100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween! 62 Nights Left! "Emma"

The year was 2001 and I was asked to do ghost stories for a project graduation for St. Andrews Priory I was scheduled to meet the trolley at midnight in front of the school. I arrived twenty minutes early and found a nice grassy area where I could sit. The night was without a moon and so the atmosphere was darker than usual; this is why I was amazed when I found an ornate concrete bench to rest and clear my mind. While going through the sequence of ghost stories in my head, I noticed a woman walking down the driveway dressed in a gown of some kind. I really couldn’t make out the details.

She was coming toward me and as she got closer, I couldn’t help but notice her smile. I smiled back and greeted her with an aloha and stood up so that she could take a seat beside me. Taking her place, she inhaled the night air and looked at me and said,

“Mahalo nui,”

“Mahalo I ke aha?” I asked curiously. “Mahalo for...?”

Just then the loud sounds of screaming and shouting and the ringing of bells filled the air. It was the trolley pulling into the driveway of the school, the graduating class had arrived. I turned my flashlight on to let them see where I was standing. The young graduates excitedly gathered around me, but before I said anything, I noticed that the girls were looking at something directly behind me; they began to chant the words to a hula,

“He wahine holo lio ‘oe la,

Ma luna ko Kina’u lio la...”

I looked behind me and flashed my light to see what or who it was that they were looking at. Standing there was the woman who was seated beside me a second previous except her face was frozen in time. My heart dropped when I realized that it was actually a bust of Queen Emma. I’d forgotten that it was she and her husband Alexander Liholiho who were and still are the physical and spiritual founders of Saint Andrews Priory.

I was elated, honored, humbled and scared out of my mind.