Scary Urban Legends

Room 20

In the early part of the spring, post-skiers, pre-hikers, we never had many guests. So my brother and our friends or cousins or whomever would play hide-and-seek in the upstairs rooms when they were all empty. This was pretty terrific because there were 12 beds tp hide under, 12 or more tall closets you could shimmy up, and 12 bathtubs to lie down in. There was also a linen closet; you could bury yourself under bales of white towels.

Room 20 was at the front of the building, overlooking the street and the tennis court. In addition to the bed and the bathtub there was also a window seat with a hidden compartment- you lifted up the seat and there was a box there just about big enough for a kid to contort himself into.

One March day we were playing with cousins who were visiting. My cousin Laurie and I went to hide together in room 20. We opened the door and snuck in, only to find that it was freezing, as if the windows were wide open.

It was also occupied.

Huddled near the window were two children wrapped up in rags and blankets from head to foot. There was a women or teenage girl with them, her waxy and delicate hand resting on the smaller child's shoulder.

We girls stopped dead for maybe a heartbeat or two before we both knew we were seeing something wrong and unholy. They turned their heads sharply, as if at a sudden noise, and by then we were running out of the room.

At my bachelorette campfire 20 years later Laurie said she could only remember they had eyes "like caverns" and that the smallest one had a running nose. I did not see their faces; I remember that I ran with eyes shut tight all the way down the stairs.

I think I was about six when that happened. I know I was able to play hide-and-seek up there again, but never in room 20. I was thirteen when we sold the place, and by the end was being asked to help out with cleaning the rooms. One of the regular chambermaids told me that when I worked in room 20(or 19 , or 24) I should bang on the door before entering and blast the TV the whole time I did.

My mother, concerned about another ghost (the one that moved between 19 and 24) had a series of psychics come to the place to poke around. They all described 20 as cold and sad.

She was later able to locate a report, whether from old-timer hearsay or the historical society, I can't remember that during the Civil War a women and her children froze to death while snowed in after a blizzard, waiting for the man of the place to come home with food.