“Darkness
is often the playground of the supernatural … the eerily unexplained.
Yeo
House is a haunted country home in Eastern Canada’s beautiful province of
Prince Edward Island. The stately seaside mansion of a shipbuilding magnate and
his family in the 1800’s, it was given new life in the twenty-first century.
During renovations something unusual was found hidden in the walls — a little
toy dog on wheels. Now freed from his wall prison, it seems he’s still being
played with by the ghost of the child who once owned him.
When
little Della Sayer and her parents visit the historic Yeo mansion to see the
famous Wheelie, the little girl makes a strange and powerful connection with
the antique toy. It is an unsettling paranormal knowing, a kindred ethereal
awareness….
Life
for the Sayers will never be the same again.”
I
should point out that Della’s mother, playwright Jill Sayer, is a bona fide
skeptic in Playtime, determined to explain the unexplainable even when it
becomes increasingly difficult to do so:
“The
storm continued and Jill felt every clap of thunder as though it was right in
the room. It very nearly was, only an attic and roof away. By now she was
wide-awake, toying with the idea of getting up after all and working on her
laptop. She could grab a short nap during the day. Lying there looking around,
a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the room as bright as midday,
followed seconds later by thunder. Would this storm never end?
Watching
for the next lightning bolt, it came, flooding the window with light and her
heart leapt into her throat, her scream reverberating throughout the room.
That woke Brody
up! He bolted to an upright position, switching on the bedside lamp. ‘What’s going
on, Jill? Did you scream?’
‘Yes
I screamed! We’re having a really bad electrical storm. The lightning made
everything look as bright as day, and I saw a child’s face at the window.’ “
I
had fun writing this novel and was delighted to visit Prince Edward Island, a
province that has long been dear to my heart. My affection for Anne Shirley,
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s much-celebrated fictional character, has been unwavering
since I read Anne of Green Gables at the age of fifteen. Confined to bed at the
time with pneumonia, a neighbour kindly lent me several books, including The Lamplighter,
A Girl of the Limberlost, The Yearling and Anne of Green Gables. When Matthew
died in AGG I cried a river, and it was that Lucy Maud Montgomery classic that
awakened my desire to become an author. I also fell completely in love with the
Island.
So
when the opportunity arose to write about paranormal phenomena on PEI, I was
delighted and chose something quite recent that had captured my imagination. Enter
Wheelie, the toy Pomeranian dog on wheels at Yeo House in Tyne Valley, Prince
County, in the western region of Prince Edward Island.
And
so a trip to Yeo House was in order, although the prospect of visiting a site of
a documented haunting wasn’t all that enticing to me. But visit the mansion I would,
and so what follows is my own personal account of that experience:
It
was an idyllic August morning when my best friend and I arrived at Green Park
Provincial Park and Yeo House. After first stopping by the shipbuilding museum
and listening to a fascinating account of shipbuilding in that area during the
1800’s, Yeo House was next as we covered the green space between the two
buildings.
My
first impression upon entering the mansion, constructed in 1865 by James Yeo
Jr., was the refreshing chill of the interior given the warm summer day outside.
Like Playtime’s Jill Sayer (and countless others), I too have toured any number
of historical properties over the years, and I was struck by the remarkably
good condition of Yeo House and its artifacts, considering the advanced age of
both.
Met
by a dapper young interpreter with an engaging smile, the tour was soon
underway. There was a wealth of photo opportunities and I snapped to my heart’s
content, choosing subjects that would best describe the site. After checking
out the sitting room, little kitchen, pantry, dining room and so on, we finally
climbed the beautifully carpeted staircase to the second floor. The first stop was
a child’s bedroom where the world famous Wheelie glared at us from within his
protective plexiglass box. I quickly discovered his appearance was as
off-putting in person as it had been in the media photos I’d seen online.
Sorry, Wheelie, but there it is.
Logically,
all rooms in the mansion had to be observed from behind rope barriers in order
to protect the home’s invaluable heirlooms. However the barrier in front of the
children’s room that housed Wheelie was inexplicably standing off to one side,
which seemed to surprise the interpreter. I snagged an up-close shot of
Wheelie.
Continuing
on, we (my friend had returned to the car) went from room to room on the second
floor, as I peered into bedrooms where time had stopped in the mid to late 1800’s
— the days of the wealthy Yeo family. There was even the much-storied maid’s
quarters, the two narrow beds sitting innocuously beyond the barrier. The
interpreter explained that that area was where repeated paranormal incidents had
been observed by both staff and visitors alike.
Next
we made our way to the foot of a steep flight of narrow steps leading to the
cupola above that promised a sweeping view of the surrounding countryside. While
we were standing there in conversation I began to find it increasingly
difficult to speak because of an uncomfortable heaviness in my chest. I was becoming
noticeably short of breath. The interpreter smiled, telling me that several
guests visiting the mansion, like myself, had experienced that very same sensation
while in this particular area of the second floor. The idea was a possible
presence, but who knows? Now I hasten to
add that I do not have any health issues that would explain such a feeling, nor
was I anxious or frightened. Our conversation was actually light … humorous.
Also, once we’d moved to a different location on the second floor, the
sensation had disappeared.
The
rest of the tour was uneventful. No, I didn’t hear the oft-reported gasp, shriek,
heavy footsteps or slamming door. Thankfully. The weight of that presence was curious enough, thank you.
So
that was my actual experience at the mansion that served as the backdrop for my
paranormal novel, Playtime. I’d done the requisite research, but nothing quite
compared to that feeling of heaviness that overtook me on that sunny Wednesday
morning. Hmmm…
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