Many years ago, on a cold winter day, after school hours, a basketball player for Chestnut Hill Academy (CHA) left his math textbook at school, causing him to venture to the third floor of the Inn. Little did this unsuspecting student know that he was making a grave mistake. After quite some time, his mother, who had dropped him back to school, was unsure where he was. After all, he was looking for a textbook in an empty building; there shouldn’t have been any distractions. She sensed something was amiss. Following her instinct to protect her son, she journeyed up the three flights of stairs, step by step, approaching the unknown.
She arrived on the third floor and bumped into her son. She looked into his eyes, seeing a look of unmistakable fear on his face. Confused about why her son was scared while searching for a textbook, she turned around, facing the long hallway. That’s when she saw it. A white cloud emerged from the walls, silent and hollow, a transparent figure. Floating inches off the ground, the apparition approached the two. For the family, one thing was clear: this was not a figment of their imagination.
Paul Hines, who formally taught a class about the stories of the Inn, and has been a part of CHA and SCH for 43 years, has informed students of a supernatural force in the Inn. This ghost appears in a white mist, hovering surreptitiously around the third floor. It sneaks into the walls to remain unknown to humans. The ghost makes no sound as it floats around.
Former athletic director and honorary alumnus H ‘81, James Talbot, who now works in the development office as the senior gifts officer said, “Those of us who have been around for a while know that there’s one up there.”
This is not the only ghost of the Inn, though. Legend has it that there is a ghost that occupies the art and maintenance areas of SCH. This ghost appears as a girl dressed in all white, which is strange because the Inn used to be the boys’ campus. This means that ghost dates back far before CHA, all the way back to when the Inn was an actual Inn. With ghosts floating around, it makes sense that some things at SCH are rather unhinged. But still, many questions linger. Are the two ghosts related? Has anyone else seen the ghosts? Where have they gone? And many more…
Shrouded in mystery, it may seem hard to believe that a ghost lingers on the third floor of the Inn, but that is just the wild world we live in. Giovanni D’Angelo has three classes on the third floor and is “terrified.”