Reader, it may astonish you to know that Boston is the city of my birth. Alas, the humble birthplace has disappeared beneath the sands of time—1809 was many a year ago! Yet on a recent haunting of the corner where Boylston and Charles streets meet, I was amused to find instead a statue of myself striding along with that gloomy raven for a companion.

This city by the sea holds many eerie memories of the past. On the same evening I encountered my statue, I found myself wandering through the old Common. Gone was the Great Elm where public hangings were held in my youth. Still, I felt a chill run down my spine as I stood by the plaque that marks the unholy spot. 

As I reached the Common’s Central Burying Ground and was pondering the horrors of premature burial, a woman dressed in widow’s weeds suddenly appeared. I was not surprised—Boston has many venerable graveyards, and many ghosts that haunt them. Yet before I could entreat this widow to share her tale of woe, her flowing black gown disappeared into the shadows. Where her face had been, there was only a grinning death’s head carved on a headstone. 

At length I left the Common, and found myself in Boston’s Theatre District. A crowd hurried to and fro, making merry and paying me no heed until I happened upon the ghost of a former mayor of Boston presenting his ticket at the Emerson Cutler Majestic. The good fellow had passed away during a performance there in the early 1900s, he explained, yet still attends the theater. He induced me to join him for the performance and I accepted. I felt a kinship towards this ghostly theater-goer, since my own mother was an actress in her day, gracing the stages of Boston two hundred years ago. 

After the play I went to seek suitable lodgings, at length reaching that esteemed hotel, the Omni Parker House. Its long-dead founder, Harvey Parker, greeted me warmly and led me to my room on the 10th floor. It was a commodious lodging indeed—alas, that dastardly raven kept me awake all night with his incessant “Nevermore!” 

Thus ended my visit to Boston, Dear Reader, yet I am sure I shall return soon. Perhaps I will see you there? —as told to Olivia J. Kiers