Red Brook Inn

When the owner of the Crary House was caught with his wife's best friend, he pleaded with his wife to take him back. She agreed, under one
condition: never again would her ex-friend enter her house. After her death, her husband broke that promise. Maybe he thought she wouldn't find
out. But she did, and she got even. The names in this story have been changed to protect the families involved.

John and Mary Jones had lived in the Crary House for thirty-five years. Jane was Mary's best friend. The two would huddle around the huge stone
fireplace in the keeping room, sipping coffee and sharing the most intimate details of their lives. When Mary contracted cancer, Jane was right
there every day, offering support and caring-or so Mary believed. When she learned of the affair between her husband and her best friend, she was
devastated. Hysterical, she made John promise that he would never again see Jane in the Crary home, her home.

John did keep that promise, at least for the twelve more years that Mary was alive. But he didn't waste any time marrying Jane after Mary's death.
He moved out of the Crary House to the other side of town, but when Jane booked a party at the old homestead, now the Red Brook Inn, the
promise was broken, and Mary got even.

Jane wanted to surprise John on his eightieth birthday, so she decided to book a party at the old Crary House. Big mistake. She defied the fact
that she was forbidden by Mary to ever again enter that house. Jane made an appointment to meet with Ruth Orr, the owner of the inn. As soon
as Jane walked through the back door, "strange things began to happen," says Ruth. "First, there was a horrendous odor. It smelled like
something died and was rotting in the walls. I was terribly embarrassed," Ruth admits. Ruth assured Jane that the smell had not been there an
hour earlier when her overnight guests had breakfast. After Jane left, Ruth asked her manager to try to find out what was causing such a
disgusting odor. He didn't smell anything. After Jane left, the smell was gone.

A week later, Jane returned to make final arrangements. Again, as soon as they walked into the old house, the room reeked with the same foul
smell. "It was overpowering," Ruth exclaimed, puckering her face. "Then it hit me that it might be Mary. After all, she hated Jane. My manager
thought so too. Then I started to panic- what if this is really true? What if it is the ghost? What if it happens at the party? Although I really didn't
believe it could be John's dead wife, I was really worried."

The night of the party, Ruth meticulously checked and rechecked the house, sniffing everywhere, and it smelled fine. Most of the guests had
arrived by the time Jane got there. The presents and the cake were in the back room. However, the second the hostess waltzed into the room,
her guests started gagging. "The odor was horrible," admits Stu, one of the gusts that evening, "But Jane seemed oblivious." Sure enough,
wherever the second wife went that evening, the odor accomplished her. She must have wondered why the rooms emptied as she entered. But in
spite of the foulness of the odor, she didn't seem to notice.

The worse part of the evening, or maybe the best part, depending on your perspective, came when it was time to cut the cake. The guests all
gathered around the table and sang Happy Birthday to John as he blew out the candles. Then came time to cut the first piece. Ruth handed him
a knife. As the knife cut into the cake, it disintegrated into a million crumbs. There was nothing left to serve.

"It's impossible for a carrot cake to fall apart like that," Ruth remarked. "It had to have been Mary, ruining the party. If you think about it, it's kind
of funny." "Ever since then, I've been reading a lot of ghosts, trying to figure out how it could have happened. Then I read somewhere that spirits
can make their presence known through odors," she added. Was it merely a coincidence, or had a betrayed wife been able to reach out from the
other side and get revenge? Both Jane and the foul odor have never returned.

Roz also says she immediately knows if a house is haunted. "I can always tell, sometimes just drive up, if a house is haunted. You can just feel
it. Sometimes I think people make a connection with the spirit, and that's why they buy the house." Ruth made an offer that same day. As soon
as she moved in, she heard and felt the spirits. Ruth's daughter heard them too. She was helping Ruth unpack, just after she moved in, when
they both heard someone coming up the stairs. Knowing they were alone, and not wanting her daughter to be scared, Ruth tried to distract her.
But whatever it was just got louder and louder, until her daughter asked, "Is there somebody in the house?" Ruth now feels totally at peace with
her ghosts. "At first, I felt like someone else was here with me all the time. Finally, I just said out loud, 'You can stay, but please don't bother
me.' They haven't' bothered me since. But they have bothered my guests."

Two years after opening the Red Brook, Ruth purchased the Haley Tavern, another historic home in Old Mystic, scheduled for demolition. She
moved it piece by piece to the property adjoining the Crary House. Then she learned that Nancy Crary, born in the Crary home in 1820, married
Henry Haley and moved into the Haley home. Together they ran the Haley Tavern. Both of these places now sit together as the Red Brook Inn.
Coincidence?

After Ruth opened the inn, she said people would come down in the morning and ask if Red Brook had a ghost. "After a while, I noticed that it
was always people who stayed on the north side of the house that asked the questions," Ruth says. One of the ghosts has been credited with
saving lives. On two separate occasions, an elderly white-haired woman has startled the occupants of Room 2. Christopher Campbell, a twenty-
seven-year-old engineer from New York, claims that a little old lady shook his shoulder until he bolted upright, wide awake.

"Less than six inches from my face was another face that shocked the hell out of me," Chris reports. "By the time I realized what I was looking
at, she was gone. Then I noticed that the room was filled with smoke. We forgot to open the flue in the fireplace before starting a fire. We could
have died. She saved our lives."

John Clodig, a well-known organist, and his brother Albert, of Crown Point, Indiana, stayed two nights during a cold snap in March 1986. Again,
the flue was closed, and the room filled up with smoke. Luckily, something awakened Albert, and through the smoke he saw a figure standing in
the corner. He described her as an elderly lady with white hair and a dark shawl.

"I didn't think of her as a ghost, I just felt like she belonged. She was just standing in the corner, watching us. If she hadn't woken us up, we
could have suffocated." Both men felt she was friendly and caring, and both believe she saved their lives.

Even the inn's resident pet, a big lap cat that Ruth brought with her from California, has a definite reaction to the Crary House. "Before coming in,
she would poke her head through the door and sniff around," says Ruth. "Once she entered, she would never walk directly through the room.
Instead, she crept along the wall's perimeters, walking much farther around than had she just walked across." After Ruth moved the Haley Tavern
onto the property, the cat stayed over there and never returned to the Crary House, even to visit Ruth.

The Red Brook Inn is located in Mystic Connecticut. P.O. Box 237, Mystic, CT 06372. They have a websie: www.redbrookinn.com. Or call them
at 203-572-0349 for reservations.