The Ghost of Bricken Chase

Adapted from a short story by Oscar Wilde, “The Canterville Ghost”

The Ghost of Bricken Chase – Chapter One

When Silas Hamsack IV, Vice President of Midasi University, got the job as President of New Green University and began to move into Bricken Chase, the official president’s home, everyone told him he was making a mistake. Bricken Chase, a stunning Georgian home with magnificent pillars that housed every New Green president since the school’s founding in 1804, was haunted. The chairman of the university Board of Trustees, Mr. Canterton, a former New Green president himself, wanted his new leader to have all the facts before fully moving in.

“We didn’t want to live in this house in the latter years of my presidency,” said Mr. Canterton, whose service lasted several decades, “since my wife’s cousin, the head of the psychology department at Harvard, was frightened out of her mind as she got ready to join us for dinner on a visit here from Cambridge. I feel an obligation to tell you, the ghost roaming these halls has been seen by several members of my family, as well as our parish priest, Father Timothy O’Reilly, the pastor over at Our Lady of Generalized Anxiety. After the unfortunate scene with cousin Carey, my own family wouldn’t stay here any longer, and because of the strange and frightening noises echoing from the halls and library at night, Mrs. Canterton slept so lightly she began to nod off in her soup at lunch.”

“Mr. Canterton, I appreciate your concern,” said Hamsack, “and I take it under advisement. But I come from a college where we have entrepreneurial geniuses forming successful companies their first week in the dorms. I figure if they knew there was a real ghost here in Bricken Chase, they would have already put it on stage alongside a rap star and taken it on the road to make millions.”

“Well, the ghost is real,” said Mr. Canterton with a half-smile. “It may be holding out for a better deal from an established entertainment agency than your budding entrepreneurs can offer, I don’t know. But it has been well-documented since 1823 and always drops in before a death in the university president’s family.”

“Well, so do a parade of medical specialists before we take our final bow in this world, Mr. Canterton. Look, I’m aware the Athenia area has a long reputation for being haunted. However, despite various reports over the years of ghosts, goblins and other nonsense, I doubt science will suspend its rules for a university president or anyone else.”

“Very well, then,” Mr. Canterton replied. He did not fully grasp Mr. Hamsack’s point of view, but as an educator he learned to tolerate similar pontifications from a variety of professors, students, staff and parents over the years. “If you are comfortable sharing your home with a ghost, you are more than welcome. Please note I warned you.”

That summer, Mr. Hamsack and his family moved into Bricken Chase. Mrs. Hamsack, the former Miss Miranda S. Purden, originally from Chicago’s Wicker Park area, spent her early twenties among other socialites in that city. The lines around her eyes belied her age, but a strict vegan diet, plenty of tennis and hours on a Peloton three times a week kept her in shape. A privileged upbringing helped her move easily among the well-heeled alumni at Midasi University fund-raisers, and her quick smile and general interest in nearly everyone she met made her popular among the students, staff and townies as well.

They named her first born Warren to honor Mr. Hamsack’s grandfather who fought in the war. His classmates often made fun of him by stretching the syllables out: “Waaaaarrreeennn! Your mother’s calling! Warrrrreeeeennnnnn!” His blond hair, blue eyes and all-American chin fit right at home on the tennis courts at Midasi where he spent most of his youth throwing rackets. He eventually grew out of yelling at chair umpires twice his age and his mother’s easy charm emerged. He spent days online playing poker or betting on friend’s horses at Bellborn Downs and nights in college bars like Wonder Den, Hyacinth and the Red Wave.

Vanessa L. Hamsack, fifteen, spent time after school riding her horse Arabella at Crosspost Stables. She looked like a younger version of her mother, blonde with gleaming white teeth. Once she raced Olympic-medalist Mark Sustain around the paddock at Crosspost, smoking him by a full length, just in front of the large trophy case near the entrance. Ward Beaman was so excited at the win he cheered, throwing his riding helmet in the air. He jumped the paddock boards and proposed marriage on the spot, Arabella turning her neck to watch him on one knee. As they were only fifteen, his alarmed parents sent him sobbing back home to their ranch-style house on the least desirable street of their country club development. Vanessa’s younger twin brothers, known by most simply as “Loud and Louder,” wore pressed Madras shorts and classic Izod shirts. They didn’t carry their lunch in briefcases, but only because their mother forbade it.

The Hamsacks piled in the family Range Rover to travel across Southern Ohio from Oxingham to Athenia. The flat land north of Cincinnati slowly turned into the Hodling Hills. The sun was high in the sky and the air thick with summer humidity, so Mr. Hamsack pulled the windows up and turned on the air conditioning. Warren insisted on playing his Spotify rap playlist, but Mrs. Hamsack overruled him in favor of a Katy Perry list “we can all enjoy.”

Vanessa looked out the window. Farmhouses built by German immigrants who flooded Ohio in the mid-1800s dotted the countryside. Cows stood motionless or found refuge from the searing sun beneath oak and hickory trees ringing the fields. Red-shouldered hawks cried “keeya-keeya” and Northern Bob-whites whistled along with warblers, wrens and sparrows. As they pulled up to Bricken Chase, the sun was low and the sky began to darken with steel-grey clouds. Rain began to pitter-patter on the roof as Mr. Hamsack activated the wipers and turned down their street.

Standing outside the mansion on the lawn, Mrs. Ulner waved. As the housekeeper at Bricken Chase for many years, she had helped keep things running in the home for 4 different university presidents.

“Hello! Welcome to Bricken Chase!” she said. The family followed her into the library as she drew the drapes and pointed to a side table full of soft drinks, coffee and light snacks. They looked around the room as they sampled small sandwiches and healthy appetizers Mrs. Ulner bought at the local Whole Foods uptown.

Mrs. Hamsack wandered over to the large fireplace and pointed at a large, dull red mark on the floor. “My goodness, whatever did somebody spill here?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch.

“It’s blood. Human blood.” said Mrs. Ulner.

“You have GOT to be kidding me! Whatever happened here? My Lord, we have to take care of this right away. I cannot have a huge blood stain in my own library!”

Mrs. Ulner answered slowly in a low voice, “It is the blood of Mrs. Suzette de Plushing, the wife of Charles de Plushing, the first university president. He murdered her in 1808, a few years into his term. He lived seven more years and suddenly disappeared without a trace. The police detectives were baffled. His body has never been found, but his ghost still haunts the halls of Bricken Chase. You can see the stain of his guilt right here on the floor, and it cannot be cleaned.”

“Preposterous,” piped up Warren. “In my fraternity at Midasi, we had all manner of mysterious, stubborn stains all over the place. Pinkman’s Super Champ Stain Taker-Outer handled them all! Watch!” He borrowed a cleaning rag from Mrs. Ulner, sprayed Pinkman’s all over the stain and began to scrub. After several minutes, the stain was completely gone.

“I knew it!” Warren cried. He held up the bottle next to his face as if in a TV commercial, taking on the voice of a fast-talking pitchman. “Pinkman’s Super Champ Taker-Outer can handle oil stains, grease stains, and blood stains left behind after a terrible murder in 1808! Get it today!” As the last syllable left his lips, lightning lit up the room and a fearful crack of thunder made them jump. Mrs. Ulner fainted, falling back into one of the leather chairs.

“Is the weather here always this unpredictable?” Mr. Hamsack said evenly, lighting a Sobranie Black Russian cigarette. “Is it that so many people have left southeast Ohio for Myrtle Beach, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm they are trying to scare the rest away?”

