The Sisters of Crimson House

[00:00:11] I'm Melissa Sweazy and I'm Nate Reisman and this is You Can See Me in the Dark Hi Oh god, okay. I think this is the nice thing we always tell our guests that if you mess up or start over This is the beauty of editing that we can always go back and change things Take 35

[00:00:37] So take 35. We're gonna do something a little different today. I feel like A lot of our episodes of late, one of us has said that when we've started, but I really do mean that Today because I do have a ghost story, but it's uh, it's very different It's a different kind of ghost story because This is do I tell people that this we're gonna talk about my book? I think you should Okay

[00:01:06] So, uh, we're gonna talk. Yeah, we're gonna talk about my book You know, um, if you've been listening to this show the past couple of months You may have heard that I have a book coming out At the end. It's where it's this is september that we're recording and the book is coming out at the end of this month So I thought I would be indulgent Because I can Um, because nate is kind enough to sit and let me talk at him for a little bit about it

[00:01:33] But i'm not kind enough. I think it's awesome. So it needed it needed to happen regardless Okay, well, thank you and tons of our listeners have already pre-ordered the book That's that is true. I know which blows my mind. Um, so if you have done that, um, I I truly cannot thank you enough um, because you know, it's Where you spend your money? That's that's a big deal and the fact that you would buy this book sight unseen Because it's well, I hope so but um, but I just I wanted to take a little time to talk about

[00:02:03] Talk about the book but really kind of talk about the inspiration behind it because I think it kind of it dovetails Why I wanted to do this show? Because you know, you and I started this podcast eight years ago Yeah, even though we say it's season nine I know it's eight years ago Um also because we had our live episode last year and I think we said eight years because I can't do math because it was technically seven Uh, but now it's eight years. Um, so it's eight years um

[00:02:31] That we have been telling ghost stories because we love ghost stories and because Because Memphis is a super haunted city, you know, not in the way that like I feel like Like when you think of a haunted city in the united states, what's what's your go-to? What do you think of? Like which city is haunted? Yeah I mean definitely it would just go straight to like The bigger cities because there's more stuff to be done right

[00:02:59] Yeah, but like but you would think of like new orleans or Yeah charleston, you know, like some of these southern cities and I feel like um wherever the crucible happened Right that book Yeah, exactly but you know, it felt like because memphis is is a haunted city it made sense that you and I would tell memphis ghost stories and so

[00:03:26] In the eight years that we've been doing this do you have a favorite memphis ghost story? Uh, yeah, I think the favorite one would be the ghost that lives in the Orpheum mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm so much that they've reserved a seat for it for the Yeah whatnot, which I've seen the seat. I've been in the orpheum. It's pretty cool Yeah I have not seen mary, but i've seen the seat that she

[00:03:56] has to sit in mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm

[00:04:31] mhm establishments in memphis right it has the backstory and uh i've never seen the year i haven't seen a ghost there but i have know all about it yeah i am i was actually part of a seance at ernestine and hazel's um that i put on our Patreon um was that last year that's right yeah

[00:04:57] yeah um thanks for the invite right it was ladies only ladies only dance yeah girls night with exactly it was it was wonderful it was weird um that was it was unexpectedly intense i love that you mentioned ernestine and hazel's because i wanted to talk about another and that that actually gets a shout out in the book that's another reason that i wanted to talk to you about this because

[00:05:25] um there's going to be some important places in the city that really inform the story of the sisters of crimson house but it all starts when i was a kid and my girl scout troop went to victorian village and i know we've talked about Victorian Village on the show before it's this collection of these gorgeous mansions that were all built in the mid to late 1800s and like it blew my mind that

[00:05:54] something that looked like these houses were like in our backyard it was like these palaces that all lined the street and of course i didn't know at the time that in the 60s during urban renewal most of them were torn down so the ones that were left standing just they were just a miracle they were gorgeous but they were also haunted oh yeah we've had several stories from those haunted yeah

[00:06:21] and the one that really stayed with me is probably the most famous one about molly woodruff um so she lived in the woodruff it's known as the Woodruff Fontaine House but the woodruff family was there first and she got married and they had a baby that baby tragically passed within first few months of its life

[00:06:46] and then her husband fell out of a boat on a fishing trip and when he got back they managed to get him to the house but he ended up dying of pneumonia so she lost her child and her husband within a matter of weeks and she she did she remarried had another child that child died and so it is said that it's her ghost

[00:07:10] that haunts the woodruff fontaine house because she died of a broken heart and so of course i learned this as like a seven or eight year old and i'm like i'm hooked for life this like heartbreaking tragic ghost story um but next to the woodruff fontaine house was this other house on the corner also gorgeous

[00:07:33] also tall also supposedly haunted and also just falling apart because like the woodruff fontaine house was owned by the city it was a museum but here's this other house and like it it's it's in rough shape it's not looking good it's still it's still looking good on the outside but you could you could see that like this house was old and nobody was taking care of it and that it kind of broke which one is it

[00:07:59] it's the james lee house what does it look like it is it was well spoiler alert it's gorgeous now um because they um it's a it's a long story but they managed to um get some money to to renovate and turn it around now it's a bed and breakfast you can stay there oh that's right the fact that this yeah but the fact that this house was about to fall apart that really just they really stayed with me

[00:08:27] um so about this time so this is like you know i'm like seven eight years old i see these gorgeous spooky mansions with like real life ghost stories my family and i we go take a trip to the beach we go drive you know it's like a 10 hour drive down to florida um it's kind of a rite of passage if you if you live in memphis it's kind of it's what you do in the summers you you know caravan down to the

[00:08:56] beach but we took a detour to New Orleans and so this is like a few years later and we go to new orleans and i don't know how much you know about the city but like it's it's kind of famously haunted and there is a spot um called Jackson Square and it's a big tourist area there's lots of people out

[00:09:19] and about and that's where you see all of the fortune tellers all of the palm readers oh i've never got my palm read really okay i mean um i should do that you should do it because um i'm telling you it it literally changed my life and i will tell you maybe i don't want to do it yeah i might i might be a cautionary tale um because i you know i get permission you know i get some

[00:09:48] money you know she's doing fortunes for tips and i i go sit down at her table you know it's a woman she's got a headscarf you know she's wearing all the stereotypical trappings of somebody who would you know look look into your palm to divine your future and she tells me that i have a star

[00:10:08] that is in the middle of my palm and that star means that i possess great psychic ability oh i don't have so well i didn't either that's the thing that is the incredible power of one being a child and a grown-up telling you something that you take as gospel truth

[00:10:37] but here is this magical person who is like you have a star you are destined for greatness and i'm like okay i'm the chosen one i'm like 13 sure this is great um but that obviously you know that that really stayed with me it made a huge impression on me um to the point and i'm not so i just fell in love with the city new orleans is just intoxicating i mean literally um but it is it's just it's a

[00:11:06] magical city it is a place where you just feel like the veil is a little thinner you feel like ghosts are everywhere there's the cities of the dead all these you know gorgeous cemeteries so my mom and i go back you know maybe 15 years later and i'm i'm like we need to go get our tarot cards read and my mom's always down she's just like sure let's do it so we go to this place it's a popular

[00:11:35] spot you can get your tea leaves read you can get your palm read or you can do your tarot cards and i'm not sure what option my mom picked but she went first and she goes into this booth and back in the day i think they literally had like a curtain that they would draw closed so i'm out in the waiting room my mom goes in and she comes out and she's like well you're not gonna believe this they told me

[00:12:02] that i was descended from a line of very psychic women and i'm like that actually didn't surprise me because this is the thing about my mom so this is like you know before caller id like any time that i would call the house my mom would pick up the phone and say well hey sweetie she always knew

[00:12:29] it was me and like you that that's one that you can you can explain away you know playing the odds she knows what i'm gonna call yes i'm the skeptic here's not saying anything but but this is the other one this is the other one that gets me so she's driving down the street one day and she said that it was you know it's driving down poplar

[00:12:58] avenue you know that's that's a main thoroughfare in the city of memphis she says she's driving and something just like she said she just turned and looked at this house that she saw on the side of the road and in her mind's eye she saw the house on fire the next day that house burned down to the ground so i was like okay well she's she's tapped into something there like there's there's something

[00:13:25] going on so in this you know in this parlor with my mom getting her tarot cards read or whatever it was that she did this person told her you know yeah this is legit you have this ability and then then it's my turn so i'm like i'm stoked right because if my mom has this ability you know she's descended from this line of psychics well what does that mean for me because she's my mom so that means

[00:13:52] you know i'm in the lineup and nate i swear to you this person looked down at my cards and looked up at me with this sneer and said you nah not so much and i was like oh god right i was like but wait this person in jackson square with star they said i was magical and my mom is you

[00:14:21] know she has this like this destiny but i got nothing and so i was you know i was embarrassed i it definitely kind of knocked the wind out of me but i realized what a great idea for a story so when i sat down to write this book i you know i wanted to tell a story about somebody

[00:14:50] who thought maybe they had the potential for these abilities but had not inherited you know didn't inherit any of them and i really wanted to set the story in new orleans because i got the idea when i was in new orleans it was really informed by new orleans but when i started writing it i was like new orleans as much as i love it it's it's not mine it's not my city it made sense to me

[00:15:15] memphis is my city and you know it's it's also it's like when you think of memphis what's what is memphis known for like when when when tourists come here why are they coming to memphis bill street the blues elvis and there's one what's the other b word exactly that's it yeah i mean in which all

[00:15:44] yes absolutely all of those legendary that's why you should come but there was something that i didn't know about Beale Street until a lot later that it was before it became this tourist haven it was known you know it was a place where all black memphians conducted business and made their money money did transactions but they also it was like a magical super highway for people who were

[00:16:14] doing spell work um they went to this uh it's still there it's a business called Schwab's a Schwab's where you could go and you could order up a spell you know to change your luck to change your fortune and i feel like that story hadn't hadn't really been told in popular culture and like the more i learned

[00:16:37] about that the more i was intrigued about just the magical side of memphis and and then as i started thinking about that i was like wait a second you know we have some incredible magical houses houses that could be a backstory like a crumbling mansion inside a neighborhood that looks a lot like victorian village and i'm like what if those women were born with a mark on their hand

[00:17:04] that showed they had magical ability all except one and so that's where i got the idea that's where the sisters of crimson house was born it's the story of a group of powerfully psychic women who have the ability to see the future and look into the past but what if they failed to predict the

[00:17:27] tragedy that would tear their family apart dun dun dun right so that's a story that i wanted to write yeah it's a good so that is the backstory thank you okay so what's next well what's next is that i have my book launch my very first book signing for the sisters of crimson house will be on september 28th

[00:17:56] at novel bookstore and if you were able to be there in person you can get all kinds of in-store goodies maybe some tarot cards maybe some fun little things i'm gonna have in store for the guests will i see you there oh yeah i'll definitely be there okay good i want my signed copy you were believe me you were getting also make sure to check the acknowledgements

[00:18:22] oh because uh because you know you might you might be in there just just saying you might might want to look at that you can sign right over it okay good i will do that um and then then the book goes wide it officially comes out on september 29th yeah to to all of you any of you who have pre-ordered a copy thank you if you've listened to this show thank you it's it's a privilege to get to

[00:18:50] tell these ghost stories and it's literally a dream come true that i get to tell this ghost story in the form of a book so thank you in advance and yeah thank you for listening nate nate thank you for listening i'll always listen because i know it's going to be spooky and i know it's going to be good yeah it's um it's a very very halloweeny book so yeah a perfect time for it to come out september 28th

[00:19:19] well technically september 28th in memphis september 29th everywhere else um so you might as well just pre-order the book so it just shows up when it's ready so exactly pre-order exactly like i have yeah well thank you um yeah so it's coming at you soon um and i hope you love it you you Thank you.