Have you seen my roommate?

Just for fun, a ghost bride watches over trick-or-treaters from the balcony of Belle Ami.

I should have spent the day painting the balcony trim (which I scraped last weekend), before the weather drops too cold, and Belle has to spend the whole winter looking haunted, but the forecast for the week is for nothing colder than it's been, so I have a bit of time. For now, I think the shabbiness kind of adds to the Halloween decor, which includes this "ghost" on the balcony.

Personally, I think the peely paint on the balcony trim is scarier than the ghost, but she's not bad, either.  Click for a closer view...if you dare!

When you have an old house, like my 105-year-old Belle Ami, it is inevitable that people will ask if you have a ghost.  I certainly get the question often enough, and I've always answered in the negative.  The people who built the house, and those who lived here since then, were by all accounts contented, and of religious beliefs that would not (to my thinking) make them likely to hang around after the fact.  I'm not a ghost enthusiast, but I believe in the possibility of their existence. I even believe I might have seen one, as a young child, though I couldn't say for certain.  I've only twice here in Belle had any sense that there might be a ghost, but both circumstances were so vague and fleeting, I'd not change my answer based on them.  I have changed my answer, though.

Last summer, I dog sat for client-friends.  Luke, an old Australian shepherd mix, and Ruby, a young pup of the same breed, came to stay for a long weekend.  Once their humans hit the road, I invited my four-legged guests to come in for a tour of the house.  As Ruby was only recently housebroken, I watched her carefully as she circled from the back porch, through the art room, the dining room, the living room, and into the front foyer, with Luke not far behind.  She was moving along quickly, nose to the floor, not really paying attention to anything above ankle level, when she came to the chair in the corner, one of a pair flanking the game table.  Suddenly, she jumped back, looking up at about the height of the face of someone sitting in the chair, then keeping her eyes trained there, she skirted around the area warily, and continued on into the kitchen.

Does an unseen guest sit in this chair?  Perhaps...

I was wondering what that was all about when old Luke, who paid no attention to any of my other furniture, before or after this, walked up to the chair, laid his head on the seat of it for a moment, looked up as if at the face of someone seated there, then walked away.  Ruby skittishly avoided that corner all weekend, but Luke took no more notice of it.  My own dog, McKinley the malamute never reacted to the corner, either way.

So, I wonder if old Judge Whitlock, whose desk sat here at one time, liked dogs, but had no patience for pups.  Maybe his son, Friend Jay, who built the house, has come back to the home he lost during the Great Depression, when he extended too much credit to customers at his lumber yard.  Perhaps his wife Emmaline Conlin, or his sister Dorlisca, both women who fought for the right to vote, and promoted education for all, wander through to see what I'm making of my freedoms, and their house.  Maybe it's not a Whitlcok at all, but one of the later residents, though sweet Renatta was so looking forward to hanging out with Jesus, and seeing her beloved Virgil, I can't imagine she would wander back through here.  She visited me once, after she moved to the nursing home, and was delighted with the changes I was making.  "It's a house with possibilities." she said.  All kinds of possibilities, apparently...
Hope your Halloween is only as scary as you like it!