Only this week I realized my merely vague awareness of the thinning of the veil between worlds as we approached this day, October 31st. It was uncharacteristic of me, and shocking, and I was nonplussed. Somehow, not only had I back-burnered getting my house and front yard decorated for Halloween, but I’d failed to do it, at all.

Last year, Halloween completely fell through due to emergency. The Halloween candy went untouched. We still had it, the large black cauldron overflowing with treats, and it was still good. Might as well set it out and drag the skeleton from storage to hang on the front door, I thought. Maybe scatter some jack-o-lanterns around, too. 2023’s Halloween candy can make its way into the bags of 2024’s trick-or-treaters. So it shall be.

Yesterday evening’s temperature of 71F brought in the year’s long-awaited first instance of chilly weather. It was magnificent to have to put on a light jacket outside. It’s been hot-hot all month, with four days of temps over 110F. Unheard of! Maybe that’s why I barely took notice that it was October.

I did manage to engage in some kitchen witchery this morning, though, to make soul cakes in celebration of Samhain.

Sabrina oversaw the baking proceedings from her perch on the kitchen window.

I used dried cherries for the fruit.

Now, then!

In this final post about our extended weekend getaway in Jerome, a tiny and old haunted mining town in the mountains of Northern Arizona, I’ve got one last story to share. I believe I referenced it in my last post. It was the toothbrush cap situation.

My routines on autopilot help to offset my absentminded moments, and this can be a blessing at times. I never have to look around for my electric toothbrush’s cap, because I always set it down someplace nearby when I remove it. In our room in the Jerome Grand Hotel, that place was on the coffee table before the loveseat that sat near the bathroom door. The bathroom’s pedestal sink offered no space for setting things, so we used the coffee table as a bathroom counter.

On the final night of our stay, I couldn’t find my toothbrush cap when I finished brushing my teeth.

Mind you, the cap is easy to miss and easy to lose. It’s small and clear, just a slight thing to cover the toothbrush bristles. We searched the table, the loveseat, and the floor under and around the furniture, near the bathroom and even in the bathroom, and we came up with nothing. We looked for it again before checking out the next morning, to no avail.

It wasn’t a big deal. We had more of those caps at home. It wasn’t a critical thing, or a thing of monetary value. My bafflement was mild, because small, light things do get shuffled around and inexplicably lost.

Back in Phoenix a week later, I deposited the contents of my handbag onto the bed. The whole bag needed a purging, including a clean-out of the two pouches in which I keep the smaller items. The largest of the pouches lies flat at the bottom of the bag, buried beneath everything else, because it’s the pouch that I don’t need to access often.

When I unzipped the pouch and turned it upside-down, its contents dropped onto the bed: packets of Advil and Tylenol, hand wipes and alcohol pads, band-aids and eyeglass cleaning wipes. A small bottle of glasses-lens cleaning solution fell out, along with a small cleaning cloth. The last item that dropped onto the bed was my missing toothbrush cap.

I thought back to the sequence of events the night of its disappearance.

F.P. was sitting with me on the loveseat when I removed the cap to brush my teeth in that haunted hotel room. He did not see me get up; take the toothbrush cap to the bed; dig through to the depths of my handbag to get to the large pouch that was underneath everything; slip the cap into the pouch; return the pouch to the bottom of the bag; repack all of the other handbag contents on top of it; come back to the coffee table at the loveseat, and then brush my teeth. Nor did he see me doing all of that after brushing my teeth (before coming back to look for the thing that I’d just stashed in the pouch at the bottom of my bag).

In other words, we’re 100% certain that I didn’t put the toothbrush cap into the pouch that was buried at the bottom of my bag, which was sitting on the bed across the room when I was getting ready to brush my teeth. My routine on autopilot: remove the cap, set it down, brush my teeth, and put the cap back on. That’s it. At no point would I say to myself, Self, here’s an idea! Go across the room to your bag and hide the cap in the pouch at the bottom.

Here’s the pouch, toothbrush cap on top:

Earlier, the maid had divulged that there’d been “a lot of activity” at our end of that hallway, and in our room in particular. Guests had mentioned drawers opening in the middle of the night, things disappearing and re-appearing and such. (Have other recent guests in or near our room encountered two antique-doll-like girls?)

If spirits can open drawers and move objects around, then I guess I can apply that speculation to this business with my toothbrush cap. There is, after all, no other explanation.

Now, there’s something else I wanted to show you, just as an aside.

We went to check out the town’s abandoned high school while on our ghost tour the first night we were there. Inside, the darkness could only be illuminated with red light, we were told.

Okay, this next photo is the one that I wanted to show you.

We were standing on the stage in the gym (and/or auditorium) when I looked up and noticed this rectangle cut-out high up, near the ceiling. It looked like an interior window, but it was probably an oddly small and isolated window to the outside. I found it to be interesting, so I snapped a photo.

Later, when I zoomed in to look at the cut-out more closely, I saw something.

I kept zooming in.

I can’t be the only one who sees this, right? Do you see this?

(Wonder who she is… was…?)

My friends, I hope you enjoyed these story-tellings! I brought back memories of two other (possible) paranormal occurrences; perhaps I’ll regale you of those at a later time.

We’ll be back, Jerome, to stay at your haunted grand hotel again. We’ll return to the same room, the valley-side corner garden room on the 3rd floor. It was charming.

Just splendid. And here in Phoenix metro, we’re in light jackets now, finally, and that’s splendid, too.

Happy Halloween, friends.