“Silas!” Mrs. Hamsack said. “Can you please deal with this? Mrs. Ulner just fainted — what are you going to do?”

“Charge her every time she faints, that’s a good start,” Mr. Hamsack replied. “That’ll cut down on her drama.” After a few minutes, Mrs. Ulner came to. Despite the short rest, she was visibly shaken and stared down Mr. Hamsack.

“Sir, with all due respect, I ask you to take this seriously. Beware the Bricken Chase ghost!” she said. “I have seen things that would make the hair of any God-fearing soul stand on end, and many nights I have shut my eyes tight, trying to forget the awful memories.” Mr. Hamsack took her arm and said, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Ulner, we are very practical people. We are not afraid of ghosts, apparitions or phantasmas.”

Mrs. Ulner looked over her glasses. “I’m sorry, sir. May God have mercy on you all.”

The Ghost of Bricken Chase – Chapter Two

The storm rose and fell in intensity all night, at times rattling the house shutters violently, but nothing notable happened. When they came down for breakfast the next morning, Warren was the first to notice the blood stain had returned. “Certainly it’s not my Pinkman’s,” he said. “That stuff never fails me. It has to be the ghost.” He applied another treatment of the cleaner and scrubbed extra hard this time, but it appeared the next morning clear as day.

Although Mr. Hamsack locked the library that night and kept the key with him at all times, the stain was still there on the third morning. The entire family discussed the phenomenon at length. Mr. Hamsack started to question his original dismissal of the existence of ghosts. Mrs. Hamsack reviewed the university catalog to see if there was any paranormal or parapsychology courses on offer, and Warren called the 1-800-number on the side of the Pinkman’s bottle to find out tips for cleaning Blood Stains of Murder Victims Killed in 1808. They no longer doubted there was someone or something inside the walls of their elegant new home.

The storm gave way to warm and sunny weather, the quick-change trick familiar to midwesterners. As the sun began to dip low that afternoon, Mr. Hamsack suggested they go for a drive and maybe an ice cream. They came back well after sunset and ate a light dinner, avoiding the topics of ghosts and blood stains entirely.

Instead, they covered a variety of subjects of interest such as how the Kardashian family has been able to capture America’s attention for so long on so little talent, whether college football players should be paid for their services, the high price of gasoline, Starbucks Frappuccinos, Hollywood’s obsession with sequels over original stories, Skyline chili, how social media is destroying the country but everyone over three has a smartphone, the ever-increasing rift between Republicans and Democrats, and Warren’s confusing explanation of mumble rap.

Nobody spoke of paranormal activity, ghosts or goblins, certainly not the topic of Charles de Plushing. Mr. Hamsack glanced at his watch. It was past eleven and the group retired for the evening. By midnight the cavernous home was quiet. An hour later, Mr. Hamsack had just turned off his reading lamp when he heard a strange noise in the hallway near the door. Clank…Clank…Clank.

He grabbed his iPhone and looked at the time. It was 105am. He felt relaxed but tired. His pulse felt normal as he rested his fingers along his wrist. The strange metal sound moved ever closer—he heard plodding footsteps as well as the sound neared the door. He held the iPhone’s screen to light up the floor and found his slippers. He grabbed his expensive toe-nail clipper, the kind that look like scissors but with a sharp, curved point. His wife bought it in Paris years ago. Opening the door, he saw an old man with wrinkled, blue-grey skin. His bulging red eyes looked like those of a delirious student trying to cram for a test the next day after skipping class all semester; he had long grey hair like Willie Nelson, but it was dirty and matted instead of a neat ponytail; his clothes were tattered and ill-fitting, barely covering his gaunt frame and the large, rusted chain and shackles he dragged across the floor.

“Sir, please,” said Mr. Hamsack. “With all due respect, you are making a terrible racket. I require you oil those chains at once. Here, take this small spray can of WB-50. I use this stuff all over the house. For everything. A few shots from this can and your chains will be quieter than Democrats the night Trump won in 2016. I’ll set it right here by the Fritz Hansen table lamp. If you need more, just ask and I’ll make sure you get it.” The president put the bottle down on the dresser, closed the door and went back to bed.

The Athenian Ghost stood quite still, seething; he lifted a bony hand in the moonlight and bashed the small aerosol against the door. It crumpled as it hit the doorknob and careened down the hall, the small plastic lid flying off. He stomped down the passage, groaning, moaning and turning several shades of eerie green light. He reached the top of the sweeping oak staircase and just as he began to descend, a door burst open, two white robes ran out and threw large pillows at him one by one. He dodged the first one directed at his head but the second caught him in the chest. “Owwww!” his cry echoed down the stairs. He stumbled back against the far wall and disappeared through the wallpaper. Instantly it was quiet again.

He retired quickly to a secret chamber. Leaning against one of the main house beams, he tried to catch his breath and think about what just happened.

Never in his stellar career of more than two centuries as an all-star ghost had he been so humiliated. He remembered Nancy Cartainwall, the wife of Eldon Cartainwall, third president of the university, who had a heart attack when he surprised her in the gift-wrapping room; of the campus pastor who developed a nervous tic after he had run his bony hands along the church leader’s back as he exited the library; and of a visiting scholar from the Sorbonne in Paris’ Latin Quarter, Madame de Exfolianton, who he terrified by standing at the foot of her bed so she screamed upon awakening and rolled out of the four-poster to the floor, breaking her hip. Within 24 hours she returned to France, gave up her membership in the Skeptics League and joined a convent.

He remembered the horrible evening [need correct person here] was discovered in his dressing room, doubled-over, gasping for air, with a jack of diamonds jammed down his windpipe. Just before he took his last breath and died, he admitted he had swindled Henry Lotham Broadgroom out of $2 million playing poker at the Borgata in Atlantic City using that same card, claiming to the end the ghost did it. All his hard work and glorious victories flooded his brain, from the driver who shot himself in the head in the garage because he saw floating hands changing a tire, to the gorgeous Lady Torreoplaya, the famous western rope rider who always wore a black bandana around her neck to hide strangulation bruises, and who drowned herself in the Hodling River near the university golf course.

With the flair and self-involvement of a bonafide “artiste,” he mulled over his best performances, feeling waves of self-satisfaction as he recalled his role as “Roxie Doxie, or the Strangled Maiden,” his entrance with such fanfare as “Gastion Gallant, the Blood-Taker of Nelsontown,” and the panic he created on a warm July night by lawn bowling on the tennis courts with his own bones as the pins. And despite these legendary displays of talent, some phonies from Midasi stand there like they’ve never seen a ghost and give him WB-50 oil and throw pillows about his person. It was all too much. No ghost in the history of the ghosting business had ever been treated this shabbily. He sat quietly until daybreak, thinking deeply about how to exact revenge on these fools.

The Ghost of Bricken Chase – Chapter Three

The ghost was the main topic of discussion at the Hamsack family breakfast table in the morning. Mr. Hamsack was miffed that the ghost had not accepted his offering with grace and thanks. “I have no desire to insult or hurt our ghost, and to be sure, considering he has been here much longer than us, not to mention it is not in keeping with our family’s standards, I suggest we don’t throw any more pillows at him,” – a comment that unfortunately caused the twins to explode into peals of laughter. “However,” he said, “if he insists on clanking around at all hours without applying my WB-50 oil to his chains, I shall have to take them away from him. How can we possibly get any sleep with such a racket going on in the hallway outside our bedrooms?”

