When mom said she booked us a dinner at The Joshy for 5:30, I reacted with a Pavlovian drool-fest.
Architectural Confection: The Joshy
Joshua Wilton house is an architectural gem and also a fancy pants restaurant in Virginia, near The Parental Pad. I love the sea scallops in a butt’ry drizzle over some scallion laced cheese grits. And the Joshy house salad is stacked with hearts of palm and other exotic morsels.
It was built in the Italianate meets Queen Anne style in 1888 and has an entryway that is so tasty with ornate beveled leaded sidelights and a huge heavy front door that screams “someone of import lives here.” But now it’s a high end restaurant and an inn, but someone does stay here permanently.
When we were last here, last year, that was the first time I saw weird scrolling playful balls of light when the iPhone flashed. I was just taking pictures of Walker and her cousins and their clown-like antics, when a couple of bubbles of light bounced through the phone screen. So when the picture took, the camera’s eye focused on the light balls and not the kids.
I uttered, “the fuck…?” Under my breath of course.
Undeterred, I shot a few more pics and in each one danced these colorful orbs. Since it wasn’t dusty and the things were moving in patterns, I naturally concluded these were ghosts. I’m open to the idea that the mobile-spirited undead are still rattling about. Luckily they aren’t particularly scary like zombies. You never hear of a ghost eating your brain matter.
But when I was 14, my grandfather returned from his eternal rest. To shimmer up, in the form of a green sparkly mist, to emerge from the stem of a Christmas cactus.
Scared the everlovin’ holy hell out of me. At first.
Then, I realized when the mist stretched up and out to me sitting up, in bed, wide eyed– on the verge of soiling myself–that it was him. Then terror melted into reassurance, then relief. I didn’t dare share the story. People don’t believe kids. Mix kids with tales of ghosties and you get totally discredited.
But when it happened again on our stop over at my grandparents’ house–just the same as the first–it was too much to keep to myself. I very reluctantly shared and they believed me! To hear the whole story, you would realize that there were a slew of overly odd events puzzling all the adults that led to my story being not laughed out the door. Or worse, poo-pooed.
But back to the Joshy and dancing orbs of light. I asked our server if the Joshua Wilton was haunted. She paused a moment and then decided to share.
“It is,” she said. She went on to explain they suspect the spirits are children. Upstairs in the inn portion of the house, guests complain of children laughing and bouncing balls down the hall in the night. The inn manager carefully has to explain that no children are staying the night and the inn is locked up tight. Overnight guests peek into the hall to find it empty.
So last night we were back after a year and I was curious if those little sprite spirits would come out and show up on my phone.
Yuppers.
Almost right away they cropped up in the flash. And we were in a different room. What I saw were small balls of transparent light, traveling quickly in the same direction. Kate, ever the skeptic said: “that’s dust. I saw it reflected in the flash.”
If she sees dust, I have to concede to that. This didn’t look like dust to me though.
Walker Gives Me The Stink Eye
So I snapped another shot and this time, the vibrant pale blue ball of light burbled up between my mom and Walker. Burbled is the best word because it was like liquid and it seemed to squeeze up from something unseen. And instead of spiraling or zipping past, it stayed in place and seemed to divide until each new one appeared and the old light orb vanished–with only one orb there at a time.
And it held still between my family, glowing bright. I got the sense that this required some effort. And it showed up in the frame like so many of them do not. All of this transpired in a few seconds as the phone flashed a few times and then captured the image.
It seemed to say to me: “I know you see me. I’m not moving much, and I am not dust.”
Then it was gone and didn’t come back out to play. But I couldn’t help admire the spirited showing.
