It's the time of year when there's a crisp chill in the air, pumpkins bedeck porches and children anticipate bags of candy.
It's also the time of year when shadows seem fleetingly animated, when the snap of a twig can make the hardiest soul jump, and when a mysterious bump in the night can raise goosebumps just a little bit higher.
In this spirit, North Augusta Today will publish the spooky tales of North Augusta life.
Lynn Thompson, chairperson of the Living History Park, volunteered her story. Below is her account, adapted from an interview, of a spirit she believes shares her home.
If you have a similar story to share, please contact Lisa Kaylor at (706) 828-3904 or e-mail lisa.kaylor@northaugustatoday.com by October 21.
When we moved into the Sesame Lodge on West Avenue in the early 1980s, my daughter Meredith was about 8 years old.
The second-floor master bathroom ceiling was dropped in the 1940s and was not as high as the ceilings in the rest of the house.
Meredith had a bedroom across the hall from this room.
She and several others said at night she could hear somebody playing ping pong upstairs.
The third floor contained a sewing room, a laundry room and a guest bedroom.
We had a ping pong table at the time, but it stayed in the garage behind the house. We never set it up on the third floor.
When Meredith was in college, she had some friends over to spend the night.
She told them about the spooky ping pong player and thought she'd play a joke on them.
She went into the bathroom, which opened to rooms on both sides. She turned on the shower, went across the hall and came out of the door to the master bedroom across from her room and left it open behind her.
With the water running in the bath, the door was open to her room and she threw a ping pong ball into the room. The girls started screaming.
Meredith turned around to run into the open door of the master bedroom and ran smack into the back of the door that someone, or something, had closed behind her.
Years later, during a bathroom remodel, we decided to redo the ceiling to make it the same height as the rest of the house.
When the first cut was made, six to eight ping pong balls fell out. They were yellowed with age.
That ceiling had stayed closed for as long as we've owned it. Where they came from is beyond me.
We have great respect for the ping pong player in our house. She's very opinionated. She sometimes disputes my candle placement by throwing them across the room.
She also has a tendency to stop clocks and open the door if she doesn't like the way it sounds.
I've never actually seen her, but you know how you feel like somebody's there? That's what I get. I've learned to talk to her.
I don't know who she is. The house had many very formal visitors after it was built in 1902. We are the second owners. It was a bed and breakfast for many years.
The visitors at the house did not want lodgings as formal as the Hampton Terrace Hotel. But like the guests at the Hampton Terrace, many of the Sesame Lodge's guests brought their servants with them.
The servants stayed on the third floor.
From time to time, Telly, our Yorkie, barks and growls for no reason on the second and third floors. Maybe "she" is correcting or playing with him -- who knows?
We're the second owners of the house, but we're the first to use it as a home. I think "she" could be someone who has always wanted a home but never had one of her own.
She's friendly and that's good.
Reach Lisa Kaylor at lisa.kaylor@northaugustatoday.com.
