The second edition of Tom Verde's “Maine Ghosts and Legends” was published last week. This new volume includes five new stories of otherworldly encounters throughout the state, including one about Boothbay (no, it's not the Opera House).

“This old lady came to the door completely dressed. Her husband stood behind her, in the background. They both looked like they were maybe 80 or 90 years old and they were both completely dressed in dark, formal looking clothes, like they were going to church … it was midnight.”

The speaker in this excerpt from “Ghosts of Boothbay” is Realtor and dog lover Carol Buxton of West Boothbay Harbor. Her experience with what she has come to think of as “her guardian angels” happened very soon after she moved to the area.

In the early 1970s, Buxton, her husband, two children, and the family's two beloved dogs moved into the home she still resides in at Juniper Point.

So how did Buxton's story come to be one of the new additions? Verde and Buxton's son, Cal, live near one another in Connecticut. Cal Buxton also serves on the board of a nonprofit organization with Verde's wife. Verde said he got to know Cal through his wife.

“We bumped into each other at the polls. We started talking and I mentioned I was working on a book,” Verde said. “I told him about it and he said I should talk to his mom. So I called Carol and we talked for a half hour. I drove to Boothbay where I spent a lovely afternoon at her home listening to her story. We drove over the bridge and down the River Road looking for where the house might have been.”

It was the first night Buxton and her family were staying in their new home. Because the dogs were very obedient, Carol let her Doberman and her husband's black Lab out, but only her dog returned. The Lab, “Splash” did not come back, even as the hour grew closer to midnight.

The couple got in their car and took off to look for Splash. They head for the Southport Bridge and see a man sitting in the middle of the bridge with a dog in his lap. It was Splash. The man was a passenger in the car that hit the dog; that's when he and the driver parted ways.

Being new to the area, Buxton and her husband have no idea where the nearest vet's office is. Cell phones not being invented yet, they drove back home, with their beloved Splash, to call the police. A Dr. Day in Newcastle was recommended because there wasn't a vet's office here at the time. They headed down River Road without the slightest idea of where the office will actually be located.

“... there were no lights on anywhere. It was midnight, we didn't know where we were going. Then we suddenly saw a house — a white house, I remember — with lights on, up a very short driveway.” (Buxton as quoted in “Maine Ghosts and Legends.”)

The old woman who answered the door invites Buxton in, but Buxton declines; her only thought is of getting Splash cared for. Buxton told her the doctor's name and the woman dressed in black gave her exact directions. Unfortunately, when they reached the veterinarian's office, Splash's back was broken and the only course of action was to put him to sleep.

“We never would have found him (Dr. Day) without those directions. It was so dark,” Buxton said in an October 23 phone conversation. “I looked for years for that house. I still look. But I've never found it. I still wonder why those people were up at that hour and why they were they dressed like they were going out.

“It never occurred to me, what they might be, until I saw that program ‘Touched By An Angel.’ I remember thinking, ‘maybe that's what they were — guardian angels’.”

Here's the part, in addition to Buxton herself, that clinched this story for Verde as a selection for the new edition.

“About eight (or ten) years later, I was at a party on the River Road,” Buxton said. “Charlotte Byers was there and she was talking about the (River) road. I told her my story and she said she knew exactly where the house was and who the people I saw that night were ...”

But, Buxton was told, the couple had died. Not recently, but several years before Buxton ever met them that dark, sad evening.

“Carol's story was an interesting one,” Verde said. “A house that disappears is a really cool story. It's straight out of the ‘Twilight Zone’.”

Verde does not intend to write another book about the supernatural world.

The first edition of “Maine Ghosts and Legends” was published in 1989 by Down East Books. The idea for the book came after he researched and wrote about five experiences by Mainers for a Maine Public Radio Halloween series in 1988.

“I presumed I would just go to the library and pull a book off the shelf of collected Maine ghost stories — everything in a nice little bundle, but there wasn't one,” Verde said. “I began researching newspaper reports and talking to people and came up with five stories that were produced for MPR. I figured I should just write a book.”

The first edition took one year to research and write. It included the five MPR stories. It was also one of the first books of its kind.

“People didn't seek me out. Not everyone wanted to talk, some needed convincing,” Verde said. “Probably because the impact of the experience was lasting ... and disturbing. Carol was happy to talk right away and I wanted to meet her in person and go to the places that were part of that story, so I could get a sense of it all.”

Verde has never had a paranormal experience.

But, while compiling his first edition, he noticed that the stories had points in common.

“Some of those things had to do with the temperature of a room; it would always be cold or become cold, animals and children with similar reactions to something they might be seeing or hearing, and remodeling projects. They seemed to be big triggers for activity,” Verde said. “I thought, perhaps there is something to this.”

“I can't vouch for what people have said. I listened to what they had to say and wrote down what they believed,” Verde said. “I don't think they were making it up. The Boothbay story is one of my favorites, that and the first one in the book about the first recorded ghost in America. I traced that story back as far as I could. I do a lot of writing on historical topics.”

Other Maine locations in the book include Newcastle, Naples, Machias, Bucksport, the islands of Casco Bay, Kennebunkport, Brewer, Westbrook, Portland, Norway, Benton Falls, Cape Elizabeth and more.

“The legend ones read like legends,” Verde said. “But many of us have heard something go bump in the night or caught something out of the corner of our eye. I