The Dream House: a ghost story for Samhuin - by Steve Gladwin

Irish Times.com

Here is a story for the time of the ancestors. It goes something like this!  

 There's a couple in Ireland, and he's recently retired. He works hard and has had to work a lot of evenings. He's always promised his wife that when he retires, they will find their dream house - the one they've always promised themselves.  One morning, just after he's retired and before they've even had time to think about finding somewhere to live - the celebratory bottle of sherry still two-thirds of the way down and the retirement still gleaming and untarnished on the mantle-piece - the wife comes into breakfast excited. 

'I've had that dream again', she says. 

 Now then, this had been a bit of a joke between them when they were first married. The wife, Marie, had this regular dream when she was looking up the drive to this house where she just knew she was going to live, and where she would be happy ever after. It was, perhaps, a young wife's dream, but it felt real and comforting and got her through the first, difficult pregnancy. And yes, from there came that promise they made that one day they would find that place and live in it.

Well, you know how it is? Time passes and life and two children - now long ago grown up - take over. Before you know it there's talk of retirement and you feel as if you've only just sat down and it's upon you. More change. Maybe that's why the dreams returned!

But this time- Marie hastened to tell her husband Eamonn -it was different. This time she wasn't just standing, excited on the drive looking at a house she knew she belonged in. This time she was in the house, seeing all of it, and standing in the garden. She was looking at the heavy, stone bird-bath and thinking she'd need to replace the water. Or maybe she was white-washing the outside of the house, (the white-washed walls were one of the few things she remembered from before), or looking with pride at the gleaming surfaces in the old kitchen, or stacking wood into piles from the woodshed at the blind end of the garden. She also remembered what a distance it was from the shed back to the house, and how treacherous it could get with the ice. 

From the Independent.ie.

In her dreams, she mused on this about the house, and changed that about it, and when she came out and found it really had been a dream again, she felt refreshed. She always woke with a smile on her face. After a few months of having Eamonn around the house, Marie decided he needed something to do. He needed a new project, and so did she. Luckily, she knew just the thing. It began with a few calls and glances at the property sections of the local newspapers, but soon spread online as they both decided they would be happy with a new  change of scene. They decided they liked the idea of County Clare, where they'd had many happy times around The Burren, that unique limestone landscape. It was a place where they had often holidayed, and besides, if they found somewhere, there would be ample opportunity to strike out elsewhere. 

 To cut a long story short, they booked a week in a nice week in a B and B and set off with a new set of leather luggage, one small indulgence after years of making do,( but both Marie and Eamonn secretly hoped there might be a few more now there was the firm's handsome pension to live on). Almost a week had gone by and they had found nothing remotely suitable. All the properties were either too expensive or not available. There had been one half chance, but it had been snapped up even before they could submit an offer. What made it twice as difficult - Eamonn had to admit, was that Marie didn't seem that bothered about anywhere. She was looking - somewhat unrealistically - for her one particular   dream house. 

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 It was the last morning and it was pouring down with rain. The mood in the car was of repressed anger and resentment. Both had snapped at the other. Eamonn had been fed up three days ago, (the constant unseasonal rain had hardly helped), and Marie was angry with him because he kept pushing her to settle for less. All considered, things were in danger of brewing into a storm within, as well as without.

'There!' 

 Eamonn jerked to a halt, rubbing his neck and glaring. Turning in anger, he saw Marie gazing in rapt delight at a house opposite. A small white-cottage at the top of a long drive. 

 'There' she said again, smiling her delight. 'That's my dream house, Eamonn. 'And sure now, hasn't it got a for sale sign.?'

 'Looks like it's been there a long time as well', he grumbled. 

 'Oh, don't be such a misery. Let's sneak a look. See, there's a porch we can shelter from the rain. Maybe we can look through the windows.'  

Eamonn softened at that, and really couldn't help but chuckle. That was his Marie,   ever the rebel, but she'd run out of causes years ago

Over the next few hours, things moved on at a speed they could never have dreamed of. Marie was so certain and Eamonn, thinking that the fishing was bound to be good and that there were worse places they might get stuck in the middle of, agreed more to both please his wife and prevent the torture of starting the whole thing again somewhere else. besides, his wife's total delight - as she ran through the garden with a soaked and grumbling Eamonn in tow- was eventually infectious - as long as it didn't last much longer. 

 'See, look. I told you. There's a wood shed just beyond the blind end of the garden.' 

'Just how would you know it's got a blind end, for crying out loud!' 

'See, here. The grass seems to run into a dead end. But look, there, behind those trees. There's nearly half as much. It's huge.'

Having fingers a darn sight greener than his wife's and plenty of time to get them even greener, this was one thing Eamonn could agree about. Three hours later, they were in the solicitor Mr Herbert's office, and he was putting the finishing to the purchase. He'd even managed to produce a celebration glass of a somewhat warm and sickly sherry

'Miss Bird needed a quick sale', Mr Herbert stressed, 'but she was also quite clear she wouldn't accept just anybody. 'The house needs the right person', she's always saying, 'as much as the person needs the house.

' 'Well, then, the house is clearly in luck', Eamonn smiled as he chinked his glass. 'The house has clearly been looking for my wife. She's been dreaming about such a place for months. It's the oddest thing.

' 'Not such a place, Eamonn', she scolded him. 'This is the place.'

 'Well, what, with the notoriously fussy Miss Bird   having agreed just like that when I described you, it's clear that you must be.' It was then that in the only odd moment during the somewhat rushed proceedings, Mr Herbert gave her the strangest look. 'Yes', he smiled. 'Very clear indeed.'

It took over three months to arrange the move and in the second of those months Mr Herbert phoned to inform them that the old lady, Miss Bird, had died peacefully in her sleep. 'But she was alert to the end, and only sorry she said, that she couldn't have lived to see you both into your new home.'