For the next few days, the only thing of interest around the mansion was the constant reappearance of the blood stain in the library. No one could figure it out. Mr. Hamsack always locked the door every night and windows were heavily barred. The shifting shade of the stain also generated many comments. At times, it was a dullish red like wine, other mornings it was scarlet like the robes worn by the priests at Our Lady of Generalized Anxiety when they celebrated the Red Mass, then a dusty purple like sweet potatoes, and one time when they family gathered in the great room to watch the New Green Wildcats football game, it looked almost identical to the school colors. The ever-changing color was a common lead topic of conversation, like the weather, and at night they made bets on what color it would turn next, although the wagers were never actually paid. Vanessa was the only one who didn’t find the stain amusing. She made a face when the subject came up as if she felt sudden stomach pain, and when the stain turned green she almost broke down and cried.

On Sunday night, the ghost returned for a second visit. Just after quiet settled in the upstairs rooms, they heard an enormous crash in the hall. Flying down the stairs, they found the old suit of armor that stood guard with military forbearance, had fallen over on the flagstone floor, while the Athenian Ghost sat nearby in a deep leather chair, rubbing his hands together rapidly, a pained expression on his face. The twins wheeled around and emptied full clips of their nerf machine guns, with skill and precision that comes from endless nerf gun battles around the house, while Mr. Hamsack pinned him down by leveling his revolver and shouting, “Don’t move! Put up your hands!”

The ghost shrieked in anger and moved right through them, a mist of glowing green swirling around him. His sudden flight blew out Warren’s candle with a gust, the room now completely dark. At the top of the stairs, he composed himself. Steadying himself on the landing, he took a deep breath in preparation to unleash his signature demonic laugh. He was extra proud of the intensity of his devilish how because it got such great results. Rumor had it that he made Professor Ragan’s hair fall out of the top of his head, and he terrified three graduate students visiting from Prague so much they cut their two-month long stay short by six weeks and headed home.

He decided to give this one his all, shaking the walls of Bricken Chase with a truly terrifying laugh, echoing down the halls and rattling the aging roof of the mansion, but shortly after the last strains died in the distance, Mrs. Hamsack confronted him in her Bown of London fuschiaberry robe. “I’m not sure exactly what your problem is,” she said, “but I sense you are under pressure and feeling anxious. I’m going to give you some of my Dr. Dotright’s vetiver essential oil. Vetiver is from India, used for centuries to soothe the soul and reduce anxiety. You will feel immediately calmer.”

Her lecture infuriated him even more. He began to turn himself into a giant, snarling black dog, a trick that gained him renown throughout Ohio and parts of West Virginia, and a shocking image that the family psychologist attributes the mental ward hospitalization of Mr. Hamsack’s uncle, Winslow Brunslovak. He changed plans when he heard someone approaching, turning into a lime green mist and vanishing with a long, low groan just as the twins rolled up.

BLAM! BLAM! The twins discharged two pellet guns at him!

He stormed into his room, frustrated and angry. The nasty twins and Mrs. Hamsack’s relentless materialism were aggravating, but he was really upset because he wanted to wear the suit of armor. Wouldn’t Midasi University types be excited to see him strutting about the halls of Bricken Chase? If for no other reason for the poet Longfellow, whose beautiful, lyrical poetry he had spent many dismal hours reading when the Hamsack’s were uptown on Courter Street or at the Nordstrom’s at the mall.

What really rankled him was that it was his own getup. They loved it when he wore it to the Ohio State Fair in Columbus, the governor himself praising his regal bearing. But when had managed to pull on the entire ensemble that morning, the enormous breastplate and heavy steel helmet made him slowly fold and collapse. He had fallen to his knees, bruising both at the same time, pain shooting up his legs and back.

For the next few days he battled severe flu-like symptoms, spending most of his time stretched out in his room, with short ventures out to maintain the blood-stain. He slowly gained his strength and his confidence returned. He resolved to try to frighten the university president and his precious family once more. He carefully chose Friday, August 17

for his performance and took the entire day to review his wardrobe options. He settled on a large, droopy hat with a steel-blue quill stuck in the brim, a bright white burial shroud with elegant frills, and a rusty knife.

As night fell, a raging storm pummeled the mansion, the wind so strong all the doors and windows clattered and shook. He loved these storms as it was the perfect backdrop for his appearance. Here was his plan: steak into Warren Hamsack’s room and cackle loudly at the end of his bed while stabbing himself several times in the neck while ominous music played. He had a special grudge against Warren, for he was the one who kept cleaning the famous Hamsack blood-stain using his damn Pinkman’s Super Champ Stain Taker-Outer.

After reducing the over-eager, reckless Warren to a trembling child, sobbing beneath his covers, he would then move to Mr. and Mrs. Hamsack’s room, put his cold, bony hand on her forehead while he hissed to her terrified husband the horrible secrets of the charnel-house. What about Vanessa? He had not quite made up his mind about the middle child. One one hand, she was easy-going and pleasant, and had never insulted him, at least not to his face. He planned on a series of short groans from the closet, or if that didn’t get the desired effect, he might scratch at the window pane with his wretched, twisted fingers.

He was most excited to teach the arrogant twins a lesson. His order of terror was as follows: first, he would sit on their chests as they slept until nightmares filled their brains. Next, he would straddle the sides of their beds, which were arranged right next to each other, and take the form of a greyish, ice-cold corpse, driving them mad with fear, and, as a final flourish, he planned to doff the burial sheet and throw it in the air, and crawl on the floorstones with paper-white bones and a gorged, bloody eyeball hanging from his skull, an act he called “Dumb Denny, or the Burial Shroud Reveal,” refined by several quality performances, a role he put on the same level as his famous “Harold the Haunted, or the Masked Murderer.”

Around 10:30 he heard the family retiring for the evening. The wild shrieks of laughter from the twins upset him to no end, hinged with the bullying Edge that added an extra level of meanness to their shenanigans. Despite the rambunctious twins, their energy waned eventually and by 11:15, the entire house was quiet. At midnight he gathered himself and moved out into the Halls.

An owl’s wings beat against the window has its wings fluttered in the night. A raven sat in the branches of a yew-yew tree, silouhetted against the moon, the wind dancing through halls like a confused child. The Hamsacks slept soundly, unaware of their impending fate, and above the din and boom of the storm, he heard the distinct snore-sawing of the University President.

He eased away from the wainscoting, a crinkled, evil grin playing on his greyish lips, and the moon moved in and out of clouds as he glided by the great bay window, where the coat of arms of both his family and that of his murdered wife glowed azure and gold in the moonlight.

His hateful shadow danced along the wall, the darkness itself recoiling in disgust from his passing. He stopped on hearing an unknown sound in the distance; it turned out to be a howling dog from the nearby Red Farm, and he continued, mumbling curses from centuries ago, holding his trusty knife tightly in his grip.

He sneaked around the corner and made his way to Warren’s room. He stopped a moment, the night breeze blowing his long strands of grey hair in stream around his face and billowing the folds of his airy shroud.

The minute hand on the clock slowly moved to the quarter hour position. He took a moment and gathered his thoughts. The time has come. He laughed softly under his breath, and took a step around the corner; within seconds, he turned back with a hideous shriek, tucking his pale-grey face in the flowing shroud.

