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Do I believe in ghosts?

ghostI have just sent in a new col­lec­tion of short sto­ries to my edi­tor. As yet unti­tled, it con­tains a ghost sto­ry. In 2016, a ghost sto­ry nov­el will be pub­lished. I have pub­lished oth­er ghost sto­ries, Some­thing Upstairs, Seer of Shad­ows, and there is a ghost short sto­ry in the col­lec­tion Strange Hap­pen­ings. No sur­prise then, then from time to time, I am asked, “Do you believe in ghosts?” My stan­dard answer is, “No, but I believe in ghost stories.”

Except …

I was about nine­teen, vis­it­ing Maine with my par­ents. It was sum­mer. We were head­ing home to NYC. I must have looked at a map because I real­ized that as we passed through the west­ern out­skirts of Boston, I was direct­ly east of where my favorite aunt and uncle lived, just across the Mass­a­chu­setts bor­der. “Let me out,” I announced, “I’m going to hitch­hike and vis­it Aunt Flossie and Uncle Jer­ry. But don’t tell them. I want to sur­prise them.”

Off I went, hitch­hik­ing across Mass­a­chu­setts, tak­ing most of the day. When I reached the near­est town (in New York state) where they lived, I set out to walk the last few miles. It was about four in the afternoon.

I had walked about three miles along a sin­gle lane road through rur­al coun­try, pret­ty and hilly. Quite sud­den­ly, the sky grew dark. A thun­der­cloud had gath­ered. As the rain start­ed, I stood under a tree to keep dry. It was no more than a sum­mer cloud­burst, soon over.

As I stepped out from beneath the drip­ping tree, I real­ized that I was at the bot­tom of a hill, at the sum­mit of which stood a church, one of those clas­sic white, New Eng­land steepled struc­tures. On the hill below was a ceme­tery, replete with old slate stones—old, I knew, because of the way the stones were shaped and titled. I even thought what an odd place for a ceme­tery.

Even as I looked at the ceme­tery, I saw a rec­tan­gu­lar gray-col­ored mist rise up from one the stones. It stopped me cold. My heart pound­ed. I stared. The mist held its human shape for quite a few moments. Then the sun broke through the clouds and the mist fad­ed away.

Quite shak­en, I climbed that ceme­tery hill and exam­ined the stone. It was old, cov­ered with lichens. No ques­tion, the rain caused the phos­pho­res­cent ele­ments in the stone to glow. 

At least, that is what I told myself more than fifty years ago. Except I have nev­er for­got­ten, and the image I saw (and felt) does appear in my ghost sto­ries. So no, I do not believe in ghosts, except …

3 thoughts on “Do I believe in ghosts?”

  1. I was attend­ing pup­pet fes­ti­val at a col­lege in Con­necti­cut, I was walk­ing across the cam­pus to get to the dorm where I was to stay. A girl passed me, she was look­ing down so I did­n’t see her face, she was mov­ing fast, I said hel­lo but she did­n’t seem to hear me. When I got to the dorm, as it was sum­mer and there were no class­es, just groups like mine, I told the per­son check­ing me in about the girl. Oh, she said, you’ve met our cam­pus ghost.

    Reply
  2. I love that you put this expe­ri­ence in writ­ing! And I’m glad that you’re leav­ing the door slight­ly cracked open to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ghosts.

    Reply

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