“It is required of every man,” the ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.”
—Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol”

After spending two nights in Astoria, Oregon we traveled to the beautiful and sleepy town of Seaview, Washington. We were lucky to get an attic room in the Shelburne Hotel which was built in 1896 and is the longest continuously operating hotel in Washington State. The big draw for me was the feeling of stepping back in time, but it was the rumors of ghosts that excited my daughter. Who doesn’t want a little adventure?

From the moment we parked our car and walked in the front door we felt welcome. The hotel is very LGBTQ-friendly and has a tremendously calm feeling. We arrived early and the staff encouraged us to explore the hotel while they finished cleaning our room. One employee showed us the secret library (swoon) and told us a bit about the local spirits—Georgina in the garden beside the large tree, the original caretaker Charles Beaver in the second-floor hallways, and a girl named Nina in the attic.

Now, before I go into the details of our possible ghost encounter, I want to share these photos taken with my iPhone 13 to give you a sense of the place. Almost all my photos are slightly crooked or off, which fits the mood perfectly.

All the stained glass was rumored to be repurposed from a church in Morecambe, England, that was being torn down and dates back to the 1800s.

The very creaky stairs up the attic.

Our bedroom. The little nook off to the left is where my daughter slept.

The hotel restaurant was divine. I particularly loved the wine and crème brûlée.

Now, here’s the part I’m a bit hesitant to share. You see, almost all of what happened can be explained away with logic. However, if you choose to believe in spirits…

After eating in the restaurant we retired to our attic room. We got into our pajamas and watched a few episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race before deciding it was time to rest. My daughter climbed into the little nook area and I sprawled across the bed. Before I went to sleep I said a prayer of protection and asked to be left alone. My daughter said she wanted to see a spirit and was open to an encounter. The bed was comfy and although we both heard some creaking on the stairs and a few bumps on the outside walls, I drifted to sleep fairly quickly.

I woke several times with an incredibly warm feeling against my back as if a dog or small person was curled up beside me. The room was cold but I was sweaty and uncomfortable. Each time it happened, I sat up and checked on my daughter and found her sleeping peacefully in the little nook. In retrospect, I should have been scared as I’m usually a complete baby about such things, but I wasn’t.

About the fourth time this happened, I whispered into the room.

“I need my rest.”

A few minutes later I felt a hand tap my left leg three times. It was comforting, which if you know me, is highly strange. I’m the type of person who jumps if someone comes into the room unannounced. I’ve been known to freak myself out and think someone was in the backseat of my van while driving home late at night and pull over at a gas station to check every inch of the back in the bright lights. I don’t even like scary movies, yet this touch on my leg felt natural and not at all scary.

At 3 a.m. I woke to my daughter softly calling my name. I sat up groggily and saw she was still in her nook but she looked strange.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know…”

She was terribly cold and shaking violently.

“My stomach hurts…”

She has a very sensitive stomach, particularly while traveling, and I figured maybe the rich dessert didn’t sit well with her. I didn’t want to tell her, but I started to get scared for the first time. The room felt different and I quickly turned on all the lights. Her skin was ice cold, her face pale, and she couldn’t stop shaking. At that moment I wanted to pack everything up and leave, but before I could say anything else she ran to the bathroom and threw up in the sink. Within a few minutes, she started to feel better and crawled into bed with me. The heat I’d been feeling on my back was gone, but so was the scary feeling that had arrived when she felt sick.

Unable to go back to sleep right away, we watched another episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race and then turned out the lights. I said another prayer of protection, including my daughter this time, and fell asleep fairly quickly. The warm feeling on my back didn’t return and I didn’t wake until I heard the call of a common starling outside the window in the morning.

My daughter woke up a few hours after me and told me what she saw right before falling asleep. A young girl was standing near the foot of the bed looking at her. She was wearing a white dress and had short black hair curled around her face. She didn’t say anything and her face didn’t show any emotion, but after seeing the girl she was able to sleep soundly.

The staff told us that sometimes things get moved around in the rooms, but we didn’t notice anything different in the morning. I showered and we had delicious coffee and tea in the lobby. We wrote down our story in a journal kept behind the front counter and left. We talked about our experience and could explain all of it away. It wasn’t until arriving at our next hotel we thought perhaps we did experience something supernatural. Digging through my bag to get my swimming suit for the hot tub I found this:

One of the first things my daughter said when we walked into the attic bathroom was, “Look at this cute makeup towel!” My bag was never in the bathroom and we didn’t take the towel off its hook. Maybe, just maybe, Nina gave it to us as a souvenir or perhaps an apology for my daughter getting sick. Regardless of how it came to be at the bottom of my bag, I’ll be mailing it back. We won’t soon forget our night at the Shelburne Hotel.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you’ve had any experiences like this. I’d love to hear it!

• If you want to experience the attic bedroom for yourself, visit the Historic Shelburne Hotel

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Note: To my regular readers, I’m back home now and will return to writing poetry and short stories soon. I’m also terribly behind in reading all your beautiful blog posts and hope to get caught up this week. Be ready for a batch of comments on your blogs soon!