Ghost Story

When I was eight years old my parents and I moved to Greenport, Long Island. My father was involved in the local shipyard as a Naval Architect. They were producing Mine Sweepers for the US Navy to clear German Mines from the shipping channels in the North Atlantic. These boats were one of only two wooden ships produced during WWII. The other wooden boat was the P.T. or "Mosquito Boat". My father was a Wooden boat specialist. Housing was short everywhere in the country and my parents were delighted to procure an antique Farmhouse, the "Cottage" on the Floyd estate. It came complete with furnishings, extensive grounds, a gardener, and a three car garage. The house was in two parts, the oldest part dated from the early 1700s. The kitchen with the old fireplace hearth had a built in "Dutch oven". There was a wood burning stove inserted in the hearth and also an electric stove on another wall. The parlor beyond the kitchen had been turned into a formal dining room with its own fireplace. Upstairs were three tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. Connecting to this oldest part of the house was a new addition, twice the size of the original house. They connected on the ground floor through a den and on the second floor through a door in my bedroom. Each part, new and old had a basement with a separate furnace. In the middle of the first winter, my parents closed off the new half of the house and we moved into the older house, to conserve heat and the expense of oil. When the weather warmed we could open the doors and spread out into the "new" part with its large bedrooms, bathrooms, Living room and sun porch.

I remember our time there as idealic. We quickly added two cats and a large German shepherd, my first pets, to the family. I loved the seasonal thing, the small warm winter bedrooms with one little window each, slanting floors, doors with the old iron latches, Then the spacious summer quarters with many windows, thrown open in the summer to catch the air from the sea, close on both sides of this "North Fork".
Being in the house from aged eight until eleven years, I am a bit hazy about the time sequence, which year, which winter I began to hear the foot steps crossing the floor in my "summer" room, coming to the door now closed for the winter, to my little winter room. I think it must have happened two or three times before I thought it was noteworthy enough to tell my mother about it. What clinched it in my mind was the behavior of my dog. "King" slept on my bed with me, a narrow old iron cot. He curled up in the hollow of my knees and when I wanted to turn over he had to get up and lie down again on the other side. I can still feel the process, his resistance against the blankets, warm from his body, the final reluctant rising with the rattle of his dog tag, and then waiting till I felt the newly cold sheet warm with his body heat against the back of my knees as we both drifted back to sleep.
I remember hearing the footsteps and feeling King rise and stand over me. His lips were drawn back in a snarl, fangs bared, his hackles raised, and he was shaking so that the whole bed vibrated. Even in my nine or ten year old mind, I knew terror when I saw it. There I lay, watching the dog and the door, wondering what would happen next. He didn't bark, just the constant desperate snarl. Then he stopped, lay down in his usual place, still shaking, and we went to sleep.
I told my mother about our experience. I remember one vivid nightmare of being chased through the upstairs to the back stairway down to the kitchen by a skinny white apparition. I also remember joining a waiting wasp under the covers, being stung, crying loudly and meeting my frantic parents at the back stairs clutching my hip. They had looked at each other said, "the Ghost", and rushed up the stairs to meet me at the top.
One night while my mother was sitting on my bed after tucking me in, the footsteps came toward the door. I thought, "Wow! Now she'll believe me." I couldn't believe "whatever" would be so bold or dumb to "do it" with my mother there, ineptitude or my good luck. King stood over me, next to my mother, facing the closed door, snarling and shaking. We were transfixed. My mother said later, "I was afraid that if I had opened the door, the dog would have dropped dead from fright." I wish I could tell you about how the problem was resolved but we went on living in the house. I accepted whatever reassurance my parents offered and continued to play with my friends, my cats, and my dog. I don't remember hearing the footsteps again and I'm sure that when the summer came, we opened the door as usual and King and I moved into our summer quarters, the room of the footsteps.