Spooky New England: S.E. Schlosser presents local lore in anticipation of Halloween

Today, Hartford Books Examiner has an early treat for all you tricksters…

Special guest S.E. Schlosser is sharing some of the local lore that she has encountered in her extensive travels throughout the country in exploration of supernatural phenomena. Whether told around the campfire or the dinner table, these stories are sure to make a believer out of you.

Many of these tales are collected in Spooky New England, which Rambles: A Cultural Arts Magazine called “one of those books that you cannot put down until you reach the end…,” while Donna McCrohan Rosenthal of Ridge Writers enthused, "If preparations for Halloween have put you in an eerie frame of mind, S.E. Schlosser has the perfect book for you..."

Now, let yourself be suitably spooked...

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From Ms. Schlosser:

I love spooky stories - and not just at Halloween. As the author of the 20-book Spooky Series (http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-books.html) published by Globe Pequot Press, I've spent the last eight years traveling all over the United States and Canada collecting ghost stories and supernatural tales. Probably the scariest place I've ever visited was the Old Jail in Saint Augustine, Florida. Almost every photo I took in the jail has a ghost light, and a leering semi-transparent face appears in the corner of one particularly memorable photo!

During my journeys, I have found that the term “spooky” stretches to encompass all kinds of stories, from terrifying to humorous. Anything that gives me goose bumps qualifies! Here are few spooky New England tales I've encountered over the years, excerpted from the Spooky Series in honor of Halloween.

The Black Dog of the Hanging Hills
(from Spooky New England)

He smiled as he sipped at his coffee. It had been an excellent hike. He was glad his friend had recommended coming to the Hanging Hills in Connecticut; not the first place that had come to his mind when considering a vacation. But it was beautiful here. When his friend arrived tomorrow they would tackle some of the more challenging terrain.

“Did you have a nice hike?” asked the innkeeper as she refilled his cup.

“Yes indeed. I had some unexpected company,” he said with a smile.

“Really? I thought you were the only one crazy enough to go hiking in the rain,” she teased.

“It was a little black dog,” he said. “Cute fellow. Followed me all the way up the mountain and down again.”

He looked up from his coffee to see the innkeeper’s face had gone pale.

“A black dog?” she asked. “That’s not good.”

“Why not?”

“We have a saying around here,” she replied. “’If a man shall meet the Black Dog once, it shall be for joy; and if twice, it shall be for sorrow; and the third time, he shall die.’”

He laughed. “That’s just superstition.”

“That’s what Mr. Pynchon said. He saw the black dog twice. The second time he saw the dog, the friend he was climbing with fell to his death. And later, Mr. Pynchon decided to climb the same mountain, and he died too. Everyone here believes he saw the dog just before he fell.”

“Nonsense. It was just a cute stray,” he said uneasily.

She shrugged and took the coffee pot over to her other customers.

His friend arrived the next morning and they both laughed about the story of the black dog. They set out on their climb. About halfway up the mountain, he looked up and saw the black dog...

The Blue Rock
(from Spooky New England)

The story was told furtively, in lowered voices. Buried treasure. Near the blue rock. A long time ago, an unknown ship dropped anchor in the surf near Wasque Bluff. A small boat carrying a mysterious figure, six sailors, and a large box landed on the beach. The sailors dug a deep hole inland near the blue rock, and the box was lowered into it. As the sailors stepped back, their leader threw a small green package onto the box. With a huge crash and a flash of blinding green light, the hole disappeared! The silent group walked back to the boat, leaving behind scorched, blackened earth.

After hearing several whispered versions of the story, two adventurers decided to have a go at the treasure. They would meet at the rock at midnight. The first chap arrived early. Tired out from his long walk, he leaned against the large stone and closed his eyes. A sound from the waters jerked him awake. Turning around, the treasure hunter could just make out the lines of a very large ship, sails set, coming in fast toward shore. There was no one moving on deck, and no one stood at the wheel. Yet the ship dodged the shoals and shallows as expertly as any fisherman on the island. Just when it seemed she would run aground, every sail dropped instantly and the ship drifted gently forward until her keel lightly touched the sandy shore. And then, with a horrible shout, the hatch crashed open and a group of glowing skeletons came swarming out onto the deck. They were a merry crew, joking and laughing as they handed around spades and shovels. Then they came filing down the plank, carrying a dead body...

Black Magic
(from Spooky Massachusetts)

Mad Henry was a hermit who lived alone in a decrepit mansion at the edge of town. Rumors were rife about the wild-eyed man. Some folks said that he was a magician who called upon the powers of darkness to wreck havoc upon his neighbors. Others called him a mad doctor who could restore life to foul corpses from the local cemetery. No respectable citizen in town had anything to do with Mad Henry.

