Haunted Ontario 3-Book Bundle. Terry Boyle

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      Stairway at the Jester’s Court Inn.

      The Freemans sold the business in 1986 to Niki Bainbridge who continued to operate the establishment as a restaurant and to reside in the upstairs of the building with her family until 1997. In that period Niki developed an incredible relationship with several spirits inhabiting the house. Niki often saw the apparition of a thin woman in her 70s. She wore a high-collared blue dress and a long, white bibbed apron. Niki described the clothing as late 19th century. This ghost always had a “heavenly” smile and displayed nothing but kindness in her eyes. Her presence was reassuring and somehow comforting. “When I saw the woman I felt her saying that I never needed to worry. Then she would turn around and walk right through the wall,” said Niki.

      One day a dinner guest in the restaurant saw a little girl sitting on the stairs to the second floor. The girl was playing with a doll. The man thought the girl was real. He had no previous knowledge of haunting in the building and was very surprised to discover that there were no children on the premises.

      One night Niki was sound asleep in her bed in the attic; she awoke to hear heavy breathing. She quickly turned on the bedroom light. A glance to the other side of the bed revealed the shape of a human figure outlined in the duvet beside her. Seconds later she watched as the figure disappeared and the duvet returned to its normal flat shape. A ghost had actually joined her in bed!

      Another night she was startled from sleep by someone shouting her name in her ear. At first she paid no heed to the noise, rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Then it dawned on her. Could this be a sign of danger? Rising from bed she quickly scrambled downstairs to check her children on the second floor. They were fine. All this time the thought of fire played on her mind. Her fear took her downstairs where she discovered a candle burning against a wooden window sill. Somehow a mysteriously lit candle had fallen against the pane of glass and then onto the sill. Had the spirit not awakened her the entire family might have been trapped by fire. The original fate of the hotel could have been repeated!

      Who lit the candle? The spirits, of course. It was not uncommon for Niki to come downstairs in the morning to find a burning candle on a dining room table. Indeed, Niki once encountered a lit candle every morning for 30 days in a row! Once she even discovered a candle burning under a table. She had had enough. Like Mark Freeman, she decided to address the spirits. Niki asked them to stop; she demanded that they end this ritual and they listened. For a time the candle nonsense was curtailed.

      The spirits found other ways to taunt Niki, however. She found herself locked in her room one night, from the outside. She had to call a friend in the morning to come and unlock her bedroom door.

      Despite the number of pranks they played on her, Niki felt the spirits in the house cared for her. “After working all day and evening I would stay up to watch television and then nod off. The spirit would turn the television off. I would wake up, turn it back on and shout at them, tell them I was not finished watching the tube. Then I would doze off and waken to find it turned off again. I know they were looking out for my welfare.”

      One evening after closing time Niki sat down at her desk on the main floor to do some bookkeeping. Suddenly she felt that somebody was watching her. She turned and saw the figure of an old woman standing in the down-stairs hall. The woman smiled at her, turned, and disappeared down the hall.