I asked if Silvana and I could enter the room and Mary told us to go right ahead, but to be very careful. “Sometimes things fly across the room,” she warned. When we entered through the double doors, we were first struck by the coldness of the room, thinking that the heat was turned off. The sensation reminded me of my Salem ghost experience. I could literally see Silvana’s breath smoke in the dim light. Yes, it was cold in New York, but luxury digs are kept warm for sure. And the living area was very comfortable. Something out of the ordinary was happening in Mary’s bedroom. But before we could identify what caused the tapping sounds in the room, we heard a loud shout from the living room where we had left Mary sitting. A scream of “GET THE FUCK OUT, YOU FUCKING WHOREMASTERS,” echoed throughout the apartment, apparently coming from where Mary was seated. We rushed into the living room and saw her slumped in her chair, mouth agape and staring into space. We were sure it was her making the sounds because we were in the room in an instant and there was no was anyone else could have entered. Her flesh was cold to the touch and a bit of drool slid down her chin. We called her name to get her attention, but she continued to stare so we shook her by her shoulders until we were able to rouse some consciousness in her. The entire room was now as cold as the bedroom and the smoke from all of our breathing was evident in the air. The parlor was filled with panic and an eerie sensation that both Silvana and I later agreed were like nothing we had ever before experienced. It was dreadful and lonely. It was like the feeling you get if you’re left alone at a wake and you’re the only person in the room with the body, Silvana said.
“Mary, Mary what’s wrong…what happened to you?” I asked her as Silvana rubbed her hand and wrist to help with her revival. She could barely speak but she told us that something had taken control of her and she could not be responsible for her actions. After a few calming minutes, she then began to tell us that since that day in the café, nothing has been the same. She felt as though she was cursed by some malevolent force that somehow entered her in the Velvet Room café, in the middle of the afternoon on an autumn day in Manhattan. Mary recounted how she went back to the café after the first episode in an effort to ease her mind and prove to herself that the panic attack she first experienced there was nothing more than some physical reaction to the trauma. But after only a few moments at the shop’s counter strange things began again. This time the brass antique espresso machine behind the counter erupted spurting hot coffee in the face of the waitress, and splashing onto Mary’s arm, nearly scalding her. Mary ran screaming from the café into the street sobbing hysterically as she walked home.
“But that’s not all, “ she continued. “The bad things got worse. I returned to the café for the third time and sat there for about ten minutes despite the shopkeeper, Mr. Langley’s, apprehension about me possibly causing another scene. My stay was fine for a short while. That was until my order was served. I asked for an orange muffin and hot chocolate with whipped cream, a dish that I have been fond of since I was a child. It always makes me feel secure, conjuring memories of my happy childhood. That was until the waitress placed my order on the table in front of me. I thought I was hallucinating because I saw the muffin jump…move a bit. When I lifted it there were literally hundreds of crawling, black, multi-legged silverfish insects stuck to the bottom of the muffin and squirming on the plate. I was at first transfixed by the horrible sight, not believing my eyes. My first reaction was to call for the waitress and complain but I couldn’t move. I was virtually paralyzed by the sickening creatures darting in and out of the muffin and jumping into my hot chocolate.” With that last statement Mary began to sob uncontrollably. “I need help. Something not of this world is cursing my life. Please, whatever you can do to free me I will appreciate. I’ve heard of poltergeists and possessions. I know I’m sane in every way, but no one takes me seriously. I turn to you to deal with what I believe is the unseen,” Mary said.
On our way back to our respective apartments, crowded in another damp, cold cab, Silvana and I agreed that Mary appeared as sane as she claimed and was very possibly the victim of a malevolent force. It is common knowledge among those who study human nature as it applies to curses and possessions, that if one believes ever so slightly in superstitions of any kind, their susceptibility to superstitious “suggestion” is always present. It was our job to discover if Mary was somehow contacted by someone, or exposed to something that set this ‘curse” mode in motion in her life. Or if in fact she was truly cursed. It was X-Investigations first case and it was a baffling one at that. Our first step was to visit the café the next day and witness the origin of Mary Montrose’s haunting.
We called Mr. Langley, the owner of the café earlier in the day but he said that the only time he had free was near clOccult Investigatorng around 11PM so if we wanted to meet we’d have to make it late. Silvana and I arrived just as the store clerk was about to lock the front door. Fortunately we saw Langley and asked the clerk to tell him who we were. He greeted us with some speculation, not understanding that we weren’t detectives looking to nail him on something, but paranormal investigators simply associated with a detective agency. But once we told him that we were hired by Mary he nodded and said, “Oh yes, the crazy lady who thinks my café is haunted.”
Langley described Mary’s experiences almost exactly as Mary did herself, without Mary’s description of internal terror. “Something really spooked that woman. We all just thought she was nuts, but I’ll admit there were bugs in her food and that’s very odd here because I keep an immaculate kitchen. It never happened before and it hasn’t happened since. And…she carried a bible with her the last time she was here. Guess it didn’t help. We thought she was odd but it got us thinking about Jeremy’s problem,” Langley said. “Jeremy’s problem?,” I asked. “Yeah, we had a worker here that used to close up the shop. He would say he saw strange things going on. You know, he saw shadows, things being moved without his knowledge, wispy smoke coming from the cellar door, crazy shit like that. But it didn’t happen all of the time so we just thought he was loony too,” Langley said.
“And, oh yeah, Jeremy said it all started when he found the old docket in the cellar filled with deeds for this place from the turn of the 18th century.” I was about to ask to see the old papers when Silvana tightly grabbed my wrist and began whispering to me that she felt a presence in the room. I could see the sweat bead on her upper lip as she tried to control herself. She was squirming in her chair as Langley went on about the papers describing the original deeds and the voluminous amounts of legal documents. “They might be worth some money, huh?” Langley asked.
Silvana became more agitated. Her eyes were half-closed and her breathing increased so noticeably that Langley started to become alarmed. “Hey, what’s wrong with her?” he shouted. I told him that she was a clairvoyant and she was experiencing some kind of paranormal manifestation. “She’s being contacted or she’s becoming part of your ghost, Mr. Langley,” I said. During this disturbing episode, the Velvet Room café became cold…as cold as Mary’s bedroom the evening before. Now all three of our breaths were evident as smoky wisps. Langley turned pale as Silvana said to me in between gasps of air that we needed to leave the cafe and that she would explain when we left. At that very moment my cell phone rang. It was Mary Montrose. I answered to her screaming plea for help. She was crying that her apartment was literally seething with activity. The wall paintings were banging, drawers opening, the toilets were bubbling and backing up water on the floor and she was in fear of her life. I told her that we would be right over and not to call the police. I then rushed Silvana out of the café and told Langley we would be back. He simply stood there in a daze with a baffled and frightened look on his face. We heard him yelling as we left, “Is my café haunted? What the hell…”
On the ride over to Mary’s, Silvana told me that there was a force – a disturbed, vengeful presence – that was attempting to settle the score for itself. It is connected with