Within just a few feet, a tall spectre stood, still as a corpse in the graveyard, chilling as an inescapable nightmare! It’s glazed, bald head and fat, round face emitted a horrible laugh that appeared to pull its hideous features into a macabre smirk.

Rays of streaming hellfire beamed from its eyes, the mouth filled with flames and embers, its clothes a mixture of “80s Goth kid from Cleveland” and “RenFair evil knight.” Its breastplate displayed a collection of odd scratches that might have been communication from aliens, cryptic characters detailing a diary of unknown sins through space and time, and in the right hand, a sword of glistening steel.

He realized that after all these years haunting the halls, he had never seen a ghost before and became incredibly frightened. After a fleeting glance at the phantom menace, he ran back to his bed, stepping on the shroud as his fled down the hall, dropping the knife in the President’s riding boots, where the butler found it the following morning.

Once back at his room, he threw himself down on the small bed, and hid his head under the pillow. After a few minutes to gather himself and think through what just happened, his inner Canterton spirit reestablished, and he swore to have a chat with this offending ghost as soon as the sun rose.

Just as the sunlight ticked the dew on the expansive lawn, he went back to the site he first saw the terrible devil, feeling that two ghosts must surely be superior to one, and on reflection, he was feeling outmanned by the devious twins and a little help might right the odds more in his favor.

Looking up on reaching the location of the incident, he saw something terrible. The frightening ghost was deflated, the light gone from its eyeholes, the blade that danced in the light had fallen to the floor, and it leaned against the corridor in a sullen and uncoordinated heap. He grabbed its arms with force, when, to his dismay and disgust, the head fell off and bounced on the ground, the body slumped some more, and found himself holding a dirty bedspread with a broom, butcher knife and overripe turnip laying about. In the morning light slanting through the high windows he tried to piece together the situation. He snatched the placard and read these dreadful words.

YE HAMSACK GHOST

Dear Honorable and Original Ghost,

Beware of imitation phantasmas.

All the others are fake.

It dawned on him all at once. He had been duped, hoodwinked and bamboozled! The old Canterton look came into his eyes as his pupils grew; he gnashed his grey gums and, raising his arms with bony hands palm up, he looked to the skies and swore insults learned centuries before, that, when the cock crowed twice on the rise of the sun, he would rain down a bloodbath of terror on this entitled family, and murder the lot before nightfall.

In the distance, he saw a cock strutting about a distant farmhouse roof, crowing at the morning light. He snickered low and bitter and waited for several hours, but the rooster did not crow again.

At 730am, the cleaning staff began to arrive, so he gave up the fruitless wait and stumbled back to his apartment, trying to make sense of the entire incident and planning his next move. He researched his favorite books of ancient chivalry and discovered that every time his oath of death had been declared, the household rooster had always let loose a second series of crows. “Damn this dirty bird all to hell,” he mumbled. “In the old days, with my youthful strength and sharpened blade, I would have sliced him in two, and forced both halves to crow before me while I laughed!” He then found a suitable lead coffin, and rested inside until nightfall.

The Ghost of Bricken Chase – Chapter Four

The following day he felt listless and weak. The constant excitement of the last month was taking its toll. His nerves were shot. He flinched at every little sound in the old house, from the scurry of a mouse to branches blowing gently against the roof. For several days he laid holed up in his apartment, finally gathering himself on the fifth day, resolving to let the blood-stain go.

The Hamsacks didn’t want it there, so they obviously didn’t deserve it. Evidently, they were basic, incapable of appreciating the artistic value of unexplained phenomena. Over the years, he noticed each generation had become more crass than the one before. Appreciation for elegance, art and beauty has gone out the window. The sad part was they didn’t even realize they lived each day consumed with materialism and the Dr. Phil show.

The topic of ghostly incidents, and the repeated occurrences of floating spirits, was quite a different thing as he didn’t have any say in the matter. He was duty bound to materialize in the hallway every week, and to do his best to terrify the residents from the huge bay window every first and third Wednesday, and required by honor and tradition to fulfill this obligation to the best of his ability without complaint. While it is true he had done some evil things, on the other hand he was meticulous in his presentation of metaphysical apparitions.

Every Saturday night after the clock struck twelve, he moved silently through the main corridor, careful to avoid being seen or heard. He took off his heavy boots, stepped gingerly across the old, rotten boards, donned an expansive black velvet hooded cape, and applied WB-50 oil to each link in his heavy chains.

At this point, I should acknowledge he had to overcome quite a bit of internal strife before he talked himself into using this method. He finally decided to give it a go one night when the family was eating dinner. He stole into Mr. Hamsack’s room and swiped the bottle still sitting on the bureau. He felt somewhat disgraced to be taking the earlier advice of Mr. Hamsack on this issue, but after some reflection realized it was a good product and did a fine job of silencing his old chains.

Even with these precautions, he was still hassled endlessly. Strings ran across the corridors, slightly above the floor, causing him to trip in the darkness. One time, while he sported his costume for “Dark Lord Vallum, or the Riding Maurader of Hibbledy Woods,” he fell with a sickening crash after slipping on a butter-slide the wretched twins had laid down to run from the Trophy Room to the edge of the staircase. This transgression made him seethe with anger, and he made a personal commitment to make things right and regain his dignity, setting a plan to surprise the rotten pair the following evening in his lauded persona of “Brash Bartholomew, or the Beheaded Baron of Bennington.”

He hadn’t donned that getup in more than seven decades. The last time he scared fair Lady Bobbie Maudlin so bad she abruptly cancelled her wedding with the current Lord Canterton’s grandfather, Lord Alexander Heath Canteron, and was soon seen in Palm Springs cavorting with actor Johnny Badstanton, who was yet to be divorced from his wife after he discovered her in bed with a famous Swedish tennis star, stating flatly that she could never marry a man whose family lets terrible ghosts to float aimlessly around the house and gardens at at dusk.

However, the entire costume was a hassle–it took no less than three hours to complete the look, and sometimes several hours more depending on accessories he might add according to his mood and inspiration. Finally, he finished his preparation and was ready to present the result. He stood very tall in the mirror and turned this way and around, admiring his handiwork. The tall, Spanish-cut riding boots were a smidge too big and his heel rose a bit as he moved about, and one of the single-shot, high-calibre horse pistols was been missing for years, but as he stood back in the better light, he was contented, and a few minutes past one am he slipped out of the wall and floated down the hall.

Moments later he stood at the entrance to the twins’ room, which the family called the Chamber of Mischief, a name the ghost felt reflected too-cute indulgence where better discipline was clearly called for. The door was slightly open. He steadied himself in the boots as he formulated a grand entrance the twins would never forget as long as they lived! He pushed the door hard with one bony hand and took a large step forward, when a large plastic pitcher of grape juice fell directly on him, wetting his entire head and body, the pitcher bouncing off his upper back. As the ice-cold juice ran down the inside of his outfit, he heard suppressed high-pitched laughing coming from the big bed in the middle of the room. Stunned and angry, he quickly turned and headed back through the door as fast as he could. He jumped shivering under the bed covers, waking up sneezing and coughing throughout the night. It’s a good thing he didn’t bring the disembodied head with him, because the consequences would have been grave indeed.

He gave up any idea of scaring this staid, penny-loafered family from Midasi University. They had no respect for an apparition of his breeding and quality. He spend his time wandering the halls of Bricken Chase in padded slippers, with a thick green scarf around his head and face to keep out dust, which he was very allergic to, viruses and other bugs, while toting a Wetherton rifle his grandfather used to hunt deer in the surrounding hills, in case the twins decided to prank humiliate him again.

