Fickle Me, Fickle Thee

 

Yvonne Navarro

Things change.

You wouldn’t think that about a haunted house, would you? Sure, there’s no written-in-stone (or blood) rule, but the generally accepted belief is that a spirit sticks with however it is. If it’s happy, that’s great: maybe you see neat little floating bubbles around the ceiling, or a nice warmth comes over you when you walk into a room, or if you’re really lucky, it’s the kind that’ll make the front door stick closed when you otherwise would have walked out and broken your leg because fate had you slipping on that wet front step. If it’s evil, well, then you get pushed down the stairs or something. That’s why handrails were made, right?

On my first trip to Haunted Mansion in 2010, every time I went up or down, I maintained an Iron Man grip on the handrail along the Murder Stairs, the long and narrow stairway between the second and third floors where it was rumored that someone had been stabbed to death. I won’t say that the spirits I sensed in the house were precisely evil, but I didn’t believe they were friendly, either. Every time I was alone, whether I was walking down the hallway on my way to a common room, exploring some out-of-the-way alcove, or even in the bathroom (I am not kidding), I felt like someone, or something, was watching me. Let’s just say it wasn’t a “Mama’s watching over you” kind of warm and fuzzy. I got to the point where I dreaded going anywhere alone in the mansion and just wanted to stick like glue to other people. Wes and I had a door close in our faces; I had another one slam shut across a room when I was up on the third floor by myself; there were lots more not-so-fun mini-experiences. In fact, I had lived in a haunted house decades ago that was so bad, so downright malevolent, that all I could ultimately do was get the hell out of there. I think a part of me was terrified this would escalate into a repeat of that.

During the 2012 visit, things were different.

Oh, the mansion still had its nebulous permanent occupants. I have no doubt they all still had their attitudes. There was even an incident where something evil and greedy outside the Mansion got in, a terrifying experience for another attendee. But for me, things were okay—I felt that now the mansion liked me. There were plenty of times that I still felt something watching me, but the timbre of that feeling had gentled to where it felt more like I was being watched over on a sort of “just in case” basis. A good thing, because at the end of my 2010 visit I had decided, firmly, that if I ever got up the guts to return, I was going to spend the entire time painting in the third-floor atrium, a daylight-soaked expanse that to me cried out for a canvas and acrylics.

So when Wes and I firmed up plans to return in 2012, I packed the paints, a couple of portable easels and canvases, and hauled them along. Had that same heavy undertone of uneasiness existed on my second visit, I don’t think I could have done what I did—painted—because, except for mealtimes, I spent almost every waking daylight hour alone in the atrium. It was hot enough to bake potatoes up there, but I dragged the fan out of our room and up the stairs, made sure I had music, plenty of water and Smarties, and had an absolutely wonderful time. I worked primarily on one painting, a figure of a Lakota Indian, moving the easel around as necessary so I wouldn’t be blinded by the sun coming through the overhead glass panels. I never had a single moment of unease. The mansion liked me.

I don’t know why, but perhaps it liked my type of creativity: the visual rather than the written word. There were plenty of writers there, both in 2010 and 2012; I’m a longtime writer myself, and although there were a couple of artists, I was the only one, I think, who actively started any kind of a picture while at the mansion. Still, I can’t help thinking that my writing played a part in the mansion’s change of feelings toward me, its acceptance of me, because I felt welcome from the first time I set foot in the foyer in 2012. It wanted me there, but why?

Because the mansion can read.

For The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One, I wrote a story called “Depictions” and made the setting the Mansion itself. If you want to read it, you’ll have to go back and pick up the Year One volume (you can find it on Amazon.com, ASIN B007T3NDH8 or from Damnation Books directly http://www.damnationbooks.com/book.php?isbn=9781615725786). I won’t write a spoiler (we writers hate spoilers), but I can say that the heart—or the hero—of the tale was the Mansion itself. I think it liked that, and it showed me that it did in the only way it could. I can’t wait for the next visit, when I’ll find out what it thought of the painting I started in that atrium in 2012.

I do, however, have a feeling that I’d better finish it before I go back…because I don’t want the Mansion to find any reason at all to disapprove of me.