It took just a wee bit of time for the activity at The Wartha to show itself to me. I am a medium so I knew that they would be drawn to me like a moth to a flame. In fact, I was hesitant to work there because of this. I worked as a maid, and have been in every single room there alone countless times, sometimes alone in the bulk of the building. It is a place of too much activity for the sensitive. The energy was not all good and nor were the experiences for me and others, despite the sugarcoatedness from staff to the contrary. In all honesty, some of the staff was responsible for bringing in the not so nice stuff, in their curiosity and desperation to connect with the spirits there, they misguidedly took a spirit board to rooms and had no idea of the correct way to use them, let alone close them out, as well as botched seances or attempted seances. Big mistakes that some unfortunate guests will pay for years to come in certain rooms. Also, guests frequent in to ghost hunt and bring in boards and things some dabbling in much darker things in attempts to connect.
A lot happened in the place in its over hundred years of existence and plenty of residual and active energy remains as a result. Funny enough this place is dead silent, no pun intended, on Halloween and the week before so don’t waste your time. Within a month before though it gets dark real fast the energy shifting to the darker side of things and less pleasant experiences. Honestly, the best time to come for an experience would be in the slower months as they get a bit restless for new meat to play with.
I had my first experience within a week of working there, in room 423. I continued to experience things there until I left nearly two years later. I walked in and was flooded with images and interaction. Seeing the room filled with invisible guests, actually people from all different eras having a hot poker game at the round table. Old actors, and staff alike cigars blazing and cards dealing in a tight game. Bets on the table and whiskeys in glasses. Laughter from an older victorian style heavy-set woman with a British accent laughing at the high stakes and crude jokes. There was staff from when the place was in its earlier days, I would say slaves, men, and women alike. They obviously had the less pleasant stint of stay there. They realized by the time I left the room that I could pick up on them. A conversation about me ensued, curiosity, and then a few of them followed me about the rest of the wing. One gentleman would literally haunt me the rest of my time there every time I was in that room.
He really wanted to show me the injustice that happened to him on the grounds. I hated being in that room because he always popped in showing me the same bit of scene over and over again. Something I did not want to see. He was a darker-skinned individual who had been hanged and for the longest time, I misinterpreted it as suicide until he got annoyed enough to at least convey he didn’t do it and he was hanged unjustifiably accused of an offense he did not commit. He had been in love with someone and it was not allowed, but it’s easier to hang a man for a crime and an easy set up for that time period. He often would reiterate the phrase to me over and over that all I did was love her.
My first experience there was a pleasant one, this particular man was the one who followed me from that first encounter wanting to tell his story wanting to be heard. He followed me to be sure I was aware of his presence and that some level of communication could take place. He is frustrated with the way things happened for him and how and understandably he wanted his truth to be told. He stays in 423. As do others, the poker game was not a constant and I never saw that scene again, they didn’t want to be seen. I was not invited to the party though I gather the game commences when they are actually alone and they won’t be bothered. I gather it is at the very least a weekly game. I do not have a name for the executed lover but I do know his story and I do see his face still when I think of this room, I remember his heartache, anger, and frustration. A time when man was treated differently and people could not love who they wanted, though some of that narrative remains the same on its own in the world we live in today. A story as old as time playing out over and over again forbidden love, but love that existed nonetheless against all odds, against the rules, and even in death the love remains. You can take a man’s life, you can take his freedom, but you will never take away his love.
Confessions of a Haunting Freak 