He went down the oak staircase and turned to the great room, confident that he wouldn’t be bothered there, and entertained himself by roasting the family members in a series of photographs displayed in a bank of various-sized black and white frames on the far wall. His outfit was simple– a long burial cloak caked in various spots with grave mold. He wrapped his head and jaw with a shiny bit of pink gift ribbon he found on the floor last Christmas, and carried a gravedigger’s shovel while holding a glowing lantern above shoulder-height to light the way.

In truth, his character this time was “Gabriel the Eternally Damned, or the Crypt-Crasher of Painswick Glen,” one of his best presentations, for it was easy for the Canterton’s to recall–it was the real reason for the squabble with Lord Clovelly. It was well past two in the morning, and, as much as he could tell, everyone was sound asleep. As he made his way to the library to check for any remnants of the blood-stain, two dark figures lept from the shadows in the corner, waving their arms in big circles about their head and yelled “BOO!” so loud he couldn’t hear well for the next three days.

He panicked, which was perfectly normal given the circumstances, and ran for the stairs. Just as he was about to bound up the first few steps, Warren Hamsack stepped in front of him, armed with the garden hose he had threaded through an open window. He realized he was flanked on three sides, so he stutter-stepped like a Heisman-halfback and disappeared into the big stove, which thankfully was not lit, and worked his way through the maze of chimneys and air ducts to his room, covered in dust and dirt, tired and full of despair.

He decided not to undertake any more nighttime operations. The twins laid several plans to humiliate him further, including throwing peanut shells all over the hallway floors each evening, which greatly upset everyone in the house. But it didn’t matter what they cooked up, the ghost was so hurt and exhausted he never showed himself.

Mr. Hamsack continued to work on his book on the history of the Republican Party, a project he had been chipping away at for years; Mrs. Hamsack put together an amazing clambake she learned from cousins on Martha’s Vineyard, which impressed everyone in town; the boys played poker for hours on end, betting dimes and quarters as if hundreds of thousands of dollars were at stake; Vanessa broke in her new dressage boots, accompanied by her old friend from Oxingham, Ward Beaman, who seemed to lead a life of endless holiday and was spending a few weeks at Bricken Chase. Most of them thought the ghost had given up. Mrs. Hamsack attested to that position when she wrote a letter to Mr. Canterton, the chairman of the board. He replied in a return letter that he was pleased with the news and offered congratulations to the president’s wife and family.

The only one who felt differently was the ghost himself. He was not about to take a loss from this inscrutable band of Republicans from a rival university, even though he was tired and disgraced from multiple affronts. His interest was piquéd when he learned Ward Beaman was among the current guests. Beaman, whose great uncle, Raymond Forrest, once bet $100,000 with Colonel Krier, leader of the Army’s Air Assault Battalion, that he would play Twenty-One with the Athenian ghost and beat him soundly. He was found the next day, sprawled on the floor of the game room, unresponsive to attempts to communicate, though he lived many years after that, spending most days at his expensive senior-care home on the porch repeating “Hit me.”

Word travels fast in university towns, from student to professor to maintenance staff to cafeteria worker to shopkeeper and back. Everyone knew the story, but without solid proof local media in Athenia and Oxingham decided to ignore the story. It was briefly mentioned on TV stations in Cleveland and Columbus, as well as a longish thread in a New Green alumni group on Facebook, but for the most part was forgotten.

For that reason, the ghost felt the need to demonstrate he still had power over the guests at Bricken Chase. He planned an elaborate show for Vanessa’s little boyfriend, appearing as “The Angry Abbot, or the Bloodlust Brother,” a character so evil that when Sophia Ratliff saw it on a horrible New Year’s Eve, in 1847, she ran through the halls shrieking so loud the wall sconces went out, finally collapsing at the bottom of the oak staircase. The hospital wagon carried her off and she spent two weeks at Athenia General in a coma before quietly passing. Just as he was about to step out of his room, the Terrible Twosome blocked him in, and young Ward Beaman slept soundly in the huge alderwood canopy bed in the Purple Room, and dreamed of riding through daisy fields with Vanessa.

The Ghost of Bricken Chase – Chapter Five

A few days later, Vanessa and her dashing confidant went riding in the trails above the river along Broadleaf Meadows, where she tore her jodhpurs on a hazel tree growing well into the path. It didn’t open her skin, but the rip was long and ugly, so she decided to sneak up the back stairwell to avoid a lecture from her mother. As she padded silently past the kitchen, she thought she saw a figure standing near the breakfast table, and thinking it was one of the day staff, she stopped to get some immediate help in mending the tear.

To her amazement, however, it was the Athenian Ghost! He was standing by the window, sipping tea as he mindlessly watched as the wind trapped red and yellow leaves in small vortexes around the yard, spinning like tops from the grove out toward the road, the leaves suddenly dropping as the compact whirlwinds lost steam. He sat in the bay window nook, leaned back and rested his head on the cushion, tired and depressed from multiple blows to his confidence over the last few weeks. He seemed so distraught and out of sorts that little Vanessa, whose first impulse was to run to her room, lock the door and jump under the covers, instead felt pity for his haggard soul and tried to make him feel better. She stood directly over him, but his low emotional state prevented him from realizing she was there until she cleared her throat slowly and spoke to him.

“I’m sorry you feel down,” she said, “but the boys return to prep school tomorrow, and then, if you act like a gentleman ghost, you will not be bothered anymore.”

“It’s silly and embarrassing for you to ask me, The Athenian Ghost, to behave,” he said, looking intently at the little girl who had the gall to talk to him in his melancholy, “quite ridiculous. I have a job to do: moan slowly and loudly through the ducts, drift through the halls, shake my heavy chains and that is just half of it. It is my one occupation and I intend to carry out my duties with honor.”

“It’s not a very good reason to exist, and everyone says you’ve been very bad. Mrs. Ulnar told us directly, in fact the very day we pulled up the driveway for the first time, that you had murdered your wife.”

“OK, you got me. Good for you,” said the Ghost, “but it was between me and her and is the business of nobody else.”

“It’s not very Christian to murder anybody,” said Vanessa with perfect diction resulting from years in private school, with the peculiar, slightly superior tone of Children With Money.

“Oh, I loathe the phoniness of arbitrary moral codes! She was very ordinary looking, never had my white shirts pressed properly, and was the worst cook in five counties. Why, I took down this amazing white-tailed buck on the first day of hunting season in the Hodling Hills, a 37-pointer–a state record! Do you want to know how she prepared it? I shudder to this day when I think about it. But it doesn’t matter anymore, for it is too late now. Yes, I did murder her, but it also wasn’t very neighborly of her brothers to brick me up in the wall and end my days on earth, now was it?

“Well, what did you expect? And here you are, talking to me now. Are you hungry? Oh, Mr. Athenian Ghost–is that how I should address you? Do you want the ham and cheese sandwich in my basket?”

“No. Thank you, but I don’t eat much; I appreciate the gesture, truly. You seem much kinder than your ostentatious, phony, uppity, rude and crooked family.”

