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Down a lonesome dirt road through weeping willows and junipers, situated within a crown of tall cypress, kept behind an old moss-ridden brick wall, stands a mansion. Bone-white and ghostly, you can see its rooftop from a sure distance through trees and kudzu vines. It's rather ornate, with its encircling muted green wrought ironwork and matching shuttered windows. It looks like a funeral home. In a way, it is. Don't they say, "Tomb Sweet Tomb?" There, inside every crooked hall, a ghost makes its way through. Beyond the house, expanding out like a city of its own, lay tombs and graves, which glow bright in the darkness with the living dead. Zombies in high collars and ghouls in sheets and shrouds pry themselves out of their confines to mingle at the 13th strike of a terrible clock, every single nightfall. Here, Halloween is never-ending, the overpowering reek of dust, white pepper and clove pervades, and time is a silly joke that only mortals take seriously.
If you were brave enough to come and stay, you'd meet around 999 ghosts in total - but you're a cowardly person, aren't you? A bit of a chicken? Yellow-bellied? Scaredy-cat?? Shaking like milk, aren't you? You couldn't fathom the full spectrum of specters that reside in every nook and coffin within (and without) the house, and so, I'll only introduce you to one ghost. Does that sound reasonable? Oh, stop crying! Pull yourself together!
Look up there, to that open terrace at the back of the house. I just saw a shadowy figure move away from the cloudy daylight, back into the dark recesses of the mansion's attic. Let's call to him, shall we?
Here in the attic is where "The Hatbox Ghost" stays. In life, he was Harland Boniface, the skilled owner of a long-gone hatmakers in the area. In death, his friends and lovers call him "Hattie". As you can see, he stands in short stature - would-be average but for his hunch and his marked lean over his cane; he's been in the coffin buried out in the pines since the 19th century, and so his stovepipe hat is bent, bristling whiskers, void of sheen and color, are kinked into a frenzy about his skull, and his black inverness cloak is wrinkled and patched up with decay.
If what stood out to you first is his being a ghastly skeleton with a golden tooth that winks just about as much as his sunken, yellow eyes, then I suppose I understand that. He's got a grin like he knows where my scruples falter. Indeed, he is the type to triple-dog-dare you at the drop of his head! His boney fingers are wrapped round the handle of a gaudy looking hatbox, and he motions for you to come closer - to peek inside the lid. You never expect his shrieking severed head, wagging his tongue at you!
An incredibly lively spirit, he is able to materialize well in the mortal plane, and with all his boisterous, recycled energy, he goes about making his friends and enemies. He can shake hands with us mortals and interact with just about any object we've got, from hat ribbons to bottles of bubbly to television knobs - watch him get his hands on that remote control and you'll have to sit through Three Stooges marathons and parades of washed-up stand-up comics. He's got a laugh like a hyena down in a coalmine - the shrillest cackle you'd never want to hear in the dark. His obsession with childish jokes and banana-peel hijinks brings on this scary laughter, which can be heard throughout the mansion at the eeriest of times. In exchange for your patience, he'll make you a smart-looking hat or bring you some vexing charm from The Beyond.
Most of his gifts to friends come from his mighty collection. He's the soul-preserver of hundreds of old hats from back in the day, though he is also partial to collecting bones, stones, frocks, socks, spools of wool and shoes (in fact, its known amongst frequent mansion guests that leaving your shoes in front of your bedroom door overnight will result in them being exchanged with some random trinket from the Hatbox Ghost's strange collection, a 'thank you' for a new pair of shoes to add to the pile). His passing fixations accrue a lot of little bits and bobs, which he's always trying to circulate (he is no miser!). Trading with Hattie will get you just about anything you desire (but don't ask him any questions or he'll concoct some horrifying answers for you, and laugh at the face you make).
New people tend to find Hattie intimidating and scary - especially as he is one of the louder ghosts in the mansion. Whether with a group of ghoulies causing a ruckus or slinking through corridors, planning tricks in the dark with his lone-self, you can hear his anxious giggling, his dragging limp echoing through empty doorways and through the walls.
