A Cadillac pulled over to the curb as I was tending the beds in the front garden. A man got out and walked over as his wife sat in the passenger seat. He wanted to know if I knew anything about Alfonso. I’ve had similar inquiries before. Alfonso was the son who inherited this house on his mother’s death and I had met him when I bought the house. But I had no idea where he was now.

This man said he was Alfonso’s cousin. He started to talk about family gatherings at the house and cookouts out back on the patio. I could tell he was familiar with the place. He talked about the brick grille out back and the outdoor lights in the trees, which are no longer functional but which have been there so long the tree bark has grown around the fixtures. I asked him to come in and look around but he gestured toward his wife and said he was in a hurry.

Then with a wink he asked me if I had “discovered the secret room yet?”

Yes, my house does have a secret room. It is hidden behind built-in bookcases just like in the movies. Actually it’s more like a secret closet, since it is pretty small. And you would have to be blind not to see the hinges. There is not really anything mysterious about the room. No treasure hidden there. No underground passageway to the bat cave. No indication that runaway slaves ever hid there. Just a storage space really. But somebody had had the romantic notion of hiding the door to it behind a bookcase.

I would have loved it as a child. I can imagine the games and stories I could have made up about the secret room. As it obviously must have stimulated the imagination of this man as a youngster visiting the house. We have children visiting us from time to time, but so far I don’t think any of them have discovered the room.

I have never known what to do with the room other than to store some of our less-used “stuff” there. I have sometimes had dreams about a house with a secret room and speculated on the meaning. They say a house in a dream represents the self, so I guess that a secret or hidden room must represent a part of oneself that is kept private or hidden from others. It’s ironic that now that I have a secret room in real life, it has such a prosaic use.

But it does add to the karma of the house just as the ghost does. Yes, this house also has a ghost. I have sometimes glimpsed out of the corner of my eye a woman dressed in white sitting on the patio or walking through the garden at twilight. When I look again she is always gone. I believe she is the former mistress of the house still looking after her garden. Older people in the neighborhood have told me stories about her. People are said to have stopped their cars to take pictures of her azaleas. The azaleas are long gone, but we do have many other remnants of her garden still here to enjoy.

I don’t think I want to haunt the garden after I die. But someday after I have sold the house I may drive by when the new owner is outside and casually ask if they have “discovered the secret room yet.”