“That’s quite enough!” said Vanessa, stomping the ground. “I mean really! You are the phony one, and in terms of honor and honesty, who do you think took the paints out of my kit to bolster that lame blood-stain on the library floor? First, you swiped my red paints, including coral and maroon, totally destroying my ability to do sunsets, my specialty, and then you nabbed my muted mint and saffron ivory shades, leaving me with boring colors like pale pastel and Brooklyn beige, and could only paint nightscapes with dabs as stars, which left me even more depressed as they are not easy to get the right size, and the whole thing was off-the-charts, capital-K Krazy. Who in their right mind wants pale pastel stars in a night sky? They should shimmer like diamonds!”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” the Ghost replied. “But put yourself in my shoes. It’s impossible to get real blood these days without filling out 25 forms, and your nutty brother really started the drama with his precious Pinkman’s Super Champ Stain Taker-Outer. Come to think of it–why shouldn’t I have borrowed a few paints. You may not like the colors, but that is a personal choice. Some New Green students say they “bleed green,” for example, and are the most rabid fans in the Mid America Conference.

“Well, you are talking silly. Your best best is to end your time here and offer your services to Midasi University and around the Oxingham area. Father will pay your relocation expenses and any incidentals. You will be a smash wherever you go. Are you kidding? Do you know how many people in a college town like Oxingham, especially students, would love to have a ghost in the house? You would be a smash at parties. And professors would love to bring you in as a guest lecturer or to terrify students into studying harder. The possibilities are endless.”

“I don’t think I would like Midasi.”

“What, because everyone wears penny loafers with no socks in winter and talks like a Valley girl?” said Vanessa.

“It’s all so mundane, so predictable!” the Ghost complained. “The khaki pants and the polo shirts.”

“Posh,” said Vanessa. “You are stereotyping. Don’t let a few morons ruin it for you. Everyone is very nice there. I’ll ask father to give you spending money.”

“Please don’t leave me, Miss Vanessa,” he said; “I’m depressed and miserable, and at my wit’s end. I try to get rest but sleep never comes. I’m frayed!”

“You are so ridiculous, I swear!” said Vanessa. “Just jump in your bed and lean over and put out the light. Sure, it’s hard to stay awake sometimes, like at church when the priest bows his head to the altar as he says, ‘Do this in memory of me,” and the altar boy rings the bells, and the priest stays bowed down for a very long time, so long you begin to wonder if he fell asleep standing up. But sleeping in your own bed is easy as pie! Even infants can do it, and they are not very smart at all.”

“Decade after decade I’ve tried to get some sleep to no avail. Do you know how long it’s been?” said the Ghost, Vanessa staring at him with her bright blue eyes; “It’s been more than 200 years and I’m at the end of my rope!”

Vanessa became solemn, her lips quivering like the pink petals on the rose bushes in front of Bricken Chase. She walked over to him, knelt down and stared into his wrinkled face.

“My, my. You don’t have any place at all to sleep?” she said, her voice cracking.

“In a glen on the far side of the piney woods,” he said slowly as if in a dream-like trance, “a small garden sits in the middle of a meadow of long, soft grass, there is a colorful menagerie of all kinds of flowers, and the nightbirds sing to the moon until morning. They chatter and whistle all night, and the big, bright moon beams down on them, and the huge yew-tree opens its brawny arms over me.”

Vanessa buried her face in her hands, tears streaming through her fingers.

“You are talking about death! Is it the Garden of Eternal Sleep?” she said.

“Yes, the Garden of Eternal Sleep. Death seems like it is wonderful. To lie in the soft dirt, with the meadow grasses bending gently in the breeze just a few feet above you, and listen to…nothing…complete silence. There is no future and no past. Time is meaningless. All pain and suffering is forgotten, you are at peace. No regrets, no worries. I need your assistance: you can send me through death’s open door, for love is part of your DNA, it is always inside you, and love has much greater power than silly death.

Vanessa felt a strange chill come over her as they sat in silence for a while. She thought she might be in a nightmare.

The ghost asked her a question, his voice weak and distant.

“Have you ever seen the lettering etched into the library window?

“Oh, many times,” Vanessa said. “I remember seeing it the day we arrived. It is hard to understand because the letters are in a strange blackish-brown shade faded by the sun. It is very short:

“‘When a girl with hair of gold can win,

Psalms of praise from the voice of sin,

When the withered soul has no face,

And the child of God leaves no trace,

Then this house of spirits will abate,

And peace will come to Bricken Chase.’

“It means,” said the ghost with tone of despair, “that you must cry for my transgressions and failures, because I cannot, and ask God for my forgiveness, for I know him not, and after, if you have led a life of purity, and honesty and charity, the angel of darkness will pity me. You will have visions of horror in the night, and voices will taunt you with fearful whispers of terror, but they will not do anything to hurt you, because they know you have God in your soul and they cannot win against your righteous heart, and he will strike them down as they rise from Hell.”

Vanessa didn’t respond, and the ghost paced back and forth nervously before her, staring down on her golden curls. Suddenly she leapt to her feet, hand in the air, her eyes dancing. “I’m not scared of this silly angel of death. I will ask him to show mercy on your soul. God knows you’ve suffered enough.”

He jumped from his chair with a stifled giggle, took her by the hand, bowed low with an exaggerated flourish and kissed it. She was startled by his icy fingers and burning lips, but she did not pull back as he led her forward. There were images of huntsmen, with their riding boots and jaunty hats, on the faded curtains. They pulled their gleaming horns and blew with all their might, waving wildly for Vanessa to go back. “Don’t do it, Vanessa!” they cried, “you are going to regret it!” but the ghost was insistent, holding her with two hands now, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Monstrous animals with dinosaur tails and huge, bloodshot eyes stared at her from the chimney and repeated, “Turn back, Vanessa, this is your last chance! Turn back!,” but the Ghost moved with more urgency while Vanessa kept her head down and looked at the ground. When they came to the other side of the room, he hesitated and mumbled something incoherent. She looked up and saw the massive wall dissolve like the morning mist and a huge, gaping cavern opened before them. An icy breeze fluttered around them, making her shiver. “Hurry!” he said, “or we will miss our opportunity,” and in an instant the church-molding shut after them, and the Tapestry Room fell silent once again.

The Ghost of Bricken Chase – Chapter Six

A few minutes passed and the announcement was made for tea. There was no sign of Vanessa, so Mrs. Hamsack sent on the house staff to remind her. He returned shortly and reported he could not find her. Since she regularly went to the garden before dinner each day to pick some flowers for the table, Mrs. Hamsack didn’t think much of it, but when six o’clock rolled around and Vanessa still hadn’t appeared, she began to worry, even get a bit angry, and told the boys to look around the property grounds, while she and Mr. Hamsack searched the upper floors.

At six-thirty, the boys returned and reported they couldn’t locate Vanessa. Now Mrs. Hamsack started to really worry, and they stood around trying to decode what to do next, when Mrs. Hamsack realized that a few days ago he told some gypsies they could stay overnight in the little-used side yard.

He immediately ran over to Brightson Hollow, a slight valley on the side of the main property with a few stately elms and lush grass that was mowed religiously despite the spare use of the area. He was joined by his oldest boy and two of the kitchen staff, one of whom brought a small steak knife in case things got heated. They moved quickly down the embankment to the camping spot Mr. Hamsack remembered but they were gone. They must have left recently as the campfire embers still glowed and a few paper plates and beer cans were strewn about.

