Browse:Mysterious Door (Volume 1, entries 90–92)
Mysterious Door
Volume 1, entries 90–92. Source context: SPIRITS → GHOSTLORE. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 90
My mother died and I didn't like to stay with strangers and I went to this lady's house to work. And while I was getting supper one night, this noise, something fell very hard upstairs and jarred the house so, that Mrs. J. and her mother, her sister-in-law and a fellow by the name of Ed and myself, all armed and went up, thinking because there were valuable things ir the house, that someone had broke in, but there wasn't a thing could be seen on the floor anywhere. Lots of times when I used to go up tc make this young man's bed I had to pass a room they called the Red Room. Every- thing in there was red, partly red. Every time I got against this door, thie dooı would open. But I didn't see no one come out. And I was afraid to go down\be- cause I would have to call some of them down there to see me down the steps. Anc many many times they used to see soldiers marching across the garden. And that house Was supposed to be han'ted. They used it for a hospital in the time of the [Civil] War. That's about five miles from Brandy Station [Culpeper Co., Va.].
Entry 91
If your door opens and shuts, some of your [dead] relatives are passing through the house.
The source brackets dead as an editorial insertion; it remains separate from the unbracketed conditional belief.
Entry 92
If you leave the house and lock the door and go away and come back and find it open, after awhile you'll wonder, "What's the matter? I'm sure I locked that door. Every time I come back the door is open." You get it in your mind somebody has died here and they didn't want anyone to come back in here to live. It wants it to remain just as they left it. Their family has got out and they feel the house should stay empty.