A Spooky Tale from the Queen Mary

Last month, my husband and I traveled to Long Beach California to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. In one of those bucket list things, we did something we always wanted to do, which was stay on the Queen Mary.

And yes, we wanted ghosts.

Although our flight was delayed out of Sky Harbor, we arrived early for our check-in time. The concierge was very accommodating and because I had spilled the secret when making our reservation that this was to celebrate our anniversary, they wished us well to boot. They gave us the room that was available and we dropped off our luggage in our amazingly beautiful stateroom. We signed up for the Queen Mary package which included a behind the scenes look at the ship, the ghost tour, the WWII days and the self guided tour.

After scheduling everything for that day (as we boarded another ship to sail for Hawaii for 15 days the next day), we went to the tea room for, what else, tea. Heaven, pure tastebud heaven. And African Solistice is my new favorite tea.

We toured the gleaming art deco ship, marveled at the exquisite craftsmanship just about everywhere and learned the very real hazards of renaming a ship. After taking the red shuttle into Long Beach we returned exhausted and decided to go to bed at the very late hour of  8PM.

Hey, it was dark out.

So, in we spooned cradled between snowy white linen under a down comforter.

Just as we were drifting off, there came a tap-tap-tap on the port hole.

Um, did I mention that we were between 6-7 stories up, no balcony, no nothing except 3 more stories up on the sun deck.

My husband and I looked at each other. Probably just a bird, right? Right?

Tap-tap-tap.

Tap-tap-tap.

Hubby got up, opened the window. The outside of one was wet. The outside of its twin was bone dry. Hmm. Must be birds. Back in bed, hugging a little tighter.

Tap-tap-tap.

Tap-tap-tap.

Tap-tap-tap.

Right. Birds. I checked. Not a featherhead to be seen. Birds. sneaky buggers. Back in bed. I don't care. I'm going to sleep. silence. Just as I was drifting off, it started again. On the fringes of my mind I wondered if it could have been some kind of morris code. SOS-dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot.

About 130 AM I woke to the hum and vibration of engines. Every engine has a different feel to it and this was a deep, growly feel coming from below decks. I didn't think much of it until I realized the ship technically doesn't have any engines.

So what was humming and thrumming?

Um, okay. After hubby confirmed he didn't hear anything, I snuggled a little closer and decided to ignore it.

The next afternoon while waiting to board our ship to Hawaii, I met a woman who stayed on the Queen Mary over night in the Queen Mary suite. She reported her findings to the front desk and added her experience to the log.

They have a log?

She then asked our room number. When I told her, she said "Oh, yeah, that was in there. A lot."

O-kay then. Having time to kill, I then had a lightbulb moment and hubby and I reviewed photos of our room.

I'm taking that green orb for dust. You can take it for what you want.

If you are ever in Long Beach and have a few hundred dollars to spare, spend the night on the ship. She has class, grace and beauty beyond description. And while a tour is nice, staying on her is not just a trip back in time but a window to luxury, art and a connection to history.

Haunted Retreat

As a writer sometimes you just need to get away and re-charge your brain cells.  The best way we light a fire under our dormant muse is to hang out with like-minded friends, brainstorming, eating chocolate and drinking wine.  We do this several times a year by going on a weekend retreat at a fun place in our state, Arizona.  And nowhere is more fun to us than staying in a hotel that is supposedly haunted.  For us as writers the fun of delving into ghost lore comes from learning the story behind the haunting and then exaggerating it to another level. 

We blogged about this retreat once before, but today we were reminded about how much fun we'd had and how we need to do it again. Maybe this post will bring back all the memories and get us motivated.

In the spirit of Halloween, here's our ghost story.

One of our favorite haunted places to visit is Jerome, AZ.  Jerome is an old mining town set on the side of a mile-high mountain.  The timeworn, crumbling buildings are now home to mostly artists who sell their work in the shops lining the main street.  Jerome is a wonderful little town to purchase gifts of sparkly jewelry, scented candles, lovely paintings and beautiful handmade clothing.  And when you get hungry you must stop in the Haunted Hamburger for lunch, but be sure to save room for dinner.  The Asylum, the dining room in the Jerome Grand Hotel features mouth-watering entrees and a great wine list.  Besides, you never know who might drop in to say ‘hello’ while you’re dining there.  Local legend tells the story of a lady who roams the building looking for her daughter who died at birth.

A couple of years ago during October a group from our local RWA chapter reserved the entire third floor of the Jerome Grand Hotel, which sits on top of the mountain.  This Spanish mission style building, constructed in 1926, started out as the United Verde Hospital.  In 1930, it was known as the most modern and well equipped hospital in Arizona and possibly the Western States.  In 1950 as the mine operation was being phased out, the hospital was closed and the building remained vacant for 44 years.  In 1994 the building was sold and the new owners turned it into the Jerome Grand Hotel.