Hattie blames the stormy combination of restless excitement and utter boredom for losing his head. He's gotten so accustomed to showing affection through teasing that he sometimes forgets himself, but he mends his ways as he goes and tends to avoid misfiring where it counts. While not very obedient, he is very caring. When he's behaved badly, he makes amends first, usually by way of mending his friend's coat. For as chaotically driven as the Hatbox Ghost is, he can be clever, observant and artfully tactful when he wants to be.
His buggy, darting eyes see more than he lets on, and the Art of Silence is one that a ghost learns well. Did you know that spirits are sensitive to otherworldly vibrations themselves? The emotions and unspoken languages of the living are endlessly fascinating, and powerful enough to set off a ghost, for better or worse. Hattie catches onto these vibrations like a bat uses echolocation to find a moth fluttering in space. He taps his cane to give time for contemplation. One, two, three, he taps and examines. He can read the faces and hands of guests as good as Madame Leota can. He knows better when he should show up, and when he should really just dematerialize.
He can feel the air soften when his bride looks his way (and she, his ghostess, is a hopelessly romantic thing, with a patient and persistent heartbeat that eases even Hattie's most agitated states). Hattie, too, has a gentle side. He's an artist after all. A few times a month he retreats into himself to reflect on the more romantic aspects of the mortal world and The Beyond, respectively. The Hatbox Ghost, alone in the cemetery, can be seen inspecting his reflection in the lily pond, mumbling thousand-year old questions to himself, admiring tangled rose bushes or weeping at epitaphs written for deceased lovers. Hattie has no trouble in giving affection. In life, he was quite a lover, and kept many good relationships with others in town - some delighted in a shared passion in fashion accessories and practical jokes, while others took inspiration from his fierce genuineness. Before his untimely beheading by one jealous whack of an axe, he was quite beloved, and many pretty ladies and many heartbroken men shed their tears for him at his wake.
Hattie's bride told me just this afternoon: "Once every full moon, Hattie takes a long stroll through the graves on his own to contemplate all number of plants and animals out there; to visit the cats and the rats he so adores, who come to him when his arms are bursting with treats and toys - or else he visits the alligators living in the nearby swamp land for tea. Alligators are his familiars, and after tea they take him for a ride on the bayou. Once, he snuck a gator up into the attic for a game of dress-up - one guest made their way upstairs by chance, and that's when the mansion got its 997th permanent resident!"
Oh, I mentioned dress-up! This is one of Hattie's favorite pastimes. With all his hatboxes, trunks and wardrobes stored in that attic, and with no shortage of old mirrors and broken vanities, he spends the uneventful days of eternity with his precious costumes. His bride's old record player and an Arthur Brown record is sufficient ambience for this game of old jewelry, veils, cravats and ostrich plumes. Hattie can spend hours changing his clothes, and he tailors what's become far too passe on a whim. Needless to say, we're all very well-dressed here, thanks to his passionate toil.
In death, Hattie magnetizes just about every spirit he meets, both on mortal roads and the roads of The Beyond. This accumulation has made up much of the residency of the mansion. Imagine you're walking along an empty lane between the trees. You cross an oddly quiet bridge out of the woods and see up ahead, rounding the corner out of the cemetery, a grinning skeleton with a black bow tied up around his throat having a little stroll. Perhaps he's followed by rainclouds, and perhaps your heart begins to pound as he comes nearer, with those eyes that watch you closely. One look at that gold tooth winking in a waning light, and a wave of his stovepipe hat as if he knows you already, and you're completely taken. Everyone follows him home. Those that can handle the chaos of the afterlife - all the possessions, the gore, the screams at night - always end up staying a while. We're all quite happy here, thank you very much!
If you were to ask Hattie who his enemies were, he'd tap his cane a few times on the ground in earnest thought, before answering: "Jealous suitors carrying axes." And this would be very honest (he tends to be painfully truthful), but if tomorrow you asked him this question again, he'd likely say something else, like: "Physics!"
So don't quake, don't quiver! If you're not charmed by the likes of the Hatbox Ghost, you must be dead! And if you do ever decide to bolster up your bravery someday, pay a visit to the mansion and stay a while. Just set out an extra plate at your dinner table, and Hattie will surely appear to lead you on home - for those with enough spirit, there's room for one more!