Читать книгу Ghosthunting Michigan - Helen Pattskyn - Страница 14

CHAPTER 6

Battle Alley Arcade Antiques Mall

HOLLY

HOLLY IS PERHAPS BEST KNOWN as the home of the Michigan Renaissance Festival, a favorite autumn destination for Michiganders of all ages, and for the Mt. Holly Ski and Snowboard Resort, one of Lower Michigan’s most popular winter retreats. Another reason to visit the village of Holly is the annual Dickens Festival, held each December along the town’s historic downtown district. The festival brings Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to life by recreating a truly old-fashioned Christmas with carolers, a tree-lighting ceremony, and, of course, a visit from Father Christmas (or simply “Santa” to most American children). But if you’re a paranormal investigator or, like me, just an amateur ghosthunter in search of a few good stories, you will find a lot more than the spirits of Christmas past haunting the quiet 160-year-old village. Holly is said by some to be one of the most haunted little towns in Michigan—which meant I was really looking forward to my visit. I took my husband along with me for this trip too, although I think he was more interested in preventing me from shopping too much than he was in any ghost stories.

Our first stop was the Battle Alley Antiques Arcade, located next door to the historic Holly Hotel. Since it was pretty close to the holiday season, I had called ahead and made an appointment with the antiques shop owner, Patricia Kenny. Pat graciously agreed to show me around and talk to me about the arcade’s history and resident spirits, as long as I came up on a weekday. That worked for us, and I told Pat I would be there on Monday.

When my husband got home from work that afternoon, we made some hot cocoa for the road, bundled up, and were on our way. Holly isn’t far from us, less than an hour, and it was a nice day for a drive and maybe a little holiday shopping—or at least pointing out to my husband all the things I might like to find in my stocking this year! Street parking in downtown Holly proved to be a bit sparse, but my husband found us a spot a short distance from the antiques arcade. We enjoyed a short walk through the historic district, where all of the stores were decked with evergreen garland and red velvet bows for the upcoming holiday season.

I had been curious about how the street named Battle Alley got its name. We found a plaque in downtown Holly that told us the story: Holly hasn’t always been the peaceful little village it is today; it started out as a railroad town, filled with migrant workers and their families, as well as the occasional farmer who would come in for supplies. Despite the fact that Oakland County, in which Holly is situated, was a “dry” county at the turn of the 20th century, the village of Holly maintained a number of saloons and speakeasies in its downtown district. In 1880, a skirmish broke out between some of the migrant railway workers who had settled in Holly and a troupe of travelling circus performers. The fight was said to have left so many people injured that the street on which the brawl took place was dubbed “Battle Alley,” and the name stuck, even into modern times.

Apparently, the drunk and disorderly conduct continued, because in 1908 the Holly prohibition committee called in the infamous Kansas saloon smasher, Carry A. Nation, to put an end to the town’s alcohol problems. After taking her trademark axe to the liquor shelves of the Holly Hotel’s saloon, however, Ms. Nation found herself under arrest. Her conduct may not have been drunken, but town officials decided it was most certainly disorderly!

In 1975, Holly established the Carry Nation Festival to celebrate Ms. Nation’s visit to the village. It may not be as well known as the Renaissance or Dickens Festivals, but the Carry Nation Festival commemorates an important chapter of Holly’s history. In addition to the usual festival traditions—a parade, pageant, and reenactment of Ms. Nation’s visit to the village—many of the downtown pubs offer guests special menus and reduced prices on drinks. Clearly, the residents of Holly have a good sense of humor about their colorful past.

In short order, my husband and I reached our destination, a two-story white brick storefront. Stepping into the Battle Alley Antiques Arcade was more like stepping out onto a Victorian-era street than it was like stepping into an antiques shop. Rather than the usual setup of booths or row after row of display cases, visitors find actual small “shops” lining each side of a long walkway. More than 20 antiques dealers call the arcade home; you can find everything from old vinyl records to antique furniture, vintage clothes, jewelry, and dolls.

“Swaying lights” at the Battle Alley Arcade.

My husband and I were greeted by Patricia Kenny and her brother John, who run the antiques arcade. After making our introductions, Pat invited me to step into a quieter corner of the shop so we could talk. She was candid about her shop’s ghosts. “What would you like to know?” she asked right off the bat.

As usual, I didn’t have any prepared questions. I prefer to invite people to talk to me about their experiences, anything they’ve seen or heard themselves, or anything guests or customers have reported. I asked Pat to tell me about the shop’s ghosts.

