staten island advance.

austen house shows its spirit.
10.31.2003

When I arrived for my appointed ghost-hunting spell at the Alice Austen House in Rosebank, just a few ghoulish hours away from Halloween, I decided the whole thing would be a piece of cake.

First of all, it used to belong to a famous female photographer. Not exactly scary.

Sure, there's a legend that a British redcoat fell in love with a young woman who lived there during the Revolutionary War. Tormented by her rejection, he is said to have hanged himself from a beam, and supposedly still spooks the place, clinking his spurs on the deck.

But who believes that? Not the people who work there. Not the one caretaker who lives there, a shadowy character named Gabe.

Not even me. I know better.

After tiptoeing through a trail that looks too dark for any life-loving person to want to go near, I find the lurking Gabe. He leads me into the dark house and we start to creep toward the parlor.

Suddenly there's music. Ghostly music that swells in soft waves of organ chords.

"That's always on. I have no idea where it comes from," says Gabe. It lingers for a few minutes and dies.

The parlor is arranged exactly as it was when it was in use, though Gabe says no one really goes in there now. On the writing desk is a quill and a letter, and an antique telescope peeks out the window through a broken shutter.

"Have fun," Gabe says, and disappears.

For a while, there's nothing. I feel as silly as a schoolgirl holding a seance at a sleepover.

But the house creaks. The wind makes the shutters shake.

And the music comes back. The hair on my forearms seems to dance to it.

Across from me is a portrait of a lady, and she's staring at me. I stare back, trying to telepathically communicate that I come in peace.

A gleam of silver flares in her eyeball and vanishes.

chair-raising.

Now I know I'm insane. The house is utterly silent. Not even a creak. A folding chair leans against the wall in the next room. I'm intrigued by it for some reason.

Suddenly it's not inclined against the wall - it's straight up, and - WHAM. It's on the floor, face down.

I don't scream. My face is frozen in shock. My muscles don't work. I think maybe I've died. I'm proven wrong when my teeth start chattering.

Now the woman in the picture isn't just staring at me. She's staring at me and demanding I get out of her house.

There are more creaks. I eye the chair as if it's going to beat me to death.

"How's it going?"

I scream like a banshee. Gabe, standing a good distance away from the chair, wants to know if I'm the one banging things.

"YOU DID IT!" I scream. "YOU DID THE CHAIR!"

He looks at me like I'm insane, and I'm starting to believe him. I jump up and give an enthusiastic rendition of the way the chair oh-so-unnaturally fell.

"It must have been off-balance," he says.

"Off-balance! Chairs don't fall the opposite way when they're off-balance," I insist.

"Why didn't you just get up and check it out?"

"WHY would I check that out?"

I recruit Gabe for several re-enactments, all of which end unsatisfactorily. I would have seen his shadow. I would have even heard him breathing, I had been listening so hard.

alone again.

As soon as I'm alone - trembling - again, I realize if there are spirits here I'm going to have to make like Whoopi Goldberg in "Ghost" and be at one with them.

I close my eyes, which takes three attempts. All of a sudden I'm shivering cold.

That lady in the picture is going to kill me, I'm sure of it. Her and her little British redcoat friend, too.

I can't take it anymore. I gather my things, dropping them a few times first, and get up.

"I'm going," I tell the picture, then scream for Gabe.

"You did the chair," I tell him as we exit - thankfully by the lit side of the house.

"You would have heard me," he insists.

As I walk away - much faster than necessary - I glance toward the path in front of the house, which tops a rocky shore.

There's a man there. His hat is low and his jacket is pulled tight, but that's all I can see.

"Some guy walking his dog," I think, now running to the car, thinking of British soldiers.

When I turn back, he's gone.