Trick or Treat 3: Loved & Lost

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Welcome back to another edition of our special Halloween bonus series, Trick or Treat.

Each Friday this month, I'll be dropping an extra episode for you to enjoy to help you keep that spooky vibe going all month long.

Today's theme will be all about the ghosts of those we've lost.

At the heart of so many haunted house stories or tales of spectral visitors is love cut short by death.

And the ghostly tales that result from these tragedies are often the most memorable and chilling.

So, bundle up against the cold, light a candle to set the mood, and let me take you on a tour of the ghostly echoes of lost love.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore.

She was determined to stay with him forever, even in the afterlife.

The 19th century was a time of upheaval for Thailand.

The nation was still finding its footing on the international stage, attempting to balance local tradition with Western globalization.

All things considered, King Rama IV was doing the best that he could, but leading the nation through such uncertainty wasn't an easy task, and conflict was inevitable.

And so, in the 1850s, Thailand was forced to respond to an upheaval in Myanmar.

The king pledged to send troops to the Burmese mountains but for that he needed men so the government issued a conscription.

Now military conscriptions aren't popular even in the best of times.

No family wants to have their men taken away from their home and sent to danger in another country.

But for one young couple in particular, their separation was devastating.

Maynak and her husband Mak lived in the bustling city of Bangkok.

Mak doted on his wife and she adored him more than words can say.

Only recently married, they had worked hard to make a loving home for themselves and it wasn't a moment too soon.

May Nak, you see, was pregnant with their first child and she was due to pop at any moment.

But before she could give birth, you guessed it, her husband was conscripted into the army.

Naturally, May Nock was upset that she would have to go through labor without her husband, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that he would soon be home.

The good news is that she was right.

Her husband returned home quickly after a short campaign.

The bad news was that May Nak would not live to see his return.

She died while giving birth.

Her baby never even made it out of her body before it too passed on.

And so she and her unborn child were buried in a nearby cemetery, leaving the neighbors to fret over how they would break the news to Mok when he finally came back from the warfront.

But as it turns out, they wouldn't have to.

You see, as the days passed by, the neighbors began to notice something strange.

Although that may be putting it mildly, it was actually downright terrifying.

They had all seen Mainoch's body lowered into the earth, but there she was, each and every day, sweeping her front steps and smiling at her baby, a baby who should have been in the ground with her.

Mainoch's spirit had been so reluctant to part with her beloved that she just sort of stuck around.

No one really knew what to do about it, so they let her be.

And so when Mock finally returned home, he saw his beautiful wife and his newborn baby waiting for him.

The neighbors tried to warn him that his wife was a ghost, but he paid them no mind.

She looked as real and alive as she ever had been.

How could she be dead?

He simply wrote it off as some sort of a prank, and he focused all his attention on his little family.

For weeks, Mock ignored the neighbors, but one day he was sitting in his garden while his wife picked limes off one of the trees.

Then, Mach saw his wife drop a lime.

Before he could get out of his seat to fetch it for her, Mainoch's arm stretched further than humanly possible, snaking out to grab the fruit.

And Bach's heart went cold.

He finally realized that his neighbors had been right all along.

Whatever was in front of him was not his wife.

Not anymore.

Terrified, he fled to the local temple, and there he stayed.

using the sacred site to protect him from his wife's ghost.

Furious at their meddling, Mainoch terrorized the neighbors and they were forced to call for a monk who gently guided her hurting spirit into the afterlife.

Today, Mainak's soul is still at peace, but her story continues to touch hearts all around Thailand.

There's even a shrine set up in her honor.

Its steps are crowded every day with hordes of people who want to pay their respects and seek her guidance in love.

Most of us have been to at least one touristy beach town full of kitschy knickknacks and airbrushed t-shirts.

So I'm going to ask you to do a small thought exercise with me.

I want you to picture those bright busy boardwalks in your head.

Add all the bells and whistles to the themed gift stands, the saltwater taffy, and the matching family reunion outfits.

And then I want you to imagine that instead of beside the ocean, it's all in the mountains.

Got it?

Good.

Because now you know exactly what Gatlinburg, Tennessee feels like.

It wasn't always like this, though.

Hundreds of years ago, Gatlinburg was a wild mountain territory with only the occasional band of Cherokee hunters passing through.

