Ghosts of Government House Read online

  “Hello again,” said J.J.

  The bandaged guy turned to look at them. He seemed even paler than he’d looked before. “You again,” he said in disgust.

  Sam gave him a wary smile, but J.J. marched right over to him.

  “We might as well introduce ourselves. I’m Jensyn, but you can call me J.J.,” she said. As before, the teenager ignored her outstretched hand. “And this is my friend Sam. Short for Samantha.”

  “And you are?” Sam asked.

  “What’s it to you anyway?” he growled.

  “Just being friendly,” said J.J. with a hurt look.

  He hesitated. “Name’s Sheldon.” He caught Sam staring at his bandaged hands lying on the table beside the china teapot. With a scowl he snatched his hands away and buried them under the blanket on his lap.

  “Are you from around here somewhere?” J.J. persisted.

  Sheldon snorted. “You could say that. I’m here aren’t I?”

  Sam held her fingers up to her face and made a camera clicking motion at J.J. Her friend nodded, pulling the camera out of her backpack and handing it to her. Sam strode towards the doorway and took a quick shot.

  “Sam, J.J., we’re waiting,” Grandma Louise called from further down the hall.

  “Coming,” said Sam. It was a relief to be out of the morning room, away from that grouchy guy. Behind her, she heard J.J. gasp. She whirled around.

  Sheldon was gone.

  “Where’d he go?” mouthed Sam.

  J.J. shrugged.

  “Girls!” Grandma Louise called again.

  Sam hurried into the third bedroom, barely glancing at the sleigh bed and other ornamental furnishings.

  “Did you find something of interest?” asked Kathryn.

  Sam hesitated.

  But J.J. burst out, “Did you see where the guy in the wheelchair went just now?”

  “There’s no one here but us,” said Kathryn.

  “But he was downstairs in the entrance corridor earlier, and we just saw him again a second ago in the room with the tea set out!” J.J. said.

  “He seems to know this place really well. He must come here often,” Sam added, passing the camera back to J.J., who stowed it away.

  Kathryn shook her head. “I don’t know of anyone like that. Besides, if he’s in a wheelchair he’d have to come up the back elevators. I would have been alerted.”

  Sam shivered and couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Grandma Louise directed cautious smile at her then turned to Kathryn. “So when did this house become a museum?”

  “Efforts to preserve the building started in 1966. But renovations didn’t happen until 1978, and weren’t completed until 1980,” Kathryn replied.

  “Seems like there is a quite gap between when the lieutenant governors lived here and when it became a museum,” said Grandma Louise.

  “Yes,” Kathryn agreed. “In 1945, when this house was no longer used as a residence, everything in it was sold at an auction and it was converted into a hospital for war veterans until 1958,” she explained.

  Sam grabbed J.J.’s wrist. “That explains it,” she hissed. “Sheldon must be a war veteran.”

  “That’s why he’s so badly injured,” J.J. said quietly.

  “Who’s Sheldon? What injuries?” asked Kathryn.

  “The guy in the wheelchair we keep seeing,” Sam said patiently.

  “But there’s no one else here.” Kathryn peered over the banister.

  “Guess we must be imagining things,” said Sam with a shrug.

  “Another ghost?” Grandma Louise mouthed the words.

  J.J. nodded.

  “We need to write this stuff down,” Sam said, dropping to the floor and pulling out the notepad and gold pen from her backpack. She gave Grandma Louise a frantic look and dipped her head towards Kathryn. “Keep her talking,” she gestured.

  Grandma Louise nodded and led Kathryn towards the centre well banister. She peered upwards. “Tell me a little more about this skylight,” she suggested.

  Sam grinned. “I’ll see if there’s any residue on the table,” she whispered to J.J., passing the notepad and pen to her. Sam grabbed the magnifying glass and raced back to the morning room.

  Kathryn glanced Sam’s way, but Grandma Louise pointed out something on the floor below that caught their attention.

