Inside the Ghost House

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Yesterday we went to look at an empty house. It's owned by a friend of mine, and it's undergoing repairs and clean-up in anticipation of rental, but for now it was beautifully vacant down to its lovely 1911 bones.

It's a house of quirky woodwork...ledges and shelves and unexpected cupboards...and odd rooms with tiny doors, and a narrow oak staircase that angles sharply rather than curve, and even a dumbwaiter. You don't see often see a dumbwaiter nowadays. We were charmed.

There are also windows with wavy glass that look out onto lemon trees and to the street below, which was rendered bright and still in the summer sun, dream-like. There's a front porch that suggests a slower pace and a long lost sense of neighborhood, and petunias waiting to be planted in terra cotta pots.

"There's a ghost in there too," said my friend who owns the house. "I had to acknowledge and accept the fact in writing before buying the place. Did you see any sign of it?"

But we hadn't. The rooms were emptied of their stories and seemed in want of new ones. Or maybe we just couldn't distinguish one ghost in particular among the many always near.