Eventually, a small stream of white settlers moved in, building cabins and outposts until they had a tiny town.

In the 19th century, the region was taken over by the lumber industry, but the logging trains still didn't attract many permanent residents.

By 1912, the entire town consisted of only six houses, a blacksmith, a general store, and a Baptist church.

There were 600 cabins scattered around the general region, but it was a low enough number that no one ever had to see their neighbors if they didn't want to.

Still, it was a beautiful part of the country, and people wanted to see it temporarily.

In 1916, the town got its first hotel.

Then in 1934, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park was created, and Gatlinburg, which was suddenly right on the edge of one of the country's largest national parks, exploded.

Within a matter of a few years, it became Appalachia's best-known tourist trap.

Today, Gatlinburg is full of neon lights, Ripley's banded attractions, wax museums, and pancake houses, every building made to look like a log cabin, and there are black bears painted or carved onto just about every surface imaginable.

It is the last place that you would expect to be haunted.

After all, it's hard to imagine ghosts hanging around the mini golf courses or zooming through the mountains on a zipline.

But believe it or not, even the most corny of tourist towns can have their fair share of spooks.

A couple of miles from the main tourist strip of Gatlinburg is the Greenbrier Restaurant.

It's actually older than the national park, having opened long before the mountains were set aside by the federal government.

But technically it didn't start out as a restaurant.

The Greenbrier Lodge actually began its existence as a hotel for wealthy travelers who were there for a mountain getaway.

According to the story, in the 1930s, a young woman named Lydia was staying at the Greenbrier Lodge the night before her wedding.

When the big day finally arrived, she waited eagerly at the altar for her groom, but he never came.

Understandably devastated by this, Lydia ran back to the lodge in tears.

There, she found a rope, swung it over a beam on the second floor, and hanged herself.

Because she took her own life, the locals refused to give her a proper Christian funeral or to bury her in a churchyard.

Instead, Lydia's body was laid to rest in an unmarked grave on the Greenbrier Lodge grounds.

But if the stories are true, her spirit never truly left.

Today, Lydia haunts the Greenbrier restaurant.

Both patrons and employees have heard the sound of a woman crying.

One lodge caretaker even claims to have heard Lydia shout, mark my grave, over and over until he found where she was buried and erected a memorial there.

Some say that they've seen the apparition of a petite young woman on the staircase.

Multiple employees have testified to feeling cold spots or seeing food fling itself off the shelves.

It's safe to say that she isn't the happiest guest.

One visiting psychic attributed this to the fact that Lydia was angry that the beam that she had hanged herself from was still installed above the bar.

She's forced to look at it day after day with no escape.

The saddest part about Lydia's story isn't actually that she's stuck in the restaurant where she took her own life.

No, it's that she never should have been trapped there in the first place because her fiancé never jilted her at the aisle.

Only a week after the wedding, you see, his body was found in the mountains where he had been mauled to death by a wild animal.

It seems that he hadn't abandoned Lydia at all.

Nobody liked the new queen of Serbia.

It wasn't that she was inherently unlikable.

There was nothing wrong with her or her personality.

Queen Draga was well-educated, creative, and friendly.

It was more the principle of the thing.

She really shouldn't have been crowned queen at all.

But her husband, King Alexander, was young and reckless.

He had taken the throne at only 12 years old and had been ruling the country as a puppet under his father's thumb for years.

Marrying Draga had been his way of rebelling.

He was 23 and she was 33, a full decade older.

Not only that, but she was a widow who had worked as Alexander's mother's lady-in-waiting, hardly the resume that Serbia had wanted for their future queen.

A few years after her husband died, she became Alexander's mistress and they fell in love.

And in 1900, against all advisement, Alexander married her.

The backlash was instantaneous.

His entire cabinet quit, his father resigned as commander-in-chief, and his own mother protested the match and in response, he exiled her.

The whole country's opinion of him soured.

Everyone now believed that he was a fool who had allowed himself to be seduced by a power-hungry harlot.

The sad thing was that the two seemed to actually be very much in love.

By all accounts, they had a happy marriage, if you ignored the fact that their relationship infuriated all of the country.

Unfortunately, King Alexander's public image would never recover.

Once he made Draga his wife, no one trusted him to run the country.

And after he made a series of unpopular political moves, including suspending the constitution for half an hour so he could push through the items on his agenda, the nation's dissatisfaction grew.

