Monthly Archive for October, 2011

As readers of my blog have been learning this month with all the spooky special events, I love Halloween! So I just had to invite Darcia Helle, author of the ghost story/mystery novel Into the Light, to visit my blog. Boy, am I glad that I did as Darcia has a real life ghost story to share with you. If you’d like to get into the Halloween spirit, read Darcia’s anecdote below and then rush to get a print or e-book copy of Into the Light.

Max Paddington, the main character in my novel Into The Light, is a ghost. He refuses to cross over until he finds out who murdered him. Unfortunately for Max, he is somewhat ineffectual as a ghost. He’s clumsy, can’t figure out how to navigate the world in his spirit form, and only one person hears him. The journey is an odd one for Max and his unlikely partner, private detective Joe Cavelli.

Max’s stubborn attachment goes a lot deeper than finding his killer. Of course, this is fiction – or maybe it’s not. Can our spirits linger here in this world because of what we perceive as unfinished business? Can we haunt people? Help people?

Based on my own experiences, I’d have to say yes to those questions. I know, you now think I’m crazy. But hear me out. I grew up in a haunted house. What might sound even stranger is that I never found it odd to be living with a ghost. Our house was an old New England tenement. My mother, my brother and I lived on the first floor. My grandparents lived above us. The third floor was a full-sized attic. Two of the rooms were completely finished, with heat, wallpaper, nice windows, closets, etc. The central area of the attic had windows, a floor and heat but the walls and ceiling remained open, unfinished. The house was the first built on the street named for its builder. The owner lived and died in that house.

While our ghost was a living person, he became quite ill. He eventually moved into the attic space, into one of the finished rooms. His nurse lived in the other finished room. We assume he did this in order to rent out the two floors below for income. He died up there, in one of those rooms. His body was removed but his spirit never left. Our ghost wasn’t mean or, for me, scary. Not everyone in my family agreed on that last point. Our ghost was definitely mischievous. And this I loved about him.

My street was called Stetson Street and I called our ghost Mr. Stetson. He would often play practical jokes, move things around and occasionally something he didn’t like – or maybe he liked a lot – disappeared. When I was very young, my mother had three plaques hanging on our kitchen wall; Hope, Charity and Faith. One day, one of those plaques disappeared. No trace of it was ever found. I don’t remember which one, though I wish I did. That word must have been significant to Mr. Stetson.

My grandfather did carpentry work and always wore work boots. At night, he’d put his shoes on the base of the attic stairs. He’d get up in the morning to find them laced upside down and tied in a nice bow near the toe of the boot. Mr. Stetson enjoyed his pranks. At about the age of 12, I began spending much of my time in the attic. My brother had one of the finished rooms, I had the other. We moved our stereos up there, arranged the rooms with old furniture and hung our music posters on the walls. I remember one day I was in the middle of hanging my posters and I ran out of tape. I ran downstairs for more. When I came back, one of my posters was upside down. Another was missing. I said, “Mr. Stetson, you don’t like The Who? That’s okay. I’ll hang a different poster instead.”

As I mentioned, I liked Mr. Stetson. I spoke to him all the time. My brother, however, wasn’t as enamored with Mr. Stetson’s presence.
One day, when I was 13 or 14, I was in my grandmother’s kitchen with her, baking donuts. My brother, who is two years older, came charging down the attic stairs. His face was pale, his eyes wide. He raced past us and downstairs into our apartment. He refused to talk about what he’d seen or heard. To this day, I don’t know what happened up there. But my brother never returned to the attic.

I was not in the least bit deterred by my brother’s fright. In fact, I was thrilled to have the attic to myself. One room became my second bedroom. The other room was my hangout, where I kept my stereo, my books and my notebooks for writing. I spent nearly every weekend up there, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. I always felt Mr. Stetson’s presence. Each day, I’d greet him with a hello or good morning. He’d occasionally remove a poster I’d hung or rearrange them to suit his mood. Little things would disappear or move from one room to the other. But he never scared me or my friends.

My mother remarried when I was 15. We moved to a new home of our own. My grandparents sold the house and moved down to Cape Cod. I was sad to leave Mr. Stetson. I often wonder what held him to our physical world, to that house. Was he that attached to his home or did something else hold him there? I hope that he was happy in his spirit state and that he was able to find whatever he was looking for.

On a side note, I found it interesting that, after we left, Mr. Stetson’s house was never kept by one owner for very long. Every two or three years, I’d notice it up for sale once again. About twenty years passed before one owner seemed to settle in. Either Mr. Stetson finally approved or he’d moved on to his new spirit home.
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Here is more about Darcia’s book Into the Light: Max Paddington refuses to go into the light until he finds his killer. This presents a dilemma, since Max is even less competent as a spirit than he was as a live person. No one sees or hears him and he can’t manage to get anywhere or do anything on his own. Joe Cavelli is a private investigator, living an ordinary life. Then one day he walks across a parking lot, gets yelled at by a ghost, and his life only gets stranger from there. Max and Joe team up to find Max’s killer. In the process, they form an unlikely friendship and change each other’s lives in ways they never expected.

Darcia is also the author of several other suspense and romantic suspense novels including The Cutting Edge, Hit List, Miami Snow, Enemies and Playmates, No Justice and Beyond Salvation, and she is also the founder of Bestseller Bound, a site that brings indie authors and readers together. Visit her web site , follow Darcia on Twitter, and check out her books below.