The Black Box
Part Zero
Part One
The first record of the
haunting on Belmont Steet occurred on December 26th, 1956, in
Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston
Herald, on page sixteen, reported that the Barrett family of Charlestown experienced
a “mysterious encounter” when they claimed to have heard loud banging noises
coming from their upstairs rooms, yet there was no one in the upper levels of
the house. The police were called, and a
report was filed which stated that there were no intruders in the residence,
and perhaps the children of the family had “created a ruckus as they were on hiatus
from school for the holidays.”
=
In her best-selling
memoir, Surviving Beantown, writer Gloria “Sunshine” Cabot recalled a
“spiritual meeting with someone from the other side” in the winter of 1969. She freely admitted that she was under the
influence of some “Christmas herbs,” but she insisted that a lost soul let his
presence known with a series of knocks and moans. “I could feel the anguish in his soul,” she
wrote, “and I could hear him crying up in the attic.”
=
Several years later, in
1979, Mr. and Mrs. Danbury of the Charlestown neighborhood in Boston, contacted
their local priest and implored him to conduct a “cleansing” of their
home. They were convinced that their
Belmont Street house was possessed as they claimed to have heard a man’s voice calling,
“Help me,” coming from their attic. The
priest did as they asked, but privately noted that the couple had watched the
recently released movie, The Exorcist, and that their older home was in
the middle of a renovation. Perhaps the
building was just settling, but after the Danburys insisted that an exorcism be
performed, they moved out of the house and abandoned the renovation. The family never returned to the dwelling and
sold the property in the fall of 1980.
=
The home changed hands
several times in the next decade, with many of the residents commenting on “a
presence.” One family went as far as to
contact the television show, Hauntings: Boston, which came out on Christmas
1987 to investigate. Supposedly, the
paranormal activity peaked on that particular holiday, so the show was prepared
with all sorts of detection devices, cameras, and recorders. To the showrunners’ surprise, but not the
homeowners, the investigation recorded a huge amount of paranormal activity and
even an apparition in the attic space of the home. It was just a shadowy blob, but the show
deemed it was direct evidence that the house was haunted. The show’s psychic reported no malicious
intent, but rather a feeling of profound sadness and loss. That feeling of gloom was so palpable that
future residents were advised to avoid the upper level of the building.
=
In the early 2000’s,
several companies that featured walking tours of Boston added the Belmont
Street residence to their haunted house tour.
Sightings of a young man staring out of the attic window were a regular
occurrence during the winter holidays.
Skeptics attributed the reports to the angle of the winter sun shining against
the whorls in the old panes of glass, but the amateur ghost hunters on the
tours swore the ghost was real.
=
That brings us to the
present day. In October 2024, I bought
the infamous Belmont Street house, with the aim of remodeling it for an Airbnb.
Of course, I heard the objections from a
small group of ghost hunters, but the property was too valuable to keep underdeveloped. I intended to do the remodeling myself, and
when the final paperwork was completed in mid-November, I headed to the house
to take measurements and start planning.
There was a place in the
attic that had been walled off, and I intended to open that space to make the
attic more usable. I could tell from the
outside of the building that a window was behind the wall, and I wanted to have
the natural light coming through.
Imagine my surprise when I pulled away a part of the wall to look inside
and saw a semi-opaque figure of a man sitting on a steamer trunk. He turned to me and said, “I was wondering if
perhaps you could help me out.”
Until now.
Part Two
“I don’t believe in
ghosts,” I blurted out.
He held my gaze, his form
shimmering slightly, “I’m not here to make you believe in them. I’m just hoping that you could help me.” He continued, “My name is James Emerson, and
one hundred years ago, I made the mistake of climbing into this black
box.” He looked downward as he softly tapped
the side of the trunk. “I accidentally
hit my head on the edge of this thing as I was climbing in. I blacked out, the lid fell shut, and-” his
shoulders slumped, “-I suffocated.” He
looked up. “They never found me.”
I took several steps back
as a shiver ran down my spine.
His eerie voice echoed in
the room. “I would really like your
help. I don’t want to be here.”
“I don’t think I want you
here either,” I stammered. “No offence.”
There was a sad sigh from
the other side of the wall. “I
understand.” There was a moment of quiet
before he started talking again. “You’re
the first person that I’ve been able to talk to. In the beginning, after I realized I was
dead, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t
move, couldn’t speak, couldn't make any sounds at all.” I could hear him pacing now, and his shadowy
form passed back and forth behind the hole in the wall.
He continued, “It took a
while, but over time I learned how to interact with the corporeal world. I could make tapping noises, but it wasn’t
enough. Later, I found my voice, but it
just scared people. I figured if I could
make some kind of form…” He grew quiet
again.
I made my way to the wall
and looked into the hole again. “I can
see you… well, for the most part.”
He turned to me and
stared. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”
I swallowed hard. “I am a bit.”
He nodded sadly. “I’m sorry.
I don’t mean to be scary. I just
want to move on.”
“Why don’t you?” I asked
quietly.
“I don’t know.” His voice was tinged with despair and
regret. “I guess there’s something
holding me back.”
I nodded, “That’s the way
it usually works, I think.”
“I think so too…” His
voice trailed off in a whisper, and when I glanced at the hole in the wall, he
was nowhere to be seen.
I waited for several
minutes and when he didn’t return, I went downstairs and thought about our
conversation. Once you got past the idea
of his semi-transparent body, he sounded like a normal person just lost in the
city.
I figured that maybe I
should just help the guy out.
=
I did some research and
sure enough, James Emerson of Belmont Street disappeared on Christmas Day back
in 1924. His body was never found. I went upstairs and knocked on the wall. “Hello?