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It was bitter January when they moved and thus they didn't concentrate much on anything apart from getting the removal men to get all their stuff in and getting the fire going nicely and the boiler heating up. The weather being so foul and the move having taken them into the evening, they insisted the removal man and his two sons, a local firm, came in for a cup of tea and a brandy to keep out the cold. Besides, Donal and his sons were the first people they'd met from their new area. Just as they were leaving, the older man took Eamonn aside. 'I'm taking it old Herbert warned you about the ghost', he said to a stunned silence. 'He didn't?, Eamonn swallowed, hardly believing he'd heard the words.

'Ah, well, I can see now how maybe he wouldn't. I'm sure as sure you'll have a happy time here now.

It was March by the time the solicitor had time to take up their invitation to come to dinner. Not that they had found anything to complain about, apart from the ghost comment. Everything worked and the place was comfortable and - considering it was winter - they'd been very happy and cosy indeed.

Mr Herbert was unexpectedly delightful company. Clearly a born raconteur, he kept them amused with his tales of old bats far weirder than Mrs Bird and their inexplicable codicils! As they were finishing their desert, Eamonn decided it was time to breach the subject before the opportunity went. 'It's all lovely', he admitted,  pouring another brandy into his own glass after Mr Herbert had shaken his head. 'In fact, I can't see how it could be any better. But why not tell us about the ghost now?

Mr Herbert, much to their surprise, didn't act like a man who'd been caught out at all. Instead he gave a slow smile as he sipped at his coffee. 'Oh, he said. 'It's true that there is a ghost, but I never imagined it could give you any trouble.' 

'Why would that be, then?' Marie asked softly.

'Why', said the solicitor with a small twinkle. 'Because the ghost is you, Madam. You see, I've seen you here many times.' 

The End

In such a year of unforced change and unfamiliarity, I thought it would be nice to find a gentle and hopeful story for this time of quiet remembrance at Samhuin, rather than the usual ghosts and ghoulies. After all, as two other bloggers have already pointed out, this was a time set aside to revere the ancestors, rather than imagine they could scare the living bejaysus out of you!

The story of the 'Dream House', or 'The House in the Road', probably originates as a folk-tale, as much as an urban myth, for there are certainly several versions of this tale-type. This particular one, based on the version I have told many times as a storyteller, can be found in 'Folktales from Around the World', by Jane Yolen, part of the fabulous Pantheon series of World Folktales, and the first such book I bought and read.

However if you're feeling a bit cheated of your spooky story, might I recommend a few I read for this blog a year ago, as well as a novel I have read recently.

The novel is 'The Haunting of Hill House' by Shirley Jackson, which was made into an equally terrifying film called 'The Haunting'. It's not quite 250 pages long and in many ways it's a different kind of haunted house story, where what begins in the imagination works in tandem with the fact that this is a house with real attitude.

I would also recommend the following short stories. 'The Beckoning Fair One' by Oliver Onions (1863-1961) is another exercise in disturbed psychology and with the same claustrophobic feel as Hill House.  It has however an ending, which could well have been the opening of the latest case for 'Endeavour', or 'Vera.'

'The Ash Tree' is just one of many stories by the great M.R.James, (1832-1936)  I might recommend. Here it's the tree of the title which is the real problem, but it also broods beautifully all the way to it's climax. Warning - spider babies!

'The Haunted and the Haunters', by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, (1803-1973) is quite extraordinary, and for me the most chilling of all haunted house stories. Bulwer Lyttonhad the reputation of being a poor writer, but certainly not here, where he pulls out all the stops.

'The Room in the Tower' is one of many marvelous and terrifying short stories by E.F. Benson, (1867-1940)   known widely as the writer of  the 'Mapp and Lucia' series of novels. It's one of those books where a single refrain gets  under your skin and won't let go!

'The Great God Pan' by Welsh writer Arthur Machen is a quite extraordinary one-off. By no means a classic ghost story, it nonetheless carries with it the kind of truly unsettling feeling that few stories possess. Like Algernon Blackwood, (see below) and W.B. Yeats, Machen, was a member of the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn..

'The Doctor John Silence Stories', and hundreds of fine stories of terror and darkness, such as 'The Willows', 'The Wood of the Dead', and especially the elementally haunting and terrifying 'The Wendigo', bring us to writer, journalist and early broadcasting narrator and creator of 'Starlight Express', Algernon Blackwood, (1869-1961) An odd man, who despite lacking much knowledge of human relationships, traveled widely and so had a huge range of settings and myths at his beck and call. 'The Wendigo', perhaps even more so than 'The Willows', brings us into a terrifying claustrophobic and elemental world, where the normal rules are suspended and the great wood spirit of the native american people reigns supreme.

My most chilling story of all is not a haunted house story of any kind, and like the best stories, defies easy categorisation. One of many wonderful Irish ghost story writer Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, (1814-1873) 'Schalken the Painter' is a story both terrifying in both concept and execution. Actually, creepy hardly does the extraordinary events justice. Read it, and if you're feeling really brave seek it out on youtube, where there is a memorably chilling and disturbing BBC adaptation from 1979, adapted by Leslie Megahey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TZjrhDoGCM. You will also find a video version of the original story read by Ian McDiarmid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzzWCujHDNY

Now, don't say I didn't warn you. Happy Samhuin

Steve Gladwin - Stories of Feeling and Being

Writer, Drama Practitioner, Storyteller and Blogger.

Creation and Story Enhancement/Screen writing.

Author of 'The Seven', 'Fragon Tales' and 'The Raven's Call'

01938 500728/01485007189/imagepoet7@gmail.com/mrwilliamsromance@gmail.com

https://www.storiesoffeelingandbeing.com/