  Standing at the tea table, Sam sighed with frustration. Sheldon’s hands had been swathed in cloth. There couldn’t possibly be fingerprints. As she straightened up, she gasped. One of the teacups was now on the sideboard.

  “J.J., please come here,” Sam whispered in a sing-song voice, stepping out of the room. She grabbed J.J. and pulled her into the room. “Look.”

  “Whoa!” said J.J. “We’d better write this down too.” She shot out the door and back over to the notepad.

  Sam plunked back down on the floor beside J.J. and helped her get all the details down.

  A few moments later, Sam flashed Grandma Louise a thumbs up, motioning for her to keep asking Kathryn questions. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kathryn watching them.

  “So what happened after the place was a veterans’ hospital?” Gran drifted farther around the centre well with Kathryn in tow.

  “The house was renovated again into an adult education centre and the name was changed to Saskatchewan House, until it was restored as a residence for the museum in 1978 through the 1980s,” Kathryn answered. “We managed to get a few original furnishings back, but most are simply Victorian period pieces that are similar to what was here at the time.”

  “This house certainly has had a lengthy and varied history,” Grandma Louise mused, glancing at Sam.

  Sam stowed her gear, hefted her backpack onto one shoulder and joined the others. J.J. followed. Sam flipped her friend their secret sign that meant they needed to talk privately.

  “We missed seeing the bathroom at the end of the hall,” J.J. piped up.

  “Do you mind if we backtrack for a minute?” asked Sam.

  “Go right ahead,” said Kathryn. “I’ll just open the interpretive centre door and turn on the lights.”

  “I’ll wait for them,” said Grandma Louise. She turned to inspect the sideboard.

  “Nice going,” Sam congratulated J.J. as they rushed into the end bathroom to peer at the copper bathtub.

  “Wow, this place is so haunted,” said J.J., leaning against the door frame.

  “And poor Howie gets blamed for everything. I bet Sheldon does his fair share too,” said Sam.

  “And Jocko,” J.J. added.

  Sam laughed. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  “Wouldn’t doubt what?” asked Grandma Louise, appearing in the doorway.

  “Wouldn’t doubt there are even more ghosts than we thought,” said Sam.

  “More than the three ghosts you’ve already mentioned?” asked Grandma Louise.

  “Yup,” said J.J.

  “Maybe four,” admitted Sam.

  J.J. said, “We don’t know for sure about the other host we had first.”

  “But we do know for sure about Howie, Jocko and Sheldon, the war veteran,” said Sam.

  Grandma Louise sucked in her breath and then let it out again. “Wowza.”

  “What I don’t get is why we’re the only ones who see them,” said Sam.

  “Children are supposedly more attuned to the supernatural,” said Grandma Louise thoughtfully. “And I expect because you want to see them, and you’re open to the idea, you’re naturally able to.”

  “But it didn’t work for Howie,” Sam noted.

  J.J. thought for a moment. “We were talking about Jocko right before we saw him, and then wondering about Sheldon—at least, the second time he appeared.”

  “Right. But why did we see him the first time?” asked S
am.

  J.J. turned pale. “I was thinking about my mom,” she admitted. “The long corridor of this place reminds me of walking down the hallway to her hospital room.”

  “That memory might trigger a connection.” Grandma Louise gave J.J. a comforting squeeze.

  Sam smiled at her friend but quickly turned away. J.J.’s mom had lain in hospital for several weeks before she’d passed away from lymphatic cancer. Sam had visited her a few times and didn’t want to remember how horrible it had been to watch her fade away.

  “Now we’ve explained seeing some of the ghosts—but why didn’t we see Howie?” she asked, deliberately changing the subject.

  J.J. brightened. “Lots of people hear him,” she said.

  “But nobody has actually seen him,” finished Sam.

  J.J. nodded. “That we know of. Maybe we’ll be lucky.”

  “Too bad there aren’t any kid ghosts,” said Sam. “Though I guess this was a place mainly for grown-ups.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Grandma Louise warned with a grin.

  “Why did you say that?” asked Sam.

