kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A really ghostly tour.... There is that which walks with us...but is not of us.... In the summer, I work for a little outfit in York, ME called Ghostly Tours. www.ghostlytours.com , if you’re interested and touring the area. We operate out of the storefront of Gravestone Artwear, which is a lovely little goth shop, specializing in t-shirts with gravestone rubbing designs. The owner, Paulette, is a grand person with a wonderful sense of humor about her business, and it makes a good partnership for Ghostly Tours. The tour itself is a little outside walking tour around the middle of York—it loops around the downtown, down into and then out of the little graveyard, and back again whilst relating bits of ancient scandal, ghost stories, ghost tales, and bits of superstition. York is a typical, lovely little seaside New England town, and I enjoy myself—it’s definitely not a particularly literary form of storytelling for someone who once performed the Odyssey, but I generally like my tours, like my groups, make some mild off-color jokes, and everyone has a good time. And the tips aren’t bad, either. But apparently we’ve had a visitor. Okay, I’m not kidding here. Yes, it’s my job to tell ghost stories. But. I walked into work last night to lead my tour at eight, and G., my boss, says to P. (the other guide) and I—“you guys, you have to listen to this. Kethrai, there was a lady on your tour last week—she was taking pictures, down by the bottom of the graveyard? By the urn?” We nod—the urn is about 20 feet away from the stone wall that borders the tiny graveyard. (By that point in the tour, it is worth noting that ALL my visitors are out of the graveyard, and could not easily get back over the wall without it being really visible.) “Well, she was taking pictures with her digital camera, and she swears to high heaven that there’s a woman in white standing INSIDE THE WALL OF THE GRAVEYARD. She even brought over her laptop during the day and showed Paulette the picture, and PAULETTE swears up and down it really looks like a ghost. I haven’t seen the picture yet, but the woman who took it lives in town and I’ve called her.” I’ve been racking my brain ever since. I usually give two tours a week, and people are often taking pictures, seeing as us guides are dressed in long black robes with candle lanterns and fake knives dripping with latex paint. It’s a little hard to miss us. But I think I remember the night, and the lady…. and I’m willing to swear there was no one wandering around the graveyard at that point in the tour. Occasionally, earlier in the summer, a random tourist will be in the graveyard when the tour goes through. By now, at this part of the summer, and by the time the picture would have been taken (and by the location, I know the time—at that point in my tour, I’m usually 50 minutes into things, so that would be about 8:50 P.M.) it’s pretty dang dark. All the people who like to ooh and aaah over the quaint darling gravestones have gone off to a quaint darling bar or their quaint darling B&B for the night. It’s actually pretty rare that we meet many pedestrians on the tour, and never down around that end of the graveyard. York is the kind of town that rolls up its sidewalks at five pee-em, thank you, and pretty much we’re the only game in town for touristy activity that involves strolling about the downtown. If there had been anyone left in the graveyard by the time we got out of it and headed to the urn, I would have noticed. There is a part of my brain that is coldly rational. The three words that matter the most are “Show me proof”. There is another part of my brain that insists on throwing salt over my left shoulder when I spill some, and accepts tranquilly that I grew up in a haunted house. I did, from the time I was 3 until I was 13. Stephen was a well-mannered soul. And I’ve been reading ghost stories all my life. I love them. I love those cheesy shows on television about ghosts, the worse-done the better. I’ve read accounts of hauntings and debunkings. They each feed the respective parts of my brain. I’ve maintained for years that finding your storyteller’s voice is like being a little bit possessed—like something bigger, more powerful than you is actually speaking through you. I know the stories from Ghostly Tours so well now, that I think I could recite them in my sleep—and I can concentrate on putting them over well, rather than worrying about remembering them. There is something equally primitively satisfying about listening to a storyteller…we are mesmerized in spite of ourselves. Kids tend to be more blasé—adults are always surprised to be caught in the magic net of words. I know I always am... So in some part of my heart, it seems entirely right that someone was listening, caught in the storyteller’s net—and I hope we don’t disturb her rest too badly. When G. gets a hold of a copy of that picture, though, I want to see for myself. 5:36 p.m. - 2002-07-26 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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