The final straw came in 1903.

You see, in their first three years of marriage, Draga and Alexander were never blessed with a child.

Everyone worried about the future of the monarchy, but that worry was kicked into high gear when people began to suspect that Alexander was about to name his wife's brother as his heir, effectively ending the royal family line.

On June 10th, a squad of army officers broke into the palace.

Fighting through the guards, they made their way to the king's bedroom, where both Draga and Alexander met a bloody, violent end.

Serbia moved on quickly after their deaths.

Another king was crowned almost immediately, and no one was ever punished for the assassination.

Everyone was perfectly happy to forget that the previous king and queen had ever existed at all.

But it would seem that Draga didn't want to be forgotten.

A few months before her death, the queen had purchased a new yacht.

After she was killed, the boat was sold to a Serbian merchant who took it to Hungary.

His intention was to rent the ship out as a pleasure cruise, but he found that to be a rather difficult endeavor.

Sailors were a superstitious lot, and because of the previous owner's unhappy fate, the merchant could never keep a full crew.

A couple of years passed by, and while it wasn't always fully staffed, the yacht seemed to be getting on well.

And then, in February of 1905, it made its way to Budapest.

Once the ship docked, several crew members abandoned it, quitting as soon as they touched dry land.

This was par for the course, and the yacht still had a big enough staff to keep operating, so everyone else just shrugged it off.

Two nights later, the yacht hosted a dinner party.

The atmosphere was shattered when everyone on board heard a scream.

One of the guests, a young woman, was fleeing the ship, shrieking as she went.

Everyone tried to ask her what was wrong, but all she said was, the face.

The face.

The next day, the entire crew deserted the ship.

Most were tight-lipped about what had made them all quit, but someone must have let something slip because that night, the news was all over Budapest.

The rumor was that after the screaming girl fled from the dinner party, the lamps all flickered out.

Then an apparition appeared, floating over everyone's heads.

Her skull was smashed open and bleeding, and she was smiling down at the partygoers.

They all claimed that it was Draga's ghost.

After that, the yacht owner couldn't convince anyone to work on board ever again.

Absolutely no one was willing to set sail on such a haunted ship.

And so the yacht finally belonged to Draga once again.

I hope you've enjoyed today's tour through the romantic side of ghosts.

But while emotions may be strong enough to keep a spirit trapped in limbo, that doesn't mean their love has to be a romantic one.

And that's because the love of your life doesn't have to be a person.

For example, for a thespian, their love will always be for one thing and one thing only, the stage.

And as our final story will show, if you ever try to take them away from the theater, things can get dramatic.

Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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When you hear the words haunted theater, your thoughts probably flicker to Shakespearean superstition, the Scottish play, or the moment Hamlet sees his dead father's apparition.

Or maybe you think of Phantom of the Opera, or Abraham Lincoln slumped in his chair at Ford Theater.

See, we're no stranger to the idea of specters on the stage.

And it makes sense, after all, aren't theaters places where anything becomes possible?

Where fantastical, imaginary worlds spring to life right before an audience's eyes?

Where the doors between worlds grow thin?

But one thing that probably doesn't leap to mind when you envision a haunted theater is Australia.

That's right, the old down under.

Yet it turns out Australia boasts more haunted theaters than nearly anywhere else on Earth.

Seriously, it's such a phenomenon that our researchers found multiple articles consolidating lists of Australian theater ghosts.

Take, for example, the Metro Cinema in Melbourne, which is said to have a ghost projectionist, or classic cinemas in Elsternwick, which suffered enough poltergeist activity in the late 1990s that the owner brought in two clairvoyants to figure out what was going on.

The answer, according to one of them, was that, and I quote, it was caused by a small man from the 1930s who loved to play pranks.

Which is, well, adorable, right?

They're not all quite so benign, though.

A Melbourne spot called Cinema Nova experienced a more sinister haunting.

During a period of construction, a night manager named Harry was exploring the building site by flashlight at 2 a.m.

when he saw a person hanging from the roof by their neck.

And like a horror movie, right in that moment, his flashlight snuffed out.

Harry slapped the light, begging it to turn back on.

And when it did, he shined it again toward the rafters.

But the figure was gone.

Now, the trouble isn't in just movie theaters, but live theaters too, like the old Adelaide's Tivoli Theater, now known as Her Majesty's.

