Who doesn’t love a good ghost story? I’m not into the creepy, demonic, blood and guts ghost stories where people get hurt, but I do enjoy a good chilling tale now and then.
Original photo by P. Rickrode 2015
The Baer House Inn is one of the houses on the Haunted Vicksburg Tour. The leader of these tours brings people inside and tells them a tale of intrigue that may or may not have happened here.
Now, I have never experienced any of the strange happenings that are talked about on the tour, however, something rather ghostly did happen here. Something unexplainable and very real.
Not too long after my husband and I bought the inn, we started remodeling and redecorating. One of our projects involved relocating some chandeliers. Five to be exact. We hired an electrician and early one morning, they went to work, taking down lights and rehanging them in their new spots. About an hour after they got started, my husband and I were in the hallway talking about something. We heard a crash that sounded like a thousand expensive crystals shattering into a bazillion pieces. Followed by dead silence.
We looked at each other with wide eyes, our mouths yawning into perfect O’s. I muttered a hushed curse. Obviously, the guys working upstairs had dropped one of our super expensive chandeliers. We whispered amongst ourselves about how to handle the situation. Should we confront them or let them come to us? We waited with bated breath for someone to slink downstairs and apologize profusely for damaging our property. Nobody came downstairs.
“They must be texting their boss,” I said. “Find out how to tell us that they’d broken one of our lights.”
We waited. And waited some more. We decided to give them ten more minutes. After five, I couldn’t stand it any more. I crept upstairs, being extra careful not to step in any glass fragments I was sure littered the floor. Nothing. No mess. No sound. Two guys were up on a ladder in one of the rooms attaching a chandelier to the ceiling.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Great. We’re almost done.”
Almost done? That’s it? They aren’t even going to mention the broken $10,000 light fixture?
I turned to face my husband and mouthed, “They’re lying.”
I proceeded to march my little self into every single room upstairs, checking for lights, damage, broken glass, a broom, trash bag, anything evidencing the crash we heard downstairs.
Nothing. NOTHING. Every light exactly where it was supposed to be. Say what?
I went back into the room with the men on the ladder.
“Hey,” says I. “Did you guys hear a crash a few minutes ago. Like something big, and crystal, and expensive, falling and breaking?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“We didn’t hear anything.”
Now, my husband and I both heard the crash. We both knew immediately what it was. And yet . . . nothing broken. And that my friends, is the mysterious case of the shattered chandelier.
Have you ever had a ghostly encounter? Ever experience something you couldn’t explain? What do you think we heard?
Word of the day: Gagaku
Fun fact about me: I don’t really believe in ghosts. And yet . . .
Original post by Jansen Schmidt, October 2016. Photos courtesy Google Images and P. Rickrode.
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