THE ROOM
UPSTAIRS
children lived and died on this prime spot to watch British comings and goings from New York Harbor during the American Revolution.
I visited Spy House in the ‘90s. People said that the place was haunted, but as I walked the grounds and toured the first floor I felt nothing but balmy salt air sweeping in from the bay -- until I got to the second floor. The moment that I set foot in the nearest bedroom to the stairs my head was slammed with nausea, my body labored to move, and my lungs struggled to breathe in the thick and heavy air. I began feeling dizzy, like I was
stuck in the backseat of a weaving car, and my face prickled as if I were lying under an old-fashioned sunlamp. I left the room quickly and ran downstairs.
Spy House has long been the focus of ghost hunters, psychics, and mediums. A medium sensed a man named Tom with pointy shoes, a prominent nose, shoulder length hair, and a mustache. History lists Thomas Whitlock among the original 1648 settlers. Another saw Indians peering through the windows, breaking down the door and hatcheting the occupants, while another became aware of pirates murdering enemies on the property. A psychic sensed Revolutionary War patriots strategizing on the first floor and the wandering spirit of a man, hanged nearby for treason. Another saw American rebels torturing a
British spy, while another reported a man standing watch in an upstairs window, and a woman who roamed the halls. A docent saw a female float from the attic and wander into a bedroom. Someone saw children in Dickensian-style clothing playing outside, while a group of boys reported a man in a black top hat and a long beard. Later, a female visitor described the same man. Someone saw a lady in an upstairs window gazing toward the bay, after which a medium identified the spirit as ‘Abigail,’ who didn’t realize that she was dead.
Spy House is occasionally open to the public. So, if you’re interested in gauging your own ability to sense the other side, why not arrange a visit?
© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com
TIME TO MEET
YOUR FATHER
"I think that I have your father. This man says that he's your father."
“Where is he?” My sister asked. “Is he okay?”
The healer drew in a breath. “Well, he’s not in heaven and he’s not in hell. He’s in-between.” She paused again. “He says that it’s a nice place. He says that he’s there because they’re telling him that he still has issues to work out.”
“Alright,” my sister replied apprehensively.
“Okay, okay, all right, I’ll ask her.” The healer seemed besieged. “He’s
bombarding me with questions.” That would be my father. “He wants to know how things went at the bank. Did you get the money?”
My father’s father died before his son's second birthday, so my father grew up in a financially insecure household, to put it mildly. As a result, Daddy developed a life-long need to stash away money (much of it in the lining of an old coat).
“Tell him that everything worked out fine,” my sister replied.
“He seems a little high-strung.” The healer was being diplomatic.
“You have no idea,” my sister shot back.
"He says that he wants you to be sure," the medium continued.
“He’s asking if you’re sure that you got it all?”
“Tell him that I’m sure, not to worry, we got everything.”
“Well, I don’t get this.” The psychic seemed confused. “He seems completely surrounded by women.”
My sister laughed. “That makes total sense!” My father’s mutual attraction to the opposite sex was a never-ending source of entertainment, for everyone but my mother.
“Okay, I’ll tell her,” the medium ended. “He says that he’s got to go. They’re taking him to meet his father,” the father that he never knew.
© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com
THE
CALL-IN
place. I couldn’t resist.
The email arrived a month later: the team would rendezvous after dark the day after Thanksgiving at the usual spot in Pennsylvania Amish country. The author attached a specifically worded meditation to recite for three weeks. I duly complied, then hopped in the car on the designated day for a long, wet, 3-hour drive. I arrived in drizzly fog and
parked near a large, corrugated steel building with a long plot of grassland, about two football fields in length, behind it sheltered by a long, dark, low mountain ridge rising about 300 feet. “How in the world will we see anything in this fog?” I thought. I could barely see my hand in front of my face and certainly not a plane or a star. The team began to pace back and forth eagerly. After 20 long minutes I caught sight of a steady, unmoving, bright light materializing about 75 feet above the mountain in the fog. The team got excited. “There they are!” The light had a Star of Bethlehem quality about it, a simple stationary
radiance in the sky. “No roads in those mountains and no houses,” the author called out. After 10 minutes of gazing in wonder at the star, a handful of twinkling orbs suddenly began to bob and float at the foot of the mountain. The author grabbed his camera and ran toward them. I stayed where I was.
A few weeks later he sent me his photos. The orbs had an opaquely translucent, slightly iridescent quality.
Well, that is the story. No sound effects. No meet-and-greet. No voices in the night. Just a big, fat, bright light and a passel of bobbing orbs -- just another night in our crowded multiverse.
© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com
EVERY BOY
NEEDS A FRIEND
I and told Jason that his name was Mr. Twining. The two became fast friends, and Jason looked forward to their frequent talks. Mr. Twining would speak about the West Woods, Poverty Hallow and The Devil’s Kitchen, as well as his neighbor Mary Hotchkiss and the “hardships faced on account of so many people moving away.”
Jason oved recounting his friend's
stories, but he couldn't understand why his family kept calling Mr. Twining "imaginary." As far as Jason could see, Mr. Twining was skin and bones like everybody else. One day Jason’s grandmother said that she believed him. She’d been looking at the town records. Apparently, before the municipalities of Burlington, Canton, Avon, and Farmington came into being, the lands west of Hartford were called the West Woods, and a Mary Hotchkiss had lived a few doors down. But Jason’s grandmother truly came around when she found the list of prior owners of her
property, and among the names: Twining
That Winter an ice storm hit Burlington and cracked apart the marble step leading up to his grandmother’s front door. In April workmen came to replace it. The stoop was heavy, but eventually they pried it loose and set the pieces upright. It seems that the stone was never meant to be a step. It was a headstone, and the name carved across it read: Twining.
After the pieces were moved to the town cemetery, Jason was sad to find that his friend no longer came around. He was finally at rest.
© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com