The Shape of Night(21)

“Did she ever mention anything, um, odd about the house?”

“Odd?”

“Like sounds or smells she couldn’t explain. Or other things.”

“What other things?”

“A feeling that someone was…watching her.”

He turns to look at me. I’m grateful that at least he takes the time to actually consider my question. “Well, she did ask us about curtains,” he finally says.

“What curtains?”

“She wanted us to hang curtains in her bedroom, to keep anyone from looking in the window. I pointed out that her bedroom faces the sea, and there’s no one out there to see her, but she insisted I talk to the owner about it. A week later, she left town. We never did hang those curtains.”

I feel a chill ripple across my skin. So Charlotte felt it too, the sensation that she was not alone in this house, that she was being watched. But curtains cannot shut out the gaze of someone who’s already dead.

After Ned heads upstairs to the turret, I collapse into a chair at the kitchen table and sit rubbing my head, trying to massage away the memory of last night. When considered in the light of day, it could only have been a dream. Of course it was a dream, because the alternative is impossible: that a long-dead man tried to make love to me.

    No, I can’t call it that. What happened last night was not love but a taking, a claiming. Even though it frightened me, I ache for more. I know what you deserve, he’d said. Somehow he knows my secret, the source of my shame. He knows because he watches me.

Is he watching me even now?

I sit up straight and nervously scan the kitchen. Of course there’s no one else here. Just as there was no one in my bedroom last night except for the phantom I’ve conjured from my own loneliness. A ghost, after all, is every woman’s perfect lover. I don’t need to charm or amuse him, or worry that I’m too old or too fat or too plain. He won’t crowd my bed at night or leave his shoes and socks strewn around the room. He materializes when I need to be loved, the way I want to be loved, and in the morning he conveniently vanishes into thin air. I never need to cook him breakfast.

My laughter has the shrill note of insanity. Either I’m going crazy or my house really is haunted.

I don’t know whom to talk to or confide in. In desperation I open my laptop computer. The last document I typed is still on the screen, a list of ingredients for the next recipe: Whole cream, knobs of butter, shucked oysters combined in a rich stew that would have simmered on cast-iron stoves all along the New England coast. I close the file, open a search engine. What the hell should I search for? Local psychiatrists?

Instead I type: Is my house haunted?

To my surprise, the screen fills with a list of websites. I click on the first link.


Many people believe their house is haunted, but in the vast majority of cases, there are logical explanations for what they are experiencing. Some of the phenomena people describe include:




Pets behaving oddly.

Strange noises (footsteps, creaks) when no one else is in the house.

Objects vanishing and reappearing in a different place.

A feeling of being watched…



I stop and glance around the kitchen again, thinking of what he’d said last night. Someone must watch over you. As for pets behaving oddly, Hannibal is so focused on scarfing down his lunch, he doesn’t once look up from his bowl. Perfectly usual behavior for Mr. Fatty.

I scroll down to the next page on the website.


The appearance of vaguely human forms or moving shadows.

Feeling of being touched.

Muffled voices.

Unexplained smells that come and go.



I stare at those last four signs of haunting. Dear god, I’ve experienced all of these. Not merely touches or muffled voices. I have felt his weight on top of me. I can still feel his mouth on mine. I take a deep breath to calm myself. There are multiple websites devoted to this, so I am not the only one with this problem. How many others have frantically searched the Internet for answers? How many of them wondered if they were going insane?

I focus once again on my laptop screen.


What to do if you think your house is haunted.




Observe and document every unusual occurrence. Record the time and location of the phenomena.

Record video of any physical or auditory occurrences. Keep a cellphone nearby at all times.

Call an expert for advice.



    An expert. Where the hell do I find one of those? “Who ya gonna call?” I say aloud and my laughter sounds unhinged.

I return to the search engine and type: Maine ghost investigations.

A fresh page with website links appears. Most of the sites are devoted to tales of haunted houses, and it seems Maine has generated scores of such stories, some of which made it onto television shows. Ghosts in inns, ghosts on highways, ghosts in movie theaters. I scroll down the list, my skepticism growing. Rather than true hauntings, these look like mere myths, meant to be told around campfires. The hitchhiking woman in white. The man in the stovepipe hat. I scroll down the page and am almost ready to close it when the link at the bottom catches my eye.

Help for the Haunted. Professional Ghost Investigations, Maine.

I click on the link. The website is sparse, only a brief statement of purpose: