Emily Paine Carter

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"I was awakened after midnight by a tall woman at the foot of the bed, between the posts. Like a glowing, white mist. She seemed to be trying to throw something over me -- a sheet? -- and to scream at me as I screamed at her!

"And two goblinlike things -- or small children? -- were on each side of me. ... I began to pray and call on Jesus."

And so in phone calls and e-mails, professor Carol Swain shuddered through telling me about her "harrowing experience" in heart-of-Salem landmark "Monterey." Stone markers flank its narrow, uphill entrance -- barely carriage-width for long-ago guests of the former hotel.

To many it remains "Katherine Burke's house" -- despite Roanoke College's purchase after the gracious, beloved matriarch's death.

Some say soldiers from Hanging Rock's Civil War skirmish were buried in its ground. I heard a visiting New York writer -- alluding to "Gone with the Wind" -- call the stately Southern mansion "Tara."

"Terror," however, is what beset Carol. In town to receive the college's prestigious Copenhaver Award and to attend its board of trustees meeting, she stayed at Monterey.

(Such honored guests are housed upstairs; the main floor provides meeting space, etc., said Roanoke College director of public relations Teresa Gereaux. She kindly paused while planning today's gala presidential inauguration of excellent Mike Maxey; she even offered me contacts and confirmed "pretty consistent rumors of a female ghost.")

Like others wary of ramifications, haunt-ee Carol had not revealed her story for publication until now.

Her achievements are evidence of her seriousness-of-purpose: One of a Bedford County family's 12 children, she earned a GED; Virginia Western Community College degree; B.A., 1983, Roanoke College; M.A., Virginia Tech; Ph.D., University of North Carolina; master's, Yale School of Law. Tenured Princeton professor; now professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt.

Logical thinking is key to her profession and to her personality. "I'm one to figure things out, not one to scream," she emphasized.

Carol's favorite biblical quotes show brave Christianity: "God has not given you a spirit of fear" and "they shall walk, and not faint."

"I've never been so frightened," she said. (And no, she stressed, she does not drink.) Feeling uneasy as she first stepped into Monterey's foyer, she phoned a New Jersey "prayer partner" who eased her initial fear -- but that night she sensed Carol's screaming.

Looking around outside the next day, Carol fell forward. "My leg found the only hole -- 2 ½ feet deep -- in that closely mowed, big lawn! Campus police said it was a miracle it didn't break my leg.

"So [the Rev.] Gerald McDermott and others prayed in the house." After enduring four lights-on nights, she left to stay elsewhere.

"My call is to speak Truth," she wrote. So she confided in Roanoke College professor Mark Miller (wife Linda Miller is college archivist) and associate professor/part-time Roanoke Times copy editor Tom Carter (no relation). (Carter's ghost-themed, freshman composition class conducts a low-tech, Monterey ghost hunt yearly; I found their 2006 "black floating spheres" and dowsing-rod reports eerie.)

Then she confided in a fellow houseguest from California, who casually replied, "Oh, you mean the spirits. It [Monterey] is full of them, and they aren't happy."

And to fellow trustees Kate Turbyfill -- who, said Carol, hurt her arm in that yard -- and Joanne Cassullo. Cassullo e-mailed that New York artist and January 2006 guest lecturer Hunt Slonem reported "very odd dreams" in that room.

Slonem told me that he "definitely felt a strong presence" -- but would not have been bothered had he seen a ghost.

Texas artist Bob "Daddy-O" Wade said his own stay at Monterey this summer was "a little strange ... but kinda neat, with old group photos conjuring a sense of the past. She [Cassullo] and I did wonder why a box turtle was leaving Monterey's nice garden for the street," he chuckled.

TO BE CONTINUED next week. Meanwhile, Happy Halloween!