosts-that’s right, a pair, two for the price of one-have only been actively haunting for the last four years or so, as far as I have been able to find out, and I’ve been able to find out a fair amount. The staff is very helpful to visitors who want to do a little “ghost-hunting” on the side; adds to the ambience, I suppose!
Anyway, there are over a hundred little shelters spotted around the grounds, eccentric wooden huts which the guests sometimes call “follies” and the Mohonk brochures call “gazebos”, you find these overlooking the choicest views. There’s one located at the north end of an upland meadow about three miles from the Mountain House itself. On the map this meadow has no name (I actually checked the topographical plans in the office this morning), but the help have a name for it; they call it Mother and Son Meadow.
The ghosts of the eponymous mother and son were first spotted by guests in the summer of 1982. They are always seen around that particular gazebo, which is located at the top of a hill and looks down toward a rock wall which is pretty much buried in honeysuckle and wild roses. It isn’t the most spectacular place on the resort, but I think it may prove to be my favorite when I think back on my honeymoon in later years. There’s a serenity there which certainly beggars my powers of description. Some of it’s the scent of the flowers, and some is the sound of the bees, I suppose-a steady, sleepy drone. But never mind the bees and flowers and picturesque rock wall; if I know my Kath, it’s the ghosts she’ll be wanting. They aren’t spooky ones at all, so don’t get your hopes up on that score, but they are well-documented, at least. Adrian Givens, the concierge, told me they have been seen by perhaps three dozen guests since the sightings began, always in that same rough, locale. And although, none of the witnesses have known each other, making conspiracy or collusion seem unlikely, the descriptions are remarkably similar. The woman is described as being in her thirties, pretty, long legs, chestnut-brown hair. Her son (several witnesses have remarked, on the physical resemblance between the two) is small and very slim, probably about six. Brown hair, likee the woman, his face has been described as “intelligent”, “lively”, and even “beautiful”. And although they’ve been seen by a variety of people over a course of years, they are always described as wearing the same clothes: white running shorts, sleeveless blouse, and lowtop sneakers for her; basketball shorts, a tank-top, and cowboy boots for him. It’s the cowboy boots that give me the most pause, Kath! How likely is it that all those people would put a kid in such an unlikely combination as shorts and cowboy boots, if they were just making it up? The defense rests.
Several people have theorized that they are real people, perhaps even a Mohonk employee and her child, because they’ve dropped an awful lot of empirical, lasting evidence for ghosts (who as a rule only leave a swirl of cold air or perhaps a little smear of ectoplasm behind, as I know you know). All sorts of little souvenirs have been found at that particular gazebo. You know the weirdest? Half-eaten plates of Chef Boyardee spaghetti! Yes! I know it sounds crazy, laughable, but stop and think a minute. Aside from hot dogs, is there anything in the world that kids love more than the Chef’s pasta?
There have been other things, as well-toys, a coloring book, a small silver makeup case that could well belong to a little boy’s pretty mom-but I admit it’s those half-eaten bowls of kid-style spaghetti that get to me. Whoever heard of a spaghetti-eating ghost? Or how “bout this? In the fall of 1984, a group of hikers found a kid’s plastic record-player in that gazebo, with a 45-rpm record on the spindle.-“strawberry Field’s Forever” by the Beatles, fitting, eh?
My friend at the concierge’s desk, Adrian, smiles and nods when you suggest it’s all a put-up job, that ghosts don’t leave actual physical objects behind (or trample down the grass, or leave footprints in the gazebo). “Not ordinary ones, anyway,” he says, “but maybe these aren’t ordinary ghosts, for one thing, everyone who has seen them says they’re solid. You can’t look through them, like the ones in Ghostbusters. Maybe they’re not ghosts, have you thought of that? They might be real people who are living on a slightly different plane than ours.” I guess you don’t have to be a guest at Mohonk to get a little astral; just working there seems to do the trick.
Adrian said that on at least three occasions a determined effort had been made to catch the mother and son by people who believed the whole thing was a hoax, and all three efforts had come to nothing (although once the searchers came back with another of those spaghetti-bowls). Also, he said-and I found this much more interesting-the apparitions had been showing up in and around that gazebo for four years. If they were realpeople, floaters or pranksters or both, how could the boy six or seven?
Okay, this is the point where, in a traditional ghost story, I would reveal that I myself had. seen the ghosts or the “Phantom Rickshaw. Except I didn’t. I’ve still never seen a ghost in my whole life. But I can testify that there’s something very special about that meadow, something hushed and-don’t you dare laugh-almost holy. I didn’t see ghosts, but there is definitely a feeling of presence there. I went without Tom, and will freely grant that probably made me more susceptible, but even so, I knew then and know now that I had come to a very extraordinary place. And there was a pricking along the back of my neck a sensation-very clear and specific-of being watched.
Then when I went into the gazebo itself to sit and rest up a little for the walk back I found the items I’m enclosing. They are perfectly real, as you see, not a bit ghostly, and yet there is something very strange about them, don’t you thinly?
The little woman-figure in the blue shorts is the more interesting of the two. It’s obviously what the kids call an “action figure”, but I’ve been teaching kindergarten for three years now and thought I knew them all. I don’t know this one, though. At first I thought it was Scarlet, from the G.I. Joe team, but this little, lady’s hair is a very different shade of red. “Brighter. And usually kids treasure these things, will fight over them in the play-yard. This one was tossed, into a corner, almost as if it had been thrown away. Save it for me, Kath, and. I’ll show it to my kindergarteners next fall… but I’m betting right now that none of them will know her and all of them will want her! I think about what Adrian said, about how the ghosts in Mother and Son Meadow might live on a slightly different plane, maybe of the astral kind, maybe of the temporal kind, and sometimes (often, really) I think Miss Red might actually come from that plane! (Does the idea gives you the shivers? It does me!)
Okay, okay, so a strong wind has come up outside and the lights are flickering. Put it down to that, if you want.
Then there’s the picture. I found it under the little gazebo table, you’re the art major, kiddo, tell me what you think? Is it some kind of gag-maybe a hoax perpetrated by a local kid who enjoys teasing the guests? Or have I found a drawing made by a ghost? What a concept, huh?
Okay, girl, that’s my creepy story for the night. I’m gonna stick the whole works in a little padded mailer from the gift-shop, then see if I can persuade Tom it’s time to stop shooting bumper pool in the game room and come to bed. Frankly, I’m not expecting it to be a problem.
I love being married, and I love this place, ghosts and all.
Still your fan,
Pat.
P.S. Please save the picture for me, okay? I want to keep it. Hoax or not, I think there’s love in it. And a sense, almost, of coming home. P.
