“Inspiration came on a grey October morning. I walked past the community message board on my way into the Wellesley Free Library where I work as a children’s librarian. An image of a flier popped into my mind: Ghost Stories Wanted.

That’s it! I thought, a text bubble popping up over my head. Instead of watching some guy in night vision say “I swear to God, dude, that door just opened by itself,” I would find people – neighbors! – to tell me, in person, “I swear to God, I saw this [insert terrifying oogly boogly thing] in my house.”

I created a little sign and pinned it to the library’s community message board. I promised free coffee and muffins in exchange for a scary tale. My husband thought I’d get calls from, what he termed “hippy dippy dreamcatcher people” who wanted free Quebrada pastries.” — Liz Sower

“The scratching became intolerable. I had the pest company back out to the house and they insisted that we didn’t have a rat or mouse problem. The guy even said that with a house as old as ours we should have some sort of a bug or spider factor, but he didn’t even find that.’You’re lucky,’ he told me, ‘The critters don’t like your house.’

“There I was, chasing this noise all over the house every night, while Jake slept like a baby,” Becca shivered then said, “Then I saw a shadow on the stairs one night while I was trying to solve the whole scratching thing. I reasoned it away, but I didn’t follow the noise around after that. I stayed in bed.” — Liz Sower

“Yeah, five of us used the board. We each put a hand on the planchette and started asking the classic Ouija Board questions, like, ‘Are there any spirits here with us?’ and ‘Can you give us a sign of your presence.’”

“Did anything happen?”

“The planchette moved to ‘yes’ twice and everyone swore they weren’t moving it. Then someone had the idea to ask a question that could be answered with numbers. Gary asked the spirit to tell us his house number. It was a good question actually because none of us knew the answer off the top of our heads, and I’ll be damned if the planchette didn’t spell out 1 – 9 – 9. His fucking house number!” — Liz Sower

I commented on her kitchen and took note of a sailor’s valentine perched on the countertop behind her. Inside a hexagonal wooden shadow box were gorgeously arranged shells, stones, and sea glass. The valentines were created by sailors in the eighteen hundreds and brought home to their sweethearts after traveling at sea for years at a time (i.e. killing off all the whales for oil).

This valentine held blue shells, green sea glass and stark white stones in a perfect wave-like pattern. A whale bone at the design’s center held one word, until, written in scrimshaw. We travelled to Nantucket every summer and I’d pined over the sailor’s valentines in the Whaling Museum. Such romantic gestures, so filled with longing and homesickness. This one was the most intricate, the most beautiful I’d ever seen.

“That is stunning,” I said, motioning to the valentine.“Isn’t it?” Pam replied, “It’s the reason I asked you to come.” — Liz Sower

“Wait, you said your story was a cautionary one. Cautionary to whom?”

“Don’t you realize? To you. It knows you’re looking. Watch your back.”

With that she pushed her chair back and walked out of the restaurant without another word.

I sat for a moment then pulled the little folder with our bills towards me. I wrote out the tip and signed my name to the receipt. Nosey Nelly that I am, I peeked at Casey’s bill to see if she had tipped well (I’ve got a thing about always tipping well).

She’d only tipped ten percent. Jerk. More disturbing was the fact that she’d signed her check ‘Zila Cotton.’