He sent Warren and the cooks to look carefully around the Hollow while he ran back to Bricken Chase. He sent emergency texts to every police precinct in the five-county area, alerting them to be on the lookout for gypsies who had likely taken his daughter. He jumped in the Range Rover, and, after ensuring the family everything would be alright and demanding they remain calm and go ahead and eat dinner, set off down Argon Road with one of the grounds crew. He hadn’t gone far when he looked in the rear-view mirror to see a Tesla roadster advancing on him. Ward Beaman pulled up alongside him and slid to a stop on the loose sand on the brick street, his face red and puffy. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Hamsack, but I heard the news about Vanessa and I must join in the search. I won’t eat or sleep until we find her. Don’t be mad; if you had let me ask her to be my wife last year, we wouldn’t be in this predicament, sir. You’ll let me help find her, won’t you? Please! I can’t go home until I see her with my own eyes!”

The university president smiled at the harried young man, touched by his emotion toward his daughter, so he leaned out the window and said kindly, “Well, Ward, I doubt you’ll go back after that speech, and if you must, put that thing in gear and follow me!”

“Oh, thank you, sir! You know I love her so!” cried Ward, tears running down his cheek as he laughed, and the two cars sped down the avenue to the train station. Mr. Hamsack asked the attendant if he had seen anyone matching her description come through. He said he hadn’t seen anyone matching her description, but took Mr. Hamsack’s card and said he would call if there was any sign of her. The attendant added he would send word throughout the system to be on the lookout. They sped off for Nelsontown, a small burg a few miles from Athenia, where many gypsies camped out year round in a large common next to the main courthouse.

They drove straight to the local police station. They had heard nothing about Vanessa, but the officer on duty took down the details and promised to alert Mr. Hamsack if anything changed. They took a spin past the common for close inspection with no luck, so they drove up on the freeway to head home, arriving at Bricken Chase just after eleven, exhausted and extremely worried. Warren and the twins were waiting in the driveway with flashlights as the area was very dark.

There was no sign of Vanessa anywhere. The gypsies were found up on Broadleaf Meadows, but she was not among them, and they explained the reason they left so fast is they had marked the wrong date for the Athenia Renaissance Fair, and were in a rush so they wouldn’t be late. The gypsy leader, Rose Arthrumbush, was very upset about the news of Vanessa’s disappearance, as they appreciated Mr. Hamsack for letting them stay in the side yard at the house, and volunteered several of them to stay and assist in the search.

Mr. Hamsack and the boys stood quietly for a moment in the circular driveway. The lagoon in the rear section had been searched, a team of divers alternatively dropping in the cold water throughout the night. It seemed Vanessa was truly lost, at least for that evening, and remained quiet as they turned and walked to the massive front door to join the others.

The whole house staff was in the front hall, some crying softly, exchanging rumors on what happened to Vanessa and when. She was the favorite of everyone working there, for one she was the only girl among the children, and her natural innocence and good cheer charmed most people she met. Mrs. Hamsack laid out on the chesterfield in the library, her eyes staring into space and hands shaking uncontrollably, with two staff members waving cool air on her with colorful fans she had purchased in Japan several years ago. Mr. Hamsack said she needed to eat something healthy, perhaps some fruit and a high-protein smoothie, and promptly ordered a full meal for the entire group.

Everyone was quiet during the meal, amazingly including the twins as the reality of their missing sister became apparent. At the end of the meal, Mr. Hamsack told everyone to go to bed, for there wasn’t anything they could do at that point, all proper action had been taken, and that he would call the FBI in the morning for some agents to come down from Columbus.

They shuffled slowly out of the dining area to the bottom of the stairs, the twins ahead. The grandfather clock boomed at midnight, piercing the eerie quiet. They stopped and looked at it as the gongs counted off. As the final gong sounded, something nearby smashed to the ground and a terrifying shriek filled the house; lightning lit up the windows and a resounding clap of thunder shook the windows. Mysterious classical music filled the air, a portion of the wall near the staircase landing flew back with a bang, and out stepped Vanessa, her hair and skin pale and shiny in the dim light, holding a coffin in her outstretched hand.

“My Lord! Vanessa, what the hell are you up to?” barked Mr. Hamsack, mad that she was possibly playing a prank this whole time. “Your mother and I have covered every square inch of this town trying to find you, and you’ve scared everyone at Bricken Chase half to death. No more of your childish schemes.”

“Well, we won’t stop scheming against the Ghost!” yelled the twins, laughing, running around, pushing each other down and rolling on the ground like cartoon cats.

“My goodness, honey, you scared the life out of me! Thank God you have been returned to us. He is good and watches over us. You must never disappear ever, ever again,” said Mrs. Hamsack, kissing her cheek and stroking the side of her head, holding her so close her Vanessa couldn’t breathe for a second or two.

“Father, I’ve been hanging out with the Ghost,” Vanessa explained. “Of course, he died long ago, but you must visit him. He made a big mistake, maybe a few mistakes. But he has remorse for every wicked action he has ever taken, he’s truly sorry, and he gave me this gorgeous collection of diamonds, emeralds and rubies before he passed.”

The entire family stared at her in stunned silence, but she spoke with such earnest conviction they couldn’t help follow as she turned and took them through the gap in the wall down a narrow passageway, Warren holding his iPhone flashlight app high above his head to light the way. Soon they came upon a large, heavy door covered in large, bent nails. Vanessa reached out and gently nudged it and it swung open with a groan, and they entered the small room beyond, with a slanted ceiling pitching down to a small window near the floor.

A large iron ring hung on the wall. A ghastly skeleton, the bones showing several faded shades of grey and white, hung from the ring and spilled out on the flagstones, seemingly trying to grab at something with its fingers, a stoneware plate and jug sitting nearby just out of range. The jug was commonly used to hold water in the days before every house had plumbing. A thick, even growth of green mold covered the inside and the plate was smothered with a small mountain of dust. Vanessa took a small step toward the skeleton, kneeled on the bare stone floor and prayed quietly while the rest of the group looked on in silent bewilderment.

“Hello out there! Can you hear me now?” one of the twins yelled out the window, trying to determine which side of the house the small room was on. “Hello! Hello! The apple tree is fully bloomed! I can see the fruit clearly against the night sky.”

Vanessa stood up, a soft light framing her face. “God’s grace is upon him. He is forgiven by his most high holy father,” she said slowly.

“You are God’s special angel!” Ward Beaman exclaimed. He spun her around, put his hands on the upper part of her arms, pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek.

The Ghost of Bricken Chase – Chapter Seven

Several days after these strange events, a funeral procession began at Bricken Chase an hour or so before midnight. Instead of a modern hearse, the Hamsacks called on friends in the horse breeding business to organize an elegant black carriage pulled by ten magnificent black Friesians with feathered head-dresses. Each horse had a black blanket with gold fringe and tassels, emblazoned with the Hamsack coat of arms, and were driven by a silk top-hatted coachman wearing a dark suit, thick overcoat, and gloves made of soft Cabrillan leather to enhance feel and control of the team. Several other carriages with two-horse teams carried the mourners. Kitchen and cleaning staff members walked alongside with flaming torches, the scene splendid and sad at the same time.

Mr. Canterton, who drive up from Florida after learning of the funeral, led the procession, sitting in the first carriage with Vanessa; behind them, Mr. and Mrs. Hamsack and Warren, Ward and the twins. After the Hamsacks, Mrs. Ulner came next, sitting quietly in her best Sunday outfit. Mr. Hamsack figured that she deserved special consideration because the ghost had tormented her for more than five decades and she above all should have closure.