Then one year a new family moved to town with a lovely daughter, Rachel, who caught Mad Henry’s eye. He showered the maiden with gifts—goblets of pure gold, necklaces of pearl, and a pot of daisies that never dropped a single petal. Despite the gifts, Rachael fell in love with another, Geoffrey, a handsome young man just home from university. A week after meeting they eloped, leaving behind a stunned Mad Henry.

When Rachael and Geoffrey returned from the elopement, they threw a big ball and invited everyone in town. While Rachel was waltzing with her father, she heard a clap of thunder. Lightning flashed again and again. Suddenly, the double doors blew open and a breeze whirled in, bringing with it the smell of dead, decaying things. Mad Henry loomed in the doorway, pupils gleaming red with anger. He was followed by the grotesque figures of the dead, who came marching two by two into the room. Their eye sockets glowed with blue fire as they surrounded the room.

Two of the corpses captured Geoffrey and threw him down at the feet of their lord. Red eyes gleaming, Mad Henry drew a silver-bladed knife and casually cut the bridegroom’s throat from ear to ear. Rachel screamed and ran forward, pushing through the foul, stinking corpses of the dead, and flung herself upon her dying husband.

“Kill us both,” she cried desperately.

But Mad Henry plucked the lass out of the pool of blood surrounding her dead husband and carried her out into the thundering night. Behind him, the army of the dead turned from the grizzly scene and followed their master....

Playin' Piano
(from Spooky Campfire Tales)

Dah-dah-dum-dum-BLAT!

Charlie winced when his wife hit the wrong note on the piano for the thirty-second time that day. He knew it was the thirty-second time because he’d kept count as he went about his daily chores, cleaning the lighthouse, checking the supplies, mending the rowboat.

Charlie blamed himself for his wife's latest obsession. He should never have taken Myrtle to attend the concert when that high-flutin’ concert pianist came to town. But it was a special occasion and everyone they knew was going. So Charlie and Myrtle went too. And Myrtle decided right then and there that what she wanted more than life itself was to play the piano.

Charlie tried to talk her out of it. No one in Myrtle’s family was any good at music. But Myrtle was stubborn. If she couldn’t find a dad-gum way, she’d make one! Before Charlie could count to ten she’d bought a cheap, used piano (that was always out of tune) and hauled it over to the island on her brother’s fishing boat. From that day on, it was practice, practice, practice. Morning, noon, and night Myrtle sat at the piano with her piano book open, plunking away at the keys. At first, there was not much to hear, and Charlie could ignore the sour sounds. But after a few months, she got better…and a lot worse.

There were parts of her song that sounded pretty good; but she never, ever got that one line right.
There was nowhere on the small island that Charlie could go to get away from the sound of the piano, even when he sat in his favorite rocker out in the woodshed with cotton in his ears. Myrtle’s new hobby was the source of much contention between the husband and wife, who had never argued before in their entire lives. Now they argued every day about Myrtle’s piano playing.

“At least try to learn another song,” Charlie begged his wife. But Myrtle was stubborn. “I ain’t going to learn another song until I’ve mastered this one. You’ve got to practice to get better Charlie.” And Myrtle went back to her piano and started playing again. Dah-dah-dum-dum-BLAT/ Dum-dum-BLAT-BLAT-ding.

Things came to a head the day a nor’easter roared down on the island. Charlie and Myrtle were holed up together in the lighthouse hour after hour after hour. Charlie had nothing to do but sit and carve decoy ducks. And Myrtle played the piano. Hour after hour after hour. Around four p.m. Charlie leapt to his feet and shouted at his wife to stop playing the blasted song. Myrtle leapt to her feet and shouted that she was going to practice until she got it right. Something in Charlie snapped. Afterward, he felt bad about the way he chopped up the piano with his axe. After all, it was a valuable instrument. Try as he might, he couldn’t feel bad about doing the same to Myrtle...

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S.E. Schlosser is the author of the 20-book Spooky Series by Globe Pequot Press, as well as the Ghost Stories deck by Random House. She has been telling stories since she was a child, when games of "let's pretend" quickly built themselves into full-length tales acted out with friends. A graduate of both Houghton College and the Institute of Children's Literature, Sandy received her MLS from Rutgers University while working as a full-time music teacher and a freelance author.

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In gratitude to Ms. Schlosser for so graciously accommodating HBE’s invitation—especially given such a daunting deadline.

Wishing you all more treats than tricks this Halloween…