Vicksburg – Day One

We arrived in the afternoon and the door to the Library Suite was open.  The first thing my brother did was take a picture of the chess board.  “So we know where all the pieces were.”  I remember that one of the white pawns was missing and a rook was in its spot – upside down.  Then down the wrought iron spiral staircase to the bedroom/wine cellar/morgue.  Just the right combination of creepy without feeling dirty.  Then, the bathroom.  Scott took one look at this and said, “You know blood is coming out of that thing, right?”

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And so the horror movie jokes began.  We unpacked our stuff – my poor brother had to lug his camp bed across the lawn, into the house and down that staircase – and then took a walk around the property.  Again, excellent combination of from-another-era but cared for:

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Outside, by the pool were a couple spending the weekend for their anniversary.  Apparently, they had gotten married at Cedar Grove several years ago and they told us all about the place. Scott was talking to the husband and the wife asked where we were from.  When I said, “Chicago” she asked how we came to stay here.  “Online,” I replied.  “I was looking for hotels in Vicksburg and Tripadvisor had a pretty convincing review that said the place is haunted.  We’re staying in the Library Suite.”  She did a double take and said she didn’t know anything about that.  As we were walking away, I recounted the conversation to Scott.  They got married here and couldn’t speak to the ghost stories?  How very horror movie.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant that night.  The food was decent, but pricey.  The service was terrible.  Then we went back to the room to take more pictures and see about the ghosts.

First, the Library was also a game room – hence the chess board – and the decor was very dark, Victorian masculine.  The fireplace was no longer operational and the lighting was insufficient so we brought a lamp upstairs from a bedroom end table.  Then I took these:

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As I circled back around to take a picture of the game table, something odd happened.  There was a shaft of light on my phone that I could not see with the naked eye.  I looked up and down four or five times before finally snapping this:

See the diagonal shaft of light?  That’s what I’m talking about.  It was dark outside.  The lamps were not pointed in that direction and to the left of the picture are the door to the room – then closed – and the dark fireplace.  The reflections in the glass bookcase don’t explain it, so I am at a loss.

We had heard that “manhandling” the books was the fastest way to make the ghostly gentleman of the house angry, so we decided against it on Night 1.  I took a shower in that ancient tub and managed to soak the entire bathroom.  Also, the drain was painfully slow which bothered me a lot.  By the time I was ready to climb into the bed, my brother was watching Sharknado 2 on the television.  So much for ghost stories.