There, a fly engineer killed on the theater's opening night in 1912, has dutifully appeared on opening nights ever since.

Then there's the Theater Royale Hobart, haunted by a ghost named Fred.

Fred was allegedly killed in a brawl in the theater's basement, where cockfights and gambling were known to take place.

Was there a real Fred?

Well, not according to any historical record, but that hasn't kept people from hearing his footsteps, as well as feeling pokes, prods, and even verbal warnings to leave.

But hey, if you're starting to think that this guy Fred sounds like a bad time, let's give him credit where credit's due.

In 1984, the theater caught fire, and without prompting, the fire curtain fell fell across the stage, containing the flames and saving the building.

The Theatre Royale Hobart's protector is believed to have been, that's right, Fred.

See, even ghosts can be multifaceted.

But of all the Australian theater ghosts, there's one who just may have the rest beat, also named Fred.

That is, Frederick Fredericki.

And this man was all too real.

Anatoly Frederick Demendoff Baker was born in 1850 in Florence, Italy, to a military family.

Although he trained for diplomatic service, he had a secret passion, and in the end, it was too great to ignore.

So Frederick gathered his nerves, cast aside his old name in favor of the more theatrical sounding Frederick Federici, and became an opera singer.

And friends, he was good, too.

He toured all over the world, performing in Gilbert and Sullivan shows.

His role spanned everything from the Pirate King from the Pirates of Penzance to Captain Corcoran in HMS Pinafore,

and more.

But it was his role in Charles Gounod's opera Faust that would cement Federici's name in history.

In 1887, Frederick traveled to Australia to perform in a series of operas.

He had toured the country, culminating in perhaps the greatest role of his career, the demon Mephistopheles in Faust at Melbourne's Princess Theater.

Now, the Princess Theater was an opulent 1452-seat playhouse, and on opening night, the seats were packed.

All the attention and rapture of an enchanted audience was glued on Federiki, who was terrifying and awe-inspiring in a scarlet cloak.

The show went by flawlessly.

An actor's dream of an opening night.

Each line delivered smooth as silk, each step in place.

And finally, the last scene had arrived.

The play ends with Mephistopheles dragging Dr.

Faustus down into hell, which, through clever stagecraft, was to be achieved by Federiki and the other actor sinking below the stage via a trapdoor.

The two actors stood over the precipice.

Smoke and false fire billowed around them, and Federiki uttered his final lines.

It might be.

They would be the last lines the great Federiki would ever recite, because just then, as they lowered through the trapdoor, something went very wrong.

He staggered, reached out to clutch the stage, now shoulder level as he sank, and then He collapsed through the trapdoor.

The audience was none the wiser, applauding wildly.

Even the actors were unaware, coming out to take their bows.

Meanwhile, Frederick was carried to the green room, where a doctor tried in vain to revive him.

The singer had died of a heart attack.

He was only 37 years old.

It wasn't until the following Monday's newspaper announced Federici's death that the audience realized that anything had gone amiss.

The Illustrated Australian News lamented that, and I quote, Nothing more weird and melancholy than this unlooked-for and highly sensational occurrence has been recorded in connection with the stage.

The crimson hood, the pointed shoes and cap lying near him on the floor could only seem a grim and ghastly mockery.

Audience members and cast alike were aghast.

After all, they'd witnessed a man's death and hadn't even known it.

But beyond that, if Frederick Federici was dead, then how did they all see him take his bow, right along with all the other actors that night?

To this day, the opera singer is said to appear in the audience at night, wearing fine evening wear and sitting in the middle of the second or third row of the dress circle.

In fact, this occurs so often that for years, the theater even saved a seat for him on every opening night.

Sometimes critics catch him watching them skeptically.

Ever the perfectionist, he's been seen frowning disapprovingly if the show is going poorly or the actors aren't up to snuff.

But in general, seeing Federici has long been a sign of good luck, as if he were wishing his fellow thespians well.

While some may say that he remains only in the audience, others claim differently.

And perhaps if you visit the Princess Theater, you might see it too.

Passionate as ever, Frederick Federici stands center stage.

He is illuminated by moonlight, and it seems to pass right through him.

And then he raises his arms toward the crowd.

It seems even in death, the show must go on.

This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing and research by Alex Robinson and Jenna Rose Nethercott.

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