The Ghosts of Old Katonah: A New Spooky Tale

On Halloween, Tarrytown has pretty much cornered the market on ghost stories with the legend of Sleepy Hollow. 

But after a group of young writers met this week, a new slew of ghosts may soon be added to local lore, giving Katonah its own page in spooky storybooks.

Given the town's history as a pre-revolutionary town, and the fact that homes were dug up and wheeled to their current locations, Katonah was the perfect setting for "The Ghost(s) of Old Katonah," said Lena Roy, author, Writopia Lab leader and granddaughter of famed writer Madeline L'Engle. Roy has a new novel coming out, called Edges, about "love and grief, addiction and redemption," to be released in December.

She led four excited sixth-graders and one senior in a creative writing workshop this week at the Katonah Village Library. The ghoul-writers-in-training were John Jay Middle School students Molly Thomann, Melanie Marciante, Kaitlyn Ferentini, and Olivia Martin, and Gianna Mosca, a senior at Somers High School.

In order to make room for the New York City reservoir system in the 1880's, the town of Katonah had to move down the street, Roy told them. Do you think people were happy to move their town?" she asked students, to get their creative juices flowing.

Kaitlyn offered up a tidbit that launched the their ghost story.  "A family died in that move," she said, and "they still haunt a house on Cherry Street to this day."  

With a dramatic set-up, each girl was ready to put their part of the story to pen and paper in a writing improvisational exercise that would have the middle schoolers writing a combined story, and the high schooler drafting her own tale.

For an hour, the students learned a bit about craft, collaborative writing and brainstorming plot points.

"My goal is to have kids fall in love with writing," said Roy, and now that she has moved to Katonah, she thought the library would be a good place to "scare up" some interest in the creative writing classes she teaches through Writopia.

(You can read more about that program here).

But The Ghosts of Cherry Street turned out to be not terribly frightening—at least for the three-year-old son of the main characters, Derek and Gretchen. "The young couple never sees anything, but Jack sees everything," said Molly with enthusiasm for their creation.

The younger students agreed to share their story with Patch readers. It ends with a "To be continued," and they are still thinking about an ending to the newest ghost legend of Katonah.

THE GHOSTS OF CHERRY STREET

PART 1: by Olivia

My eyes flickered open. It was the middle of the night, one of our first nights in our new house on Cherry Street in Katonah, New York. We had left a small town in Nevada near the Grand Canyon, so I wasn't surprised that I wasn't sleeping very well. I looked to my left and my husband Derek was still snoring. I heard a strange noise coming from my son Jack's room. I tried to go back to sleep but the noise kept repeating. I decided to get on my slippers and robe and walk out the door toward Jack's room.

PART 2: by Molly

Charlie heard the noise of feet coming up the stairs. Charlie was only five when he died, so he didn't know any better. He always wanted a little brother, but his mom had a stillbirth.

Charlie was having so much fun with Jack and he didn't want to stop. But when his dad called him, he knew that he had no choice.

PART 3: by Melanie

"Keep it down, Charlie!" Yelled Charlie's father, Barnaby. He was a soldier from the Civil War. "This is the first nice family we've ever had since they flooded Old Katonah and betrayed us."

"No, no daddy! I finally found the perfect friend I have been waiting for my whole life AND my dead life. He can be like the little brother I never had."

"Good. Then be quiet."

Then the ghost family mysteriously disappeared.

Part 4: by Kaitlyn

What a nice boy to ply with! He always lets me play whatever I want to. How come I only see him once-in-a-while? His dad scares me, always yelling at Charlie. My daddy never yells at me, only when I pee on the rug like a dog. Since I'm two and a half, Charlie always helps me get out of my crib to play, which scares my mommy a lot. How come whenever my mom walks in, he disappears? I mean, we're having so much fun playing in my little cozy room and then BOOM! My mom walks in and where's Charlie? I always cry because I've never had a friend in Nevada, and Charlie is finally my first friend! Since I just moved here, and Charlie's my best pal, I know I'll like it! I hear my mom coming up the stairs. I yell. "Mommy, don't come up here, I'm pwaying with my fwend!" My mom said nothing.

Part 5: Léna

I couldn't believe my eyes. Jack, my little Jack, was out of the crib and standing on the bookcase, crying. How did he get there?

"Jack!" I ran over to him and hugged him tightly. "What happened?"

"Charlie, I want my friend Charlie back."

You could say that I was more than a little confused. I put him back in his crib and sung him a song, then tiptoed back down stairs and back under the covers.

I was drifting off to sleep when I heard a CRASH! A THUMP! And a WHACK! This time, Derek woke up too.

To be continued . . .