Our hallway is haunted.
It is a very decent hallway, wide with high ceilings and a shining wood floor, but unconsciously, even Chris and I will circle through the whole dining room and living room just to avoid going down the hallway. It feels …. oh, I dunno… unsettling and unfavorable somehow.
To make sure the foreboding corridor was well-lit, I put new hanging fixtures down the length of it. Painted the hall a fresh, bright color. I put up picture moldings. I installed a handsome chest, a tapestry and sconces in the nook off to the right. Yet the long passageway still feels somehow contrary to the rest of the cottage — neither charming nor warm, and not welcoming at all. No. Not welcoming at all.
Children have never lived in this home, and I think queers have always resided here. Our Tudor is over 80 years old, built for one of the first female professors at SMU. She lived alone. Then two gay men lived here for many decades until they both died of AIDS. The neighbors mourn them still, and several have said it was the goal of this gay couple to finish remodeling before they died. They did a real bang-up job, but I think one of them still walks down my hallway.
When you sleep in our guest room, at approximately 7:30 every morning your eyes will suddenly open as you hear four rather ungraceful but definitely purposeful steps down our hall. If you are already awake, you will also hear it. Always four steps. Always the same gait. Always the same time. All of our overnight friends have witnessed this. In the morning, sometimes folks will ask Christine if she was up early. I won’t name names, but these footsteps have frighten more than one guest right out of bed and into other rooms far away from that corridor. Never having heard the story, even Christine’s 80 year-old grandmother asked about the footsteps a few weeks ago. Tiny grandma heard four heavy paces passing her door at 7:30 every morning while she was here. Braver than most, she looked down the hall and saw no one there.
While I don’t care for that hallway, the sound of steps does not scare me nor make me particularly uneasy. I just think it is an odd, quirky thing inherent to an old house, like the way our closet doors stick in the winter.
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