“We’re very haunted,” she began. “A lot of buildings in Holly are. We’ve had a number of paranormal investigators come out to see us.” Pat went on to tell me that the Motor City Ghost Hunters had recently been out for another visit, and she was looking forward to getting the full report as soon as they were done reviewing their findings. They’d already sent her a couple of preliminary photographs and let her hear a few audio recordings, and the evidence seemed tantalizing. “You can hear a little boy saying ‘buy it for me, Mommy’ really clearly on one of the recordings they made upstairs.”

I was curious about how and why she’d contacted the Motor City Ghost Hunters to come up in the first place. “Did you call them?” I asked. “Or did they hear about you being haunted and ask if they could come out?”

“They were up here conducting an investigation at the Holly Hotel,” she explained, “and came next door to see us too.” Pat told me that when the Ghost Hunters came into her shop, one of their sensitives said she felt the presence of their resident ghost cat. “It brushes up against peoples’ legs,” Pat told me. “My brother John has even felt it.” The ghost cat was the very first spirit Pat said a psychic had told her about, some 15 years ago.

But the ghostly feline isn’t the only spirit who inhabits the arcade. Pat told me that customers are always telling her how they see shadows out of the corners of their eyes or feel as if they are being watched. “Make sure you go upstairs,” she added. Apparently, the second floor of the Antiques Arcade has seen some pretty interesting activity. “I remember one day a gentleman came down the steps pretty quickly and left without a word. It was a little odd, but I didn’t think that much of it until later when I went across the street to get some lunch. They asked me what I was doing to my customers over here. The man I’d seen rushing out the door had ended up across the street and was really shaken up.” Later, the customer returned and told Pat that he’d been upstairs and someone came up behind him and knocked his hat from his head.

Except there wasn’t anyone else upstairs at the time.

Of course, not everyone who visits the arcade believes in ghosts; not all of the vendors do, either. That doesn’t make them immune to unusual phenomena, however. Pat told me that one morning one of the antiques dealers was opening the arcade up for the day—“he doesn’t believe in any of this,” she added with a smile. “He follows the same routine every time he opens up. He always walks down and gets all the lights on this side, then turns on the lights on the other side on his way back to the front of the store.” She had me follow her down the long, narrow path down the middle of the arcade so I could see for myself. It’s a fairly long walk from the front of the store to the back of it. “It was first thing in the morning, and no one else was back here,” she said, as we got to the rear of the arcade. “But he told me that when he got back here, that light was swinging back and forth.” She pointed to the middle light in a row of three hanging from the ceiling in a rear booth area. The light is high up, definitely over my head; even a tall man would not have been able to reach it without a ladder. But, as Pat had just said, there was no one else in the store.

“This area has a lot of activity,” she told me of that particular room. “One morning another vendor was back here opening up, and she said she heard fabric rustling behind her, like a woman’s long skirt. When she turned around, no one was there. She hurried back up to the front to wait for her daughter to come in. She didn’t want to be back here alone.”

Just like most of the people I’d talked to over the last few months, Pat said she wasn’t at all uncomfortable working in such a haunted environment. For her, spirits are just a part of the day-to-day operation of an antiques store. “Whenever a new vendor comes in, or someone moves things around in their shop, it always seems to stir things up,” she told me. “Old furniture, mirrors, and especially dolls have spirits connected to them,” she added.

But it’s not just the antiques at the Battle Alley Arcade that attract spirits. The building material used to decorate the interior was donated from numerous older sites to create the unique layout of the mall. Old fixtures, beams, shutters, and other odds and ends adorn the arcade’s interior and attract spirits as much as the antiques themselves do—at least according to people who believe in ghosts and other paranormal phenomena. The theory is that spirits attach themselves to items that were important to them in life. That may be why ghosts are so often attached to dolls; who is more possessive of a favorite toy than a child?

The arcade is structurally old as well and has had an interesting history. Pat told me that the back part of the building was built around 1916 or 1917 and was called the Liberty Theatre. By 1927, it was called the Liberty Theatre and Confectionery. “Part of the building used to be connected to the hotel, next door,” Pat told me. I discovered later that at that time the Holly Hotel was running a speakeasy, and the arcade was home to a brothel. I don’t know about the ghosts, but if the walls could only talk I imagine they would have some interesting stories to tell.

While we were walking around the shop, Pat pointed out a few of the places paranormal investigators have gotten some of their best evidence, and she showed me one of the photographs the Motor City Ghost Hunters emailed to her after their most recent visit. You can find it on their website and decide for yourself if the reflection in the glass display case is really a human figure or just an optical illusion. According to the accompanying report, the reflection isn’t of anyone who was in the room at the time, nor was there anything near the case that could have been responsible for a human-shaped reflection.

I took a picture of the same case but didn’t see anything unusual. Oh, well, maybe next time.

Before I left, Pat gave me the name of another shop in town, Main Street Antiques, and said I would be sure to get in touch with Lynn and Mark to talk about their ghosts too.

But that’s another story….