The Stories That Haunt Us Read Online Free Page A

woman who had saved his life.
    Some months later, Danny’s grandmother was closing down her summer home and he and his parents went down to the shore to help her pack her things. As Danny was passing the dining room table, he noticed several portraits ready to be wrapped and put away in boxes. One picture in particular caught his attention. He was drawn to it because the face in the picture looked familiar. He stood looking down at that stern face that somehow seemed softer than when had seen it on that summer day. Danny called his parents and grandmother into the dining room. “When I told you I was saved from drowning by an old woman, you asked who she was. I didn’t know at the time, but I do now.” Danny pointed to the picture of the old woman and said “That was the lady I saw that day. She was the one who helped me.”
    Danny’s grandmother stepped closer to the table. She looked down at the picture, shaking her head in disbelief. “There must be some mistake, Danny,” she said. “That’s my great grandmother, your great, great, great grandmother. She’s been dead for a very long time.” Danny looked at the picture then back to his parents and grandmother and said: “Dead, yes, but not gone.”
    The Bear’s Den
    T he Bear’s Den B&B is located on Water Street in Shelburne. The two-hundred-year-old home is presently owned and operated by Elizabeth Atkinson, who told me, with a chuckle, that one of the owners back in the 1950s came to Shelburne to compete with her father in the jewellery business—“Now I own his house. That’s poetic justice for you.” When I bring up the topic of hauntings in the house, she tells me that there is not one but two old ghosts living there, and that both are male.
    â€œI became aware of the possibility that the old place was haunted when the knocking started and the doorbell began ringing at all hours of the day and night,” she said. The first few times the doorbell rang, Liz started to rush to the door, but there was never anyone there. A visiting friend reassured Liz, saying, “It’s only kids,” but Liz suspected differently: When she looked out, no footprints in the snow led to her front door.
    The presence of ghosts in Liz’s new home and place of business was brought to her attention one evening while she entertained two guests from Ontario and Quebec. The woman from Quebec sat up suddenly and said, “I have a message for you from the old man seated over in the corner of the room. He wants me to tell you he doesn’t like all the commotion and he wants everyone to leave his home.” Liz’s response, besides surprise of course, was one of indignation. “Well, you can tell the old man I am certainly not leaving. This is my home now.”
    Soon after, one evening while Liz prepared supper in the kitchen a guest entered and asked Liz about “the peculiar markings on the ceiling.” When Liz looked up, she saw three markings, each about three feet long. How they got there remains a mystery, and it took a lot of elbow grease to remove them.
    Liz has never actually seen the ghosts, but she knows when they’re near. One night while seated before her bedroom mirror, she was tapped on the shoulder. She remembers an odd smell and a brush of cold air, but she could not see any but her own reflection in the mirror.
    Liz Atkinson maintains the two ghosts are locals—one is the former owner and rival jeweller who came to town in the 1950s, the other is a neighbour from across the street who apparently came to visit the other ghost and never left. He’s the ghost that sits in the window box watching people going by. Not everyone can see him, only those in tune with the spirit world, like the guest who woke up to find someone sitting in a chair watching him. The only thing he remembers about the ghost was the way he was sitting…like Rodin’s