At the university cemetery the horses pulled to a stop and they all gathered around the gravesite under a thick oak tree near the bend in the creek. Father O’Reilly from Our Lady of Generalized Anxiety church handled the eulogy, his voice distinctly clear in the still evening air, as several people cried softly. After the ceremony, the house staff members, in accordance with long-standing Canteron tradition, snuffed out the flames leaping from their torches. As the ghost was slowly lowered into the ground, Vanessa placed on it a cross she made of cherry blossoms she collected from the trees along the road near the university Sports Center where the Wildcats basketball team played.

As the coffin settled on the ground at the bottom of the grave, the clouds parted and the moon lit up the scene. White-throated sparrows and pine warblers chirped in the trees. Vanessa called to mind the ghost clearly describing the Garden of Eternal Sleep, her eyes began to well up, and she remained quiet the entire ride home.

As the sun came up in the morning, before Mr. Canteron returned to his golf game in Florida, Mr. Hamsack discussed the diamonds and other gems Vanessa received from the ghost. They were spectacular, and included a teardrop emerald necklace set in 14k gold, a pearl necklace with dozens of different colored pearls, and a magnificent collection of double-diamond and gold-link bracelets. Mr. Hamsack guessed they were worth a considerable amount and felt it only right Mr. Canteron keep them as they were part of the history and lore of Bricken Chase.

“Mr. Canteron,” he said. “Since the university owns Bricken Chase, and you have so able served the school, I feel it is only right that these jewels should be donated to New Green. I beg you to take them with you and, before you leave for Destin, deposit them in the University vault in the basement of Cutter Hall, the first building on campus.

“As for Vanessa? Although she has maturity beyond her years — and possesses the vocabulary of a 49-year-old English professor who spends her summers in Florence writing self-published romance novels involving a dashing descendant of the Medici family and a beautiful barista working brutal hours to help pay for her mother’s heart condition — she is very young and innocent, and up to now, I am happy to report, had disdain for material things.

“Mrs. Hamsack, who I can tell you is something of an art expert, having spent many summers as a docent at the Chicago Museum of Art during her Northwestern years, tells me these jewels are worth much more than we think, and would procure a tidy sum if auctioned today at Sotheby’s in New York or even Butterfield’s in Los Angeles.

“For that reason, Mr. Canteron, I am confident you would agree I cannot retain these gems for my daughter or any other Hamsack; and even though they would add prestige and elegance to any appearances my family makes in my official capacity as university president, it goes against my Catholic upbringing, and certainly my prudent and responsible Republican values, to keep them.

“Vanessa, on the other hand, greatly wants to have the box by itself as a remembrance of your ill-fated ghost. Since it is old and falling apart, I believe you would see it fit to let her have it. As for me, I admit I am perplexed by any offspring of mine showing interest in history. The only thing I can think of is her mother read to her every night for many years, and she was always ahead in reading comprehension at both Bilton Hall and Wyondist Prep in Chicago.

Mr. Canterton paid close attention to the esteemed president’s speech, pinching the fleshy part of his palm several times to suppress a smile from showing on his face. When Mr. Hamsack finished, he shook his hand warmly and said, “Sir, you have made me even more convinced we hired the right person. The truth is, your delightful daughter did our ghost, and the university, a favor. We are lucky you’ve raised her to be so independent and resourceful. Any fair person would say the gems are hers, and you can be sure if I denied her the stones, that damn ghost would be rattling chains in these halls for the next 200 years.

“As far as the idea that they should belong to the university, they have never been mentioned in any official legal or historical document. We didn’t know they existed so we cannot not call them rightly ours anymore than Nancy Pelosi could.”

“Well she’s taken everything else from Americans,” Mr. Hamsack said, laughing.

Canterton continued as if he didn’t hear the remark. “And just think, when Vanessa gets older, she’ll have a number of beautiful jewelry pieces to wear out on the town. You’re also not accounting, Mr. Hamsack, for the fact that you were bold and decisive when I told you about the ghost, stating that you did not fear apparitions and phantasmas, so it stands to reason you should receive this heretofore unknown bounty.”

Mr. Hamsack was upset Mr. Canterton took this route, and asked him to change his mind several times, but he didn’t waver, and ultimately convinced the university president to let his only daughter keep the gift from the ghost. A few years later, Vanessa married Ward at Our Lady of Generalized Anxiety, and all the local bigwig invitees from the town and university gathered for the reception at Athenia Country Club where her rare and unusual jewelry was the talk of the night.

They married soon after graduating from private high school and decided together to attend New Green. They made a handsome couple and were very much in love, and everyone at the ceremony was charmed by their appearance, except perhaps aging Mrs. Wintercold, a long-time family friend, who for years made great efforts to steer Ward toward one of dozens of her granddaughters, and had thrown quite a large number of pricey parties at her estate in Oxingham.

Mr. Hamsack liked Ward very much, but didn’t always agree with the entitled ways of the younger generation of affluent kids, such as their habit of blasting loud rap music out of open-air Jeeps in the middle of winter, or rolling up to their private high school in a brand new Tesla the day they get their driver license.

It didn’t fit his picture of Republican restraint and thrift. He knew they had to keep up societal expectations of a university president — the school photographer and alumni director would be publishing all the details in the next alumni newsletter, but he favored a smaller, more personal affair. Mrs. Hamsack had the final say in this matter, just like most others regarding her daughter, and she stretched the family finances to make it a royal-level affair. But Mr. Hamsack’s reservations melted away when he walked Vanessa down the church aisle on his arm, organ music filling the high ceilings, his face beaming with pride.

The newlyweds spent their honeymoon in the Turks and Caicos, most days lying on the beach, or sitting on the veranda of the private beach house their uncle Lloyd Westinsonian let them use, which sat on the famously white beaches just outside of Cockburn Harbor. After they returned, one day they took a stroll to the old graveyard. There had been a lot of discussion earlier about what exactly to put on old Charles de Plushing’s tombstone, some suggesting they write simply ‘Here lies the Athenian Ghost,’ and finally Mr. Hamsack said they should just put his name and the inscription from the window.

Vanessa brought a magnificent bouquet of flowers which she spread evenly over the grave. They stood quietly for a long while, looking down on the tombstone, and then walked slowly to the Gallant Chapel on the New Green main campus. They sat on the steps, gazing at the variety of trees shading the brick walkways and green grass — tall elms, dogwoods, thornless honeysuckles, sycamores, Carolina silverbells, and willow oaks.

Ward snuffed out a cigarette in his hand without burning himself, a trick he learned from the goalie on his lacrosse team, and dropped the butt in a nearby trash can. He looked in her eyes, took her by the hand and said, “Vanessa, married people should never keep secrets from each other.”

“Ward, I would never, ever keep a secret from you,” she said, her eyes wide.

“But you are not being honest right now,” he said with a grin, “for you have not told me what went on during the time you were captured by the ghost.”

“Yes, that is true,” Vanessa said softly, “but I have never revealed it to anybody.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, caressing her palm gently with his fingers.

“Well, now is your chance to tell me.”

“With all due respect, I love you, but I can’t divulge what transpired then. Poor Charles de Plushing! I am indebted to him. Don’t give me that smirk, Ward, I really owe the ghost. He showed me the fragility and beauty of life, the inevitability of death, and why love always wins in the end.

He stood and pulled her to him, holding her tightly around the waist.

“You don’t have to tell me as long as you always love me,” he whispered.

“You know I will, Ward.”

“And of course you’ll share the secret with our kids, right?”

Vanessa looked up over his shoulder at the cross on the chapel spire.