  “Oh, it just popped into my head for some reason.” Grandma Louise patted her hand. “Well, girls, I think we’d better rejoin our host.”

  As Sam stepped out of the doorway, she heard a child laughing nearby. She stopped short, causing J.J. to bump into her. “Did you hear that?” she demanded.

  “Hear what?” asked Grandma Louise.

  “That laughing,” said J.J.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Grandma Louise said.

  Sam felt a whoosh of air pass her, followed by the sound of running feet. Then she heard another high-pitched giggle.

  Sam grabbed J.J.’s arm and looked at Grandma Louise, who shook her head.

  As Sam peered across the vast central hallway, the laughing continued. But no one was there—except Kathryn, coming back from the interpretative centre.

  “Oh, wow.” J.J. looked stunned.

  “Another ghost!” Sam said hoarsely.

  chapter five

  sam, J.J. and Grandma Louise joined Kathryn at the doorway to the master bedroom.

  “Are there any children on tour?” Sam asked.

  “Only your group right now.” Kathryn led them down the opposite side of the centre hall.

  “Did any children ever live here?” asked J.J.

  “Two lieutenant governors lived in this house with their small children—the Browns and the Lakes,” said Kathryn. She grinned. “I’ll show you their rooms in a moment. But first I have a surprise.”

  Kathryn stopped in front of a large oblong mirror hanging on the wall. “Keep staring at it,” she said.

  Grandma Louise was the first to speak. “I can see it shimmering!”

  “It’s moving!” said J.J.

  “What makes it move?” Sam asked. This hadn’t been mentioned on last night’s tour.

  “No one knows,” said Kathryn with a mysterious sigh. “There are no air currents, no drafts from doors or windows, or registers or ducts of any kind anywhere near it. The curators even took it down to restore it, but when it was hung again, it did the same thing.”

  “Another one of your ghosts,” Sam said.

  “Howie, you mean?” said Kathryn.

  “Maybe there are more,” suggested Sam, as innocently as she could.

  “I suppose anything is possible,” Kathryn said with a laugh. “But I haven’t seen any, so I wouldn’t know.”

  “What if you knew there were more than just Howie?” Sam asked.

  “Howie is sufficient for me. He causes enough strange things to happen as it is.” Kathryn guided them through the master bedroom, the governess’s room, the night nursery for the children, and finally the day nursery.

  “Did you know, Gran, that the children had to stay in here all day?” said Sam. “They weren’t allowed in any other part of the house except at Christmas time.”

  “It must have been terrible to live in such a tiny place when there’s this great big house they could be running around in,” J.J. added.

  “That’s exactly why they weren’t allowed out of this room,” said Kathryn. “The house was their home but it was also a place of business. The children were allowed outside for fresh air.”

  “How come Lieutenant Governor Forget got to have a monkey?” asked Sam.

  “He didn’t have children, so he was allowed his pets. He also had a French-speaking parrot named Coquette,” said Kathryn. “Jocko and Coquette made quite a mess, apparently.”

  Sam whispered to J.J., “Thank goodness the parrot isn’t a ghost too!”

  “Well, not that we know of…” J.J. said.

  Grandma Louise and Kathryn left the wing and headed back towards the interpretative centre.

  As Sam followed, she caught a faint movement out of the corner of her eye. She stopped in her tracks. The rocking horse in the nursery was moving. “J.J.!”

  A ghostly figure materialized, a young blonde boy, eight years old. He rocked on the horse, eyeing them.

  “Who are you?” asked Sam.

  The boy laughed. “You can see me, then?”

  Sam nodded.

  “Everyone else in here ignores me no matter what I say or do. It’s like I’m invisible!” He jumped off the horse. “I’m Ben. Do you want to play tag?”

  “We can’t,” said J.J. “We’re not allowed to run up here.”

  “Me either,” he said with a saucy grin. “But I do it anyway when the governess is busy with Robbie.”

  “Who’s Robbie?” asked Sam, looking around the day nursery.

  “My baby brother,” answered Ben.

  “Do you play with any other kids?” Sam asked, noting the train on the floor.

  “No. Just Jocko,” Ben answered.

  “You can see Jocko?” asked Sam.

  “Of course.” Ben seemed puzzled.

  “What about Sheldon and Howie?” asked J.J.

  Ben patted the rocking horse. “Who are they?” he asked.

  “Two men—other ghosts,” Sam blurted out.

  “Ghosts?” Ben blanched. “I’m afraid of ghosts.” He studied them a moment and a look of fright crossed his face. “You’re not ghosts, are you?”

  “No, we’re not,” said J.J.

  “You are, though,” Sam added.

  Ben vanished.

  A pang of regret shot through her. “It’s too bad he didn’t stick around,” she said.

  When she and J.J. had made their way around to the opposite end of the centre well, Sam looked back to the doorway of the nursery wing. A woman in an ankle-length green dress and little white cap rushed past with a crying baby in her arms.

  “Robbie,” J.J. whispered. “And the governess.”

  Suddenly it was too much. “Let’s get out of here,” said Sam. She hurried towards the interpretative centre with J.J. close behind her. Once there, she darted over to Grandma Louise. “We’re starving!” she said.

  Grandma Louise smiled. “I was just thinking the same thing myself,” she said. “Let’s get some lunch.” She turned to Kathryn. “Thanks very much for the tour.”

  Sam grinned at the host. “Yes, that was great. Thanks!”

  “For sure,” said J.J.

  “You’re welcome.” Kathryn smiled. “Come back any time you like. Feel free to tour on your own as well.”

  Sam raced J.J. to the elevator and stabbed the button first.

  “What’s the rush, girls?” called Grandma Louise.

  “We’ll tell you when we get out of here,” said Sam.

  “Looks like we have plenty to talk about over lunch,” her gran said as they whirred down to the main floor.

  They passed the commissionaire with a quick wave and sprinted back to the car.

  “
So what’s up?” asked Grandma Louise as she unlocked the car doors.

  “Government House is loaded with ghosts!” Sam bounced onto the front seat.

  “It’s like there’s a whole family of people there,” said J.J. “Except they mostly don’t know each other.”

  Grandma Louise snapped her seatbelt into place. “Who else did you meet?”

  Sam and J.J. filled her in as she drove to their favourite pizza restaurant. “And I missed all of them,” Grandma Louise said sadly.

  “You couldn’t see or hear any of them?” asked Sam.

  “Not a one,” Grandma Louise sighed.

  “Why do you think none of the ghosts could see each other?” asked J.J. “Except Ben and Jocko,” she added.

  “Well Ben’s a boy, so maybe it’s what Grandma Louise said about kids being able to see ghosts,” replied Sam.

  “But that doesn’t explain why he can’t see the others,” J.J. objected.

  “Except Jocko,” agreed Sam. She glanced at a truck that was playing loud music.

  “Maybe drawing a timeline of when the ghosts are from might give you a clue,” Grandma Louise suggested as she pulled into a parking spot.

  “Maybe Ben and Jocko lived in the house near the same time,” suggested J.J., opening her door.

  “Probably the others are spaced out way farther,” said Sam.

  J.J. paused in mid-motion. Her eyes sparkled. “Wouldn’t it be great if they could get to know each other? Then none of them would be lonely anymore.”

  “Yeah!” Sam got out. “The trick is to find out why they can’t see each other now and figure out how they could meet.”

  Grandma Louise guided them into the restaurant. “I suspect that won’t be easily done.”

  “I think we need to go back to Government House to learn more about the ghosts,” said J.J.

  “You may be right,” said Grandma Louise, patting her hand. “But not today.”

  “My head’s swimming with too much information already,” agreed Sam. She scooted into a booth.

  J.J. slid in beside her. “It’s going to take us a while to figure out when all those ghosts are from,” she said.

  Sam propped her elbows on the table. “We can see everyone but Howie,” she said. “I wonder why that is?”

  “How do you know he’s the only one you can’t see?” Grandma Louise had a twinkle in her eye.