By Brad Steiger
FATE :: July 2006
In late September 1984, Rita Gallagher, a popular romance novelist, moved into an old Victorian mansion in the small central Texas town of Navasota. In her eyes, the house was the perfect writer?s retreat, for in addition to being the author of such novels as Passion Star, Shadows on the Wind, and Shadowed Destiny, Rita was a highly respected teacher of writing and one of the founding members and the first president of the Romance Writers of America. She knew that her students would love it in the rambling old mansion, so she leased the house with an option to buy.
Her first night in the old mansion explained why the lease price had been so reasonable. Shortly after 3:00 a.m., there came a rustling sound in the back hall. Then Rita heard slow footsteps, with one foot dragging, making their way from the front hall between the bedrooms and descending the main staircase.
Though Rita peered up and down the corridor?and even ventured out to the banister?she saw nothing. There were only the sounds of an invisible presence descending the broad staircase.
Then suddenly she was looking into the sad eyes of a young man with shaving cream on his face?who promptly disappeared.
Recalling the startling occurrence, Rita said, ?I wouldn?t have been afraid if he had stayed and talked with me. But his sudden appearance and disappearance made my first night in the house a terrifying one.?
When morning came, Rita tested the steps. ?The third one down was a creaking one. A board on the top landing had a different sound, and the fourth step above the lower landing creaked more loudly than the others.?
On the next evening, shortly after 3:00 a.m. when the creaking sounds came again, Rita was able to determine the location of the ghost?s descent to the main floor.
?The ghostly walk ended in the kitchen,? she said. ?Until dawn purpled the sky, the sound of rattling pots, pans, and dishes echoed faintly throughout the house. Then the ghost made the trip back upstairs and, with a rustling sound, vanished into the back hall.?
One Ghost or Two
Ghost or no ghost, Rita could not afford to lose her investment. And she had a book to write. She decided to work around the ghost and live out the lease.
The next day, she tried to hire a maid and was informed in no uncertain tones that there wasn?t a maid in town who would even enter the house, much less work in it.
Rita got very little sleep in the next two weeks. Then she realized that the ghost?s pattern never really changed and that it never walked until shortly after 3:00 a.m.
?And it never entered my room,? she said. ?I could sleep until that time each night without disturbance.?
The Westminster chimes of the clock in the entrance hall tolled the quarter hour, half hour, and hour?until deep night. But then, Rita had observed, ?From 3:00 a.m. until dawn streaked the skies, the chimes were strangely muffled, gurgling, almost as though they were ringing through water.?
It was Rita?s habit to leave her bedroom door open and the newel post lamp at the foot of the main staircase burning all night. Light filtered up the open stairwell to the cathedral ceiling on the second floor. Shadows of banisters on three sides of the stairwell stretched across the wide hall. Though dim, there was always enough light to see anyone?or anything?passing through the corridor.
Rita automatically awakened shortly before the spectral rustling sounds began, and she stayed out of the halls after 3:00 a.m.
With clockwork regularity, after 3:00 a.m. the halls were given over to the ghost. And then, one night, Rita discovered that she had to make ?ghost? plural. Other footsteps, separate and distinctive from the familiar ghostly tread, had manifested. Now, after the rustling sounds, the footsteps of what seemed to be an elderly woman wandered the hall, descended the main staircase, and walked back to the kitchen.
According to Rita: ?Sometimes after the female ghost reached the kitchen, the rest of the house was silent. Other times, it seemed, her walk evoked further manifestations. Now and then I heard an intermittent, murmuring conversation between a man and a woman, just low enough that words were indiscernible. Every so often a woman?s heartrending sob lasted barely a full second.
?Occasionally there were knockings and heavy sighs, and once in a while there came the tinkle of glasses, faint piano music, and laughter. Shortly before dawn I was frequently awakened by the sound of something heavy being dragged over the third floor above my room.?
Jupiter
In mid-October, Rita went to Beaumont, Texas, for the Golden Triangle Writer?s Guild Annual Conference. On the way she planned to visit a friend, a fellow writer who lived in San Antonio.
?When I arrived, I found my friend in tears,? Rita said. ?Jupiter, her beloved German shepherd, had inexplicably changed from a good-natured, obedient pet to an angry, unpredictable behemoth. He had bitten neighbors, friends, meter men, and the postman. Just a week before I arrived, he had broken free of their home by chewing up the back door frame. Then he proceeded to dig up the roses in the neighbors? yard and run down the street knocking over garbage cans, threatening anyone who came near him. Jupiter?s record at the county dog pound convinced the authorities that he was a dog gone bad, and my friend?s husband had promised that he would put the shepherd down while she was at the writer?s conference.?
Rita loved dogs. It had been less than a year since her beloved cockapoo, Cleopatra, had died of old age. She had never met Jupiter, but she knew that he had registration papers that recorded nine champions in his bloodline. She also knew that the first four years of his life had passed without incident.
?I felt a strong compulsion to save Jupiter,? she said. ?I told my friend and her husband that since I lived 200 miles from San Antonio, I would take him far away from the place where he had gotten into so much trouble.?
After giving her firm warning about Jupiter?s vicious nature, the couple agreed to Rita?s proposition; and when the conference in Beaumont was over, she drove back to San Antonio to pick up the German shepherd.
?I must admit that the mere size of the magnificent animal was intimidating,? Rita said. ?He had a great, leonine head and a regal bearing. He studied me through intelligent, golden eyes, and I stared back at him. It was love at first sight. He walked across the room and placed his giant head in my lap. We were meant for each other.?
Rita experienced no problems with Jupiter on the long drive from San Antonio to Navasota. It was three in the afternoon when they arrived at Rita?s haunted house.
?Jupiter walked into the enormous hall, and I followed him through the parlor into the chandeliered dining room and across the main hall into the library,? Rita remembered. ?When we entered the back hall, he paused a moment at the foot of the steep servant?s staircase. Staring upward, he sniffed, raised his head abruptly, and whined.?
As Jupiter ascended the servants? staircase to the second floor, Rita was right behind him. Then, as the big German shepherd continued up the narrow steps to the third floor, she waited below.
?Just before reaching the opening landing, Jupiter stiffened, and his ruff came up like a lion?s mane,? Rita said. ?With an earsplitting howl, he backed swiftly downstairs and, staring intently upward, sat down, and pressed against me.?
The Nursery
Rita saw nothing, but she felt the same presence that she had noted on her first night in the old mansion.
At the immediate foot of the stairs there was a small room that Rita?for no reason she knew then?called the nursery. Jupiter wasn?t moving. He sat firmly at Rita?s feet, alternately cocking his head, staring, and whining.
Deciding to test him further, Rita opened the door to the nursery.
Curious, Jupiter poked his head into the room. Then, turning quickly, he threw himself against Rita and literally pushed her from the back of the house into the main hall.
Woman and dog walked together down the wide corridor between spacious bedrooms. Side by side they descended the broad, sweeping staircase into the main entrance hall. Stained glass bordered a wavy window that ended barely an inch above the lower landing, and with a sigh, Jupiter settled down there.
?He had found his place,? Rita said. ?For the rest of our time in that house, he spent his days gazing at the passing scene. That night, and every night thereafter, he slept on a rug beside the bed in my large second-floor room.?
Jupiter?s first night in the house was an uneasy one, and he moved restlessly on his rug beside Rita?s bed. As Rita recalled: ?When the old lady began walking, Jupiter leaped to his feet, nails clicking, and walked across the polished floor to stop just inside the doorway. Cocking his head, he looked out at the dimly lighted hall, first one way, then the other.
?The footsteps came closer. As they passed my bedroom door, Jupiter?s ruff stood straight up. Then, front legs moving like pistons, he slid backwards on his rump over the floor to his rug, where he put his paws over his eyes and gave a low whine.? When the ghost of the elderly woman began her walk on Jupiter?s second night in the mansion, he left his rug and went to the foot of Rita?s bed. As the eerie sounds disappeared into the rooms below, he went back to his rug, put his paws over his eyes, and whimpered.
On the third night when the spectral footsteps passed their door, Jupiter merely raised his head, then went back to sleep. ?It was as if he were saying, ?Oh, the hell with it,?? Rita observed.
Inspiration House
Two months after Jupiter?s arrival, Patricia, one of Rita?s students who was going through a divorce, came to live with them in the mansion that had now been christened Inspiration House.
?Jupiter was our protector,? Rita said. ?He would investigate each new manifestation as it occurred. Then, apparently realizing that there was nothing he could do about it, he made no further effort when it occurred again. He just accepted the phenomena, as we all learned to do.?
But, daylight or darkness, Jupiter was always alert. ?Whether alone or together, when my students or I would walk the halls or go upstairs, Jupiter appeared beside us,? Rita recalled. ?Now and then he would suddenly step in front and gently, but firmly, push us in the other direction.?
Over time, Rita had become convinced that there was nothing to fear from the ghosts that walked Inspiration House. Except for her encounter with the young man with the shaving cream on his face during her first evening in the old mansion, none of the other entities had ever been seen.
Rita observed that, for the most part, the manifestations seemed to be on a ?never-ending soundtrack, each entity performing intermittently.? There seemed to be nothing threatening at all in the old house.
Malevolent Footsteps
But one late summer afternoon, Rita discovered that she had been wrong. Something menacing did exist in the old mansion.
The house had been completely ?ghost-free? during the daylight hours ever since Rita moved in, but on this particular afternoon, while she ran errands, Patricia was terrified to hear the sound of heavy footsteps thudding up the back servants? staircase. She had been seated in the seminar room, evaluating manuscripts, when the disturbances began; and even though Jupiter lay at her feet, she was badly frightened by the manifestation.
With a low, deep, warning growl, the big German shepherd chased after the unseen intruder. Summoning her own courage, Patricia followed Jupiter until the footsteps suddenly ceased in the middle of the main hallway on the second floor.
Jupiter whimpered and sat down abruptly. His invisible quarry had vanished, leaving him puzzled and confused.
In the days that followed, the heavy footsteps sounded through the halls. But Jupiter chose not to give further pursuit of the invisible intruder. He would only whine and nestle close to Rita?s feet.
One afternoon, with Jupiter beside her as usual, Rita was seated with Patricia and the bookkeeper in the large room that they had established as an office. While Patricia marked manuscripts and the bookkeeper made ledger entries, Rita busily edited the last chapter of her book.
Then, all at once, Rita felt as though she were engulfed in a pillar of ice: ?It was hard to catch my breath, and my heart felt like a large, heavy rock in my chest. I could neither move nor speak. Patricia went on writing; the bookkeeper went on working; and I was terrified!
?But Jupiter, snarling menacingly, scrambled to his feet. Ruff standing straight up around his neck, he sank his teeth into my heavy slacks and literally pulled me from the chair toward the door.
?As soon as I was pulled from the icy pillar, I could breathe again. But the pain in my chest lasted into the next day. It took even longer to get rid of the chill. It was then that I realized that something in the house was far from benign.?
Two days later, while Rita was writing upstairs with Jupiter at her feet, the bookkeeper was the one who became enveloped in the deadly chill. This time, however, it was Patricia who pulled the woman free from the icy spell.
?Ministers, priests, and psychic investigators who came to Inspiration House all confirmed what we had already determined,? Rita said. ?There were multiple hauntings in the old mansion. There was the old woman, the young man, a younger woman, a child, and the heavy man whose footsteps sounded intermittently throughout our afternoons. And then there was the threatening, chilling entity that seemed determined to snuff out my life and that of my bookkeeper.?
More than a thousand writers and others associated with the publishing world visited Inspiration House during the two and a half years that Rita and Jupiter shared their turf with eerie interlopers from the spirit world. In spite of the rumors about Inspiration House being haunted, student writers, editors, and literary agents came there to participate in various writing programs sponsored by Rita Gallagher.
?Some students left after the first night and thereafter only came for daytime tutoring,? Rita said. ?Others, traveling from greater distances, stayed at a nearby motel.?
Rita always told newly arriving guests that bathroom privileges were cut off between 3:00 a.m. and dawn. ?Some laughed. Others accepted the edict without question.?
Jupiter became not only Rita?s guardian and that of her secretary, but the protector of all who came to Inspiration House. After dark, without being summoned, he would escort each guest through the upstairs hall to the bathroom. Then, after waiting outside the door, he conducted them back to their beds.
Having at last completed her book, Rita realized how much energy it had taken just to live in the haunted mansion. Jupiter had lost a great deal of weight. He slept little, and now and then appeared to be tormented by something unseen. Although the veterinarian said that Jupiter?s health was good, Rita knew that he was suffering.
The novel was finished. Patricia?s divorce was finalized. They decided to move from the old house.
?Our last two weeks in the mansion were dreadful,? Rita said. ?Old-fashioned pushbutton light switches were turned rapidly off and on. Water ran intermittently. Toilets were flushed. Doors slammed. In broad daylight, books were lifted from their shelves, hoisted two or three feet in the air, then dropped to the floor.
?Sometimes Patricia?s frantic voice called to me. With Jupiter beside me, I would run upstairs only to discover that she had been in the kitchen or the downstairs bathroom and hadn?t called me at all. Other times, it was my voice that Patricia heard calling her.?
Jupiter Attacked
Two or three times in those final fearful days in Inspiration House, Jupiter was beset by unseen entities.
?At nine or ten at night, with Patricia in her bed reading and me in mine watching television, Jupiter would lie in the hall between our rooms,? Rita said. ?Suddenly, ruff high around his neck, he would howl, then scramble to the other end of the hall where, trembling, he cowered in the corner.
?When we went to him, petting him and speaking soothing words, his golden eyes were wide, staring beyond us at something we could not see. Then the torture would continue, and the poor dog would scramble to the other end of the upper hall.?
In late March 1987, Rita, Patricia, and Jupiter moved to Conroe, Texas. This time, instead of an old, haunted Victorian mansion, the new Inspiration House was a modern 15-room home with maids? quarters, wide lawns, trees?and no ghosts!
In August 1988, Jupiter became ill with cancer, and after two months of medication and the opinions of several veterinarians, the sorrowful decision had to be made to end the great German shepherd?s terrible suffering.
?On our last night together, he lay on his rug beside my bed while I spoke softly to him,? Rita said. ?I thanked him for all he had done to make my life happier. I told him that I loved him, and his eyes told me that he loved me, too.?
Rita was convinced that on some level of awareness Jupiter had known that it was his destiny to intertwine his life with Rita?s and that it was his job to protect her from harm, his fated duty to guard her from those unseen presences in the old Texas mansion.
?And he did that beautifully,? Rita said. ?During his four years with me, Jupiter protected me from both seen and unseen predators. He knew my every thought, my every mood, my every fear. And always, always, he was there, guarding, guiding, and?most of all?loving those in his care.?
Author?s note: My friend Rita Gallagher died on February 1, 2004, at the age of 82. Rita had enjoyed a writing career that spanned 50 years. In addition to her romance novels, she published numerous articles and was a highly respected teacher of writing. Together with her daughter, award-winner author Rita Clay Estrada, she wrote the popular text You Can Write a Romance.
Brad Steiger is a professional writer who deals with the strange and unknown. He lives in Forest City, Iowa.
http://www.fatemag.com/issues/2000s/200 ... cle2d.html
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