When the hotel doors were opened in 1997, the haunting began.

“What makes the Jerome Grand Hotel a worthwhile place to stay, is the fact that this is probably one of the most active haunted locations in the world,” according to www.ghostlyfavorites.com.

As we checked into the hotel we were told stories of strange noises coming from empty rooms such as coughing, labored breathing, and even voices.  We were told not to be surprised if the lights or TV's turned on and off by themselves.  As we made our way toward our room, our spines tingled in anticipation of a ghostly encounter.  Several in our party felt cold spots in the hallway and there were reports of strange sensations. 

On Saturday night, the Jerome Grand took our group on a fun ghost hunt where we got some great orb pictures.  We didn’t see any ghosts while on the tour, but some creepy events happened to us after we went to bed.  Our room phone rang at midnight waking us up, but when answered, no one was there. The ringing phone was a bit spooky, but the scariest of all was the feeling of panic Bev aka/Dani had as unseen hands tugged on her body as if trying to scoot her off the mattress.  Since this hotel was once a hospital could it have been a nurse trying to move a patient?  Convincing ourselves this was only a dream we tried to go back to sleep, until Chris aka/Tia screamed that someone had yanked her hair.  After that happened neither of us slept until the sun came up.

Was all this real or just active imaginations of creative romance writers?   A personal experience can either change your mind or reinforce your belief in paranormal activity.  We believe there are things that can't be explained.  And, besides, who doesn’t love a good ghost story?

Our next story will have a ghost in it. We're finishing up the last chapter as we write this blog. Meanwhile check out our latest release, Time's Enduring Love. It's a time travel set in Kansas during 1866. We think you will enjoy reading it and we promise that you won't be scared.

Happy Halloween,

Tia Dani

http://bookswelove.net/tiadani.php

Ghosts

I love ghost stories. Whether scary or funny, there's something about a ghost story that makes me want to watch it. In my Daughters of Destiny and the parents' story, Ghost of a Chance, my ghost are intelligent ghosts. That means they're interactive to a limited degree and are aware of what's going on. Gran (Ghost of a Chance) and Milton (Fiona) actively try to make a match for the women they're attached to. Sometimes in a funny way, sometimes in a serious way.
Having had my own ghostly encounters, I didn't really do much research into ghosts, but I heard a comment recently that had me looking up hauntings. Now I was familiar with the first (original) types of hauntings, but I did find a few sites that added three more categories.
1--Intelligent hauntings--These once human souls have stuck around the earthly plane and can interact with those left behind. This is the most common type of ghost in books, but relatively rare in reality. In our old house, my husband got up to investigate a noise. I heard him having a conversation with someone. When he came back to bed, I asked who he was talking to and he answered me. I hadn't spoken a word out loud from the time he rolled out of bed to the time he returned.
2--Residual hauntings--This would be an event that plays over and over. Imagine a DVD or Blu-Ray player that only plays chapter 11 of a movie. These are not interactive, nor do the ghosts seem to know that you're there. Perhaps it is a rip in the space-time continuum. Perhaps not. I encountered this when I was 11 and visited Gettysburg National Park. I asked the adult with me, how did the actors get the battle to seem so realistic. She looked at me funny and said there were no reenactors.
3--Demonic/Inhuman hauntings--these creatures (for lack of a better word) were never human. There is an associated malevolency with these beings and usually they are invited in through the practice/mispractice of the occult, whether to achieve a higher awareness or other less than lovely purpose. I have seen one demon in my life. He was in a church.
4--Poltergeist--Some don't list this as a haunting because it isn't associated with a incorporeal entity (human or otherwise). Instead, the belief seems to be that an adolescent pulls energy from the surroundings which manifests itself as a type of telekinesis. I've seen this lumped under Demonic and occasionally left out of the list all together. After we moved out of our house, the new owners reported lots of poltergeist activity. And the neighbors heard it around 2 AM.

These two are new terms to me.

5--Shadow People--faceless, featureless, black shapes that manifest in a house. My children often saw these at our old house. I too would see them out of the corner of my eye, usually hovering over my children's crib or bed. While it would cause some difficulty sleeping, I usually just asked them to leave and they complied. I don't always get a sense of good or evil, just kind of there, but there did seem to be some residual intelligence.
6--Doppleganger hauntings--This is where you see a double of yourself. The other you may be doing something you wouldn't do or something you would. Again, I haven't found anything to put them in the good vs the bad category. But I could see where this might be very useful in a good paranormal novel.