Page 70 of Is This for Real?
“Welcome to the haunted mansion of New York,” a wavery voice whispers as we enter. The hallway is fairly narrow and dimly lit with an ornate, wooden staircase ahead of us. About eight other people are in the hallway. A door clangs shut. I flinch. Rory puts his arm around me.More fake dating advice for my protagonist: definitely go on a haunted house tour.
A person in a long, flowing, black gown holding a candle welcomes us. She directs us to enter the parlor.
A coffin covered with flowers holds center stage there. A fire crackling in the fireplace, and candles on the mantel, provide the only light. The curtains are drawn, and the air smells of camphor. I wouldn’t want to work here. I’m going to smell of camphor if we stay in this room for very long.
“Please pay your respects to our patriarch. Then you may sit in the wooden chairs along the wall. The couches are off-limits. The relatives are still sitting there.” She chuckles.
I shiver. I don’t believe in ghosts, but the dim lighting and the very real-looking mannequin in the coffin are definitely creepy. I hope it’s not an actor who is going to pop up and scare us. The wide-planked floor creaks as we solemnly file past the coffin and sit on the wooden chairs. I whisper to Rory that we should make sure we are in the middle of the group—harder to surprise.
An eerie whistle breaks the silence.
Rory whispers, “I need to add that to my Halloween party soundtrack.”
A man enters, wearing a black suit that looks like it’s from the nineteenth century. He tells us about the ghostly visits that employees and visitors have experienced—mostly from Miss Ingrid, the last resident of the family who owned this house before it became a museum. She died in the 1930s, in her nineties. A log cracks on the fire. Everyone jolts. He speaks in a very low, very deep voice, forcing us all to lean forward to hear him. It has the atmosphere of ghost stories over a campfire, heightened by the coffin with the dead guy in front of us. “See the original plaster. The egg and the dart. Symbolizing life and death. The line between life and death is very close. We may not think that today, but back then, the thought was ever-present.”
I know that. One day I had my parents, the next day, I didn’t.
“For Miss Ingrid was only twenty-five when her father died. Life and death. Life and death.” He breathes the words out. I shiver. Rory takes my hand.
“Are you okay?” he whispers. His nose brushes my hair. I shiver for a different reason.
“This is eerier—more morbid—than I expected,” I say.
A door slams ahead of us.
The man says, “It’s time for us to depart. They are calling us.”
We leave the room and walk up the staircase to the second floor.
The man says, “Not only Ingrid, the final mistress of the house, comes to visit. Other family members also appear from time to time. One employee saw Ingrid’s sister leaning over the railing on the landing. Do you feel the concentration of energy at the top of the stairs?” We are now standing at the top of the stairs. The landing is lit by one light and our guide’s candlelight.
One woman says she does feel it. She’s closed her eyes and is humming.
I whisper to Rory, “Do you think they plant actors among the guests?”
His hand tightens around mine.
“Let’s go to Ingrid’s bedroom,” the man says.
The floor creaks as the ten of us narrowly file down the hallway toward the bedroom. A cobweb hits me in the face, and I shriek. It’s fake, but effective.
“I’d also recommend cobwebs in the pitch dark for your party,” I whisper to Rory.
The woman at the front screeches. “I didn’t see the mannequin until the last minute,” she says. Now we’re all forewarned. At the end of the landing, next to the door, is a wax figure dressed in black, gesturing for us to go into the bedroom.
A mannequin in a white nightgown is sitting up in a wooden bed, looking very Ebenezer Scrooge.
“Close your eyes. Can you feel the energy in the room?” the man asks. This room has a different, stuffy smell of linen that’s been in the closet for too long.
We file through the bedroom into a well-lit room, where photographs of rooms from the house hang on the wall. Our tour leader shows us how each has an unexplained, glowing orb. It’s definitely peculiar.
We tour the rest of the house, following the flickering candle. I hold tightly to Rory’s hand, but no more cobwebs.
The tour is over, and we leave by the front entrance.
“That was weirdly spooky,” I say. The wind is cold off the East River. I button up my coat and wrap my scarf around my neck. Most of the stores on the block are now closed.
“Yeah. Were you okay when they . . . ?” Rory looks at me, concerned.