Are you there?”
“I’ve no choice but to be
here,” came the sad reply.
“Um, yeah. Sorry.”
I took a deep breath and continued, “I’d like to help you out, but I’m
not sure where to start. What do you
remember?”
There was a long pause
before his thoughtful voice floated from the dark corner of his attic
chamber. “I remember proposing to my
girlfriend on Christmas Eve. We were
very much in love, and we decided that we would elope on New Year’s Day.” I heard him sigh before he continued. “But first, I had Christmas dinner with my
family. It took every fiber of my being
to not spill my secret, but I knew if I did, my parents would want a big Boston
high society wedding.”
I nodded, “Yeah, I can
understand that, but umm… How did you end up… in there?”
The air became still, and
the attic grew cold. After a moment, he
began to speak again. “My younger
cousins pestered me to play ‘Hide and Go Seek’ with them. I told them that I could play one game but
then I would have to leave to go meet someone.
That’s when I came up here to the attic to hide and fell into the trunk
and suffocated. I guess when they
couldn’t find me, they must have thought I had slipped out.”
I wrapped my arms around
myself and shivered, not so much from the cold, but more from the words of
someone describing how they had died.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“It was just a freak
accident,” he replied quietly. Then, as
quickly as the attic had chilled, warmth returned to the room. He continued to speak. “Still, I wonder what happened to
Eleanor. I suppose she thought I changed
my mind and ran away. She probably found
someone else, got married, and lived a happy-ever-after life without me.”
“If you like, we could
check,” I offered.
His face appeared at the
hole in the wall. “I think I’d like
that.” He gave me a few details about
her life, and after doing some internet searching, I managed to find some
information.
“Here she is. Eleanor Knowles, born March 20, 1904, died…”
I stopped mid-sentence.
“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Umm…She died, January 1st,
1925. That’s a week after you passed
away,” I murmured.
There was a long silence. Then he said, “Where is she buried?”
“Let me look.” I did some more searching. “Woodlawn Cemetery,” I answered.
“I wish I could go visit
her.”
“I can drive you over
there,” I offered, but he shook his head.
“I can’t leave. I’m tied to this trunk.”
=
It took about an hour to
remove enough of the wall to make the space I needed to move the trunk. Then I wrestled it down the stairs and up into
the back of my car. Admittingly, it was
a bit unnerving to see him sitting in the passenger seat as I buckled my seat
belt and started the car. I glanced at
him and said, “Don’t forget to buckle your…”
He glanced at me
quizzically, and I bit my lip. “Oh, never
mind,” I stammered. “Okay, let’s go.”
It took about 15 minutes
to make the drive to Woodlawn Cemetery and then another 15 to locate the final
resting place of Eleanor Knowles. I
parked the car, and when I made my way to the gravesite, I found the ghost of
James Emerson staring at her grave.
“She’s not here,” he said
sadly.
I pointed to the
headstone. “But isn’t that her
name? Eleanor Knowles?”
“Her body may be here,
but SHE isn’t.” He shook his head, “It
would have been too much to ask that she was here, but I suppose she’s moved
on.” He looked at the gravesite one last
time, then turned to me. “Where did she
die?” he asked. “I’d like to go past
there.”
“The article didn’t
say. It just said, she froze to death
‘on the waterfront,’” I answered.
He looked
thoughtful. “I think I might know…”
=
Darkness had fallen upon
the waters of the harbor by the time we arrived at Constitution Wharf. James stared off into the distance, his body
shimmered as he spoke. “We were supposed
to meet here and catch a boat to Europe.”
He sighed heavily, “I feel so guilty that she died freezing to death
waiting for me.” We sat in silence; his
remorse filled the car. “I have to get
out,” he said abruptly, and I scrambled after him as he left the vehicle. “I’m sorry, it was getting claustrophobic in
there,” he muttered.
I nodded. “I understand.” We walked to the edge of the waterfront, and
he turned to me, took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know how I’ll ever move
on.”
Just then, there was a
clatter of running feet in the darkness.
We turned toward the sound, and James’ eyes widened in surprise. Suddenly, out of the shadows, there was a
flash of light, and the visage of a young woman leapt into his arms.
“James! My love!”
The streetlights around us sputtered and blinked out as a soft glow
enveloped them both.
“My darling Eleanor, I
beg your forgiveness,” he said and hung his head. “I was delayed.”
She held his face in her
hands. “But you’re here now, that’s all
that matters.”
The sound of a steamboat
whistle echoed across the water. James
hugged her close, kissed her hair, and said, “We should leave.”
She nodded happily. “I’ve been waiting for this moment, my love.”
“So have I, my
darling.” He took a deep breath and held
her hand. He looked at me one last time
and slightly bowed his head. He mouthed
the words ‘thank you’ before the couple walked away into the night.
I heard the rattle of an
anchor chain and the sound of the steamboat whistle, but of course, there wasn’t
a boat in the harbor.
Part Three
On the first night after
the remodel, I slept in the upstairs loft that used to be the attic.
One hundred years ago, on December 25th,
1924, James Emerson of Boston, Massachusetts, disappeared during a party at his
home.
He was never heard from
again.
Epilogue
On January 2nd,
2025, I called the Boston Police Department to report the discovery of a body. I explained how I was renovating the house
and had found the trunk behind a wall. The
remains were later identified as James Emerson, who had been reported missing back
in 1924.
His family buried his
body in Woodlawn Cemetery, near the grave of his beloved Eleanor Knowles. She had been found frozen to death on January
1st, 1925, sitting on the waterfront facing the sea, waiting for her
missing
fiancé.
