Mark Spencer - A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House

About the Author

Mark Spencer is the author of the novels The Weary Motel, The Masked Demon, and Love and Reruns in Adams County , as well as two collections of short stories and a history book about Monticello, Arkansas. Over 100 of his novellas, short stories, and articles have appeared in national and international magazines. His work has received the Faulkner Society Faulkner Award, the Omaha Prize for the Novel, The Patrick T. Bradshaw Book Award, the Cairn /St. Andrews Press Short Fiction Award, and four Special Mentions in Pushcart Prize . He and his wife, Rebecca, along with their three youngest children, have lived in the Allen House in Monticello, Arkansas, since 2007.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House 2012 by Mark Spencer.

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First e-book edition 2011

E-book ISBN: 9780738731582

Cover background texture iStock.com/hudiemm ,

Cover design and photo illustration by Kevin R. Brown

Cover photo Rebecca Spencer, Rose PhotoDisc

Editing by Sharon Leah

Interior photos Rebecca Spencer

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Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Did you ever see a ghost walking?

prentiss hemingway savage in a letter
to ladell allen bonner, november 8, 1948

The Allen House in Monticello, Arkansas, is a classic example of what can happen when the spirits of the original owners
are intruded upon.

haunted places in the american south ,
university press of mississippi, 2002

Contents

: Its Haunted, You Know

: Marilyn Monroe at Sixty

: D j vu

: The Party Place

: Trick or Treat

: Secrets

: The Scent of Lilacs Redux

: Nope, Not a Transformer

: The Most Haunted House in America

: They Would Reveal Us

: The Tale of Ladell

: The Owl Train

: The Love of Ladells Life

: Finding a Little Happiness
Along the Way

: The Happiest Days

: Mapping the Past and the Future

: Rough Going No Woman
Would Enjoy

: Wrong Number .

: Meant to Be?

Chapter 1

Its Haunted,
You Know

The immediate response of the real-estate agent was, Oh, you dont want that house.

In June 2005, Rebecca and I and our three children were new to Monticello in the southeast corner of Arkansas, where I had taken the position of Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at the nearby university. We were living in a cramped rental house with crooked floors, and we had just asked about buying the house at 705 North Main Street.

The real-estate agent, who had been all smiles when we first walked into her office, frowned and stood up from her desk. She shook her head and said, I got an old two-story stucco on South Main if you want to see something else. She sat back down behind her big desk, and looking at some papers lying on the ink blotter, Just take my word for it honey. You dont want that house. The pleasant lilt in her Arkansas accent was gone.

So much for Southern hospitality , I thought.

Rebecca leaned over the womans desk a little, smiled, and said, Oh, but I do want that house. We love that house, and we want you to approach the owner to see if shell consider an offer.

The agent picked up a pen and started writing on the papers before her. Nope. No can do, folks. She didnt look up again. Rebecca and I had been dismissed. We looked at each other, dumbfounded. We had apparently moved to a town where real-estate agents cared little about earning commissions.

Another agent in the small office, a bald man with large sad eyes, cleared his throat. He pressed his lips together nervously. Well, lets just say he began. Then he stood up from his desk. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other while looking out a window. He stuck his hands in his pants pockets. Finally, still looking out the window, he said, Well, lets just say that the house has a history.

We looked at each other and immediately decided to take a different approach to contacting the owner. We would simply go to the house and knock on the front door and introduce ourselves.

Two months earlier, Rebecca had come to town with me for my job interview, and as soon as we had arrived, we circled the quaint town square and drove down Main Street to get a sense of the place. We drove slowly, admiring all the big century-old houses with their white columns, second-story sleeping porches, gingerbread woodwork, and widows walks. Then we came to a stunning Victorian mansion. I stopped the car in the middle of the street and we gawked. It had a three-story octagonal turret on one end, a four-story round turret on the other, and spires rising from the towers. A massive portico was supported by clusters of Corinthian columns. Large stained-glass windows framed the front door. The house was rather rundown but gorgeous nonetheless.

Rebecca said, Ill move to this town if you buy me that house.

There was no for-sale sign in the yard. But it doesnt appear to be for sale, I said.

Rebecca shook her head. I dont care. I will make it happen.

The Allen House 2005

Whenever Rebecca says she will make something happen, I look at her and my right eyebrow rises, revealing my skepticism. Her grandmother was a witch, and Rebecca has made the claim that such an attribute can be inherited.

We pulled into the driveway of 705 North Main Street. Actually, we crept shyly into the driveway, because we had no idea how the owner would react to strangers appearing at her door and announcing that they coveted her house and wanted to buy it. We knew a woman lived there alone, but we knew nothing about her.