Ghosts on the Coast of Maine Read Online Free

candlesticks neatly placed on the floor below.
    Ginny was witness to other happenings that involved Betty, the present owner of the house. Betty was laid up with a broken foot, which restricted her to a wheelchair. She had a cane, but that was only for very short distances.
    One particular evening a storm was brewing. A person who had grown to hate storms from her Texas days, Betty sat in the living room worrying about the upstairs windows that were open. Her dog, Penny, who snarled at any intruder or threatening creature, was calmly keeping her company by the fireplace. All of a sudden Betty heard the windows slam upstairs. The dog never peeped. Shortly afterwards Ginny, the only tenant at the time, rushed in the door and hurried up the stairs. She came down just as quickly. “Did you walk up those stairs to close the windows?” she scolded. Betty said, “No. ‘Somebody else’ did it for me.”
    That “somebody else” must have been watching one night when Virginia locked the front door. Betty was with her, instructing her how to shut it, because it sticks. She saw Ginny lock the door. About 6:30 the next morning, as Betty walked down the stairs, she intuitively knew that the door was unlocked, even though it was still closed. She tried it. Sure enough, it was unlocked. When Ginny came down, Betty asked if she had been out earlier that morning. Virginia said, “No, I just woke up.”
    To get back to my original statement about Walter, how does he help those who have lived in his house? Throughout the years Walter has exuded a relaxing, welcoming feeling of warmth that creates a healthy state of mind for the occupants. Great stress therapy. One foot in the door can tell you that.
    He has especially carried out his tradition in his “choice” of owners. Since 1899, a most hospitable boardinghouse operator and three doctors have lived in and performed their occupational functions in his house. Many people today still talk about all the times they or their children or families were healed in that wonderful old place. One thing’s for sure, an inhabitant would never be lonely.

 

CHAPTER SIX
BURNT HEAD
    S uicide is a whole other trip. It produces the most bizarre and sometimes the most dangerous effects of any kind of ghost.
    Because of their deliberate choice to cut short their progression of spiritual growth, these souls are at the lowest stage of light beyond the material world. They are frustrated, they are regretful, and they are trying to make up for their mistake, but they need assistance. Their desperation makes for intense manifestations. They cannot harm you, but they might come close.
    Cathlin Warren did not realize any of this on Monhegan Island in June 1962. She did not believe or disbelieve in ghosts, and she had never given the matter much thought during her twenty-two year lifetime.
    Twenty-six years later, Cathlin is a successful professor of art at a prominent university, and enjoys much respect and popularity in her area as an artist-in-residence. Every once in a while she still ponders her Monhegan happening. It is only because I am not using her real name that I can in good conscience repeat what she had to tell me.
    This young girl of Irish descent was the daughter of two show business people. Her father was a saxophone player in a New York studio band, and her mother was a former Broadway dancer who operated her own dance studio in the city. Her dad was never home, so her childhood memories are mostly of her mother, Peg.
    Peggy Warren started to act differently when Cathlin was about twelve. She became very quiet and withdrew into herself. Her large blue eyes turned a dull gray, with darkened patches of skin underneath. Her mouth, so contoured for laughter, never smiled. Sometimes it was difficult for her to acknowledge her daughter when Cathlin was speaking to her. Other times, Peg never responded at all.
    One August Cathlin noticed that her mother had