During my stay in the Sunset Room in the attic of the Hillcrest House at KIRA I felt like I was always being watched. At night the room was pitch black. I could not see 6” in front of my face.
St. Andrews is a small town of about 1700 people, off season. It is on the shores of the Bay of Fundy and a few miles from the State of Maine. The Algonquin Hotel is a huge hotel that overlooks the town. It was the inspiration for the Overlook hotel in Stephen King’s “The Shining”. It was also written there.
The Algonquin Hotel. You would drive through the opening to the right to get in and out of the downtown core.
One night, earlier in August we had three days of thick dense fog. My room was in the attic of the house, the room has two small windows facing north and south and a small patio facing west, it was called the Sunset room. I left the north facing window and the partio door open almost all the time, unless the rains came in sideways and I had to close them. One night, during the fog, I was laying on my bed on my laptop processing some images and writing a blog post and I looked up just in time to see the thick fog start to come into my room through my open door. I expected the fog to dissipate as it mixed with the air in my room. It did not. Soon my room was full of fog, once it reached my oscillating fan the fast air pushed the fog in all directions stirring the air into large swift movements similar to an airplane through a cloud. I watched the fog move around my room for a few minutes until it faded away. I felt lucky to have experienced it. When I told my story of the fog to the locals, i was told that “the fog just does that here”.
The light on in the attic, the Sunset Room.
The door to my room led down a set of winding stairs to the second floor. It was a wooden door with many panes of glass covered with a set of blinds for privacy. At night I would lock the door from the inside. I had the only keys to the door on the desk inside the room. One night, after locking the door and jumping in the tub in the bathroom, I went to bed. The room was dark. There are no street lights on Prince of Wales street. There is a flood light on the house across the street some hundred and fifty feet away. I woke up in the morning around 6:45am as usual and my bedroom door was open to 45 degrees. I know that door was locked. I was sure of it. After that, I began to place a chair in front of the door to prevent the same thing happening.
Each night, I would turn off the light next to my bed and would be engulfed into pure darkness until my eyes became accustomed to the darkness. While I laid there waiting to either fall asleep or for my eye to dilate and take in more light, I had an overwhelming feeling that there was an older person, most likely a man standing over me, with his face just slightly above my face. Of course I couldn’t see him but I sure could sense someone there.
The fog played a large part in the atmosphere at KIRA.
I also had some other little things happen. My keys to the house would disappear in my room only to be found on the desk where I left them hours later. My Iphone charging cable would be found unplugged and under my bed, across the room from where I had it plugged into the wall. My room had two twin beds, I slept on the one away from the wall. My bed creaked every time I moved during the night. One night I lay there trying to stay still to prevent the bed from making any noise. Just as I was about to fall asleep the bed next to creaked as if someone had just laid down on it. I came very close to grabbing my blanket and sleeping in the parlour downstairs for the night. I chalked it up to a playful presence, possibly a child, that was just having fun with me. It became humorous after a while. Playful.
While I worked in Studio 2 during the day and night I sat looking out of the wide patio style doors. The view was of the other studios, the amphitheatre and a sky filled with clouds. With my head down, full focus on my art piece on my table at the moment I frequently saw what I call ‘Shadow People’ out of the corner of my eyes. Little flashes of movement reminiscent of human activity. Like a glimpse of a person from another dimension or place in time or a flash of a ghost before it became invisible again. I would see movement regularly during the day and night and I would hold my gaze for longer and longer each time to see if the shadow person would get closer or become more real, I would then look up and focus on the movement hoping to catch a full glimpse of someone or something. I never did.
I never had any feeling that I was in danger during my stay at KIRA.
After I got home, I received an email from the KIRA Coordinator. She said that there was another group of people staying at the house. Two women shared the room I was staying in. They said that they witnessed what sounded like a young boy in the room. I doubt that the attic will be a frequented room in the home from now on.
Thank you for following along,
best,
K.