The Haunting of Greenhill Manor

Our house is only twenty-three years old, we know the last owners, no one has died in it, and aside from being on Wamsutta’s and Metacomet’s old hunting ground, we know of no reason that it should be haunted. And yet.

Last night, the house alarm jarred us awake at 1:45 am. This has happened three times in the last couple of years. The last time it happened about a year ago, I was headed downstairs with a weapon in hand when the alarm ceased and Lauren helpfully called out, “Don’t worry! I turned off the alarm!” We can only assume she was talking to her co-conspirator so he could kill me while no police were called, but she must not have promised him enough of a cut of the life insurance because, when I got to the ground floor, I found an empty house.

Lauren next helpfully explained that one of the living room windows had been tripped and it must have been either wind and air pressure or the tree growing just outside the living room.

Nonsense. If it wasn’t the conspiracy, it was the ghost.

The ghost started showing up about two or three years into our stay here. In the middle of the night back then (again!), I awoke to the sound of a steady drone. I couldn’t place where it was coming from for a few minutes, then eventually tracked it to the master bathroom where I discovered that we had a space heater built into the vanity (didn’t know that!), and it had been switched on. This is a manual switch—you have to push it to get it on. The space heater trick has happened twice more since, always around three a.m.

I’ve had at least two instances of being in the restroom, the door closing as though it’s being pulled, reopening it, and finding the bedroom empty. Our niece stayed with us for a summer and came up one night from the bedroom in the walkout basement because she swore she heard a man dragging a metal trash can across the porch near the bedroom. Another time, Lauren came home from working out in the mid-morning and left her phone downstairs on the island and plugged in. When she got out of the shower, she heard music playing. She dressed and went downstairs to find that her phone was open to the Pandora app and playing a brand-new station (our ghost likes Fleetwood Mac!). And yet, another time, Lauren awoke and went to an app to map out a run for that day and found that the app had already recorded a run that morning—at one a.m. and around our whole neighborhood.

Somewhat creepier, two summers ago, the power went out for a few hours. We told Graham he could sleep in the same room with Lucia since it was so dark. As we got ready for bed, we heard Graham exclaim, “Stop it!” Then silence. Then, “Stop it, Lucia!” Then silence again. And finally, “Stop whispering in my ear, Lucia!” That finally woke up Lucia who said, “What’s going on, Graham?”

Mostly, we don’t feel scared. Now and again, the inexplicable happens, and we acknowledge the ghost, and then we move on.

Last night? Well, in this case, Lauren first thought the alarm was her insulin pump. Then we figured out it was the house alarm, and this time, she let the alarm ring until I announced that the house was clear of intruders. The wind or the tree? Almost certainly not. The ghost? Pretty good chance. Another attempted murder of Gordon? We can’t rule that out—after all, Lauren just has to call the alarm company and give the safe word to call off the cops. Maybe one of these times, she’ll get the price right and her co-conspirator will finish the job.