BELFAST, MAINE - HAUNTED HOUSE

BELFAST, MAINE - HAUNTED HOUSE
                                  - Donna DiPietro

I met my friend Tina in the mid 1960s when we were working for Kemper Insurance. The company had an office on an upper floor in the Music Hall building on Tremont Street in Boston, in the heart of the theatre district. The Music Hall is now the Wang Center where Broadway shows and the famous still take center stage in the beautiful grand theatre. We were right out of high school, before we decided what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives. Tina eventually graduated from nursing school and was a nurse for many years. She had a wonderful family and we all got together for special occasions. Her sister Joanne was a few years older than Tina, and married with three young children. Each summer Joanne, her husband Jim and their children went to a coastal town in Maine for two weeks to house sit their in-laws’ beautiful estate that sat on eighty-eight acres. Joanne’s sister-in-law was an artisan who made lovely ceramics and fine jewelry and needed someone to tend her store while she was away. There were also some hens, roosters and a few sheep on the property that needed daily attention. The estate consisted of a large 1790s white colonial with black shutters, a smaller building that was used as the store, and a barn. In the summer of 1969 Joanne invited Tina and me to accompany her family on their two week excursion and we all looked forward to having a fun time. When we arrived at the house, Joanne’s sister-in-law, brother-in-law and their two teenage children greeted us warmly and had a delicious dinner waiting. We had a wonderful time that evening singing songs of long ago as I played the old upright piano that sat in the living room. The in-laws were leaving the next morning to their vacation spot on an island off the coast of Maine, and they filled us in on what was needed to make sure everything ran smoothly while they were away.

As the days went by, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until about the third night. Tina and I shared a bedroom and a noise woke both of us up at the same time, and the strong floral scent of a woman’s perfume filled the room. We silently listened and heard soft footsteps and saw the shadowy figure of a woman in a long dress glide between our beds. The form dissipated within a few seconds and I reached over to the night table and turned on the light. We were both frightened and stayed up the rest of the night with all the lights on in the room. The next morning we told Joanne and Jim what had happened. Joanne was very interested but her husband would have nothing to do with such foolishness. Joanne admitted that she had a similar experience two summers before and had since felt uneasy being there. She was now convinced there was a ghostly presence and she wouldn’t go anywhere in the house alone.

One evening, with the three children safely in their beds asleep, Joanne, Jim, Tina and I sat on the living room floor playing cards. Joanne asked me to use my psychic abilities and tell her things that came to mind. I started saying names and nicknames of people and private things about these people that only she and her husband knew. They were amazed that I was getting this information from somewhere because I certainly would never know otherwise. I then said that something was going to happen at ten o’clock that evening. I had no idea what was going to happen at ten o’clock but I knew that it had to do with the house. We were intrigued, but making light of the fact that something would actually happen. At the time, it was around eight o’clock and we said we would all meet in the living room well before ten o’clock to see what awaited us. At around 9:45 p.m. we were once again all sitting on the living room floor, and now looking at our watches and at the antique clock that hung on the wall. The clock’s pendulum swung back and forth and counted down each second as the minute hand got closer to ten o’clock. Only five more minutes, only one more minute, seconds to go…get ready.  As the hour hand was on the ten and the minute hand struck the twelve, a huge bang reverberated throughout the house. It sounded like something large and heavy had slammed against the outside of the house. At exactly the same time as the huge bang sound, all the lights went out in the house. We couldn’t believe what had just happened, even Jim was apprehensive. He got a flashlight and went outside to see if something had fallen against the house. He walked around the house’s exterior and came back in and said he didn’t see anything that may have fallen against the house. A short time later, we learned that the water was no longer working. None of us slept well that night and were shaken by what we had experienced. The next morning at exactly ten o’clock the electricity and water came back on. Tina and I took a short walk to the general store and mentioned what had happened at the house. We asked if anyone else had experienced electrical or water problems the previous evening, and we were told that none had. If it was a ghost that caused this to happen, it certainly had a great sense of humor. I can imagine the entity watching and waiting for us to jump at its practical joke. It was a good joke, I must admit, and apparently the ghost gave me the info to pass on to the others that something would happen at ten o’clock that evening. The rest of our stay was uneventful but we were on alert for anything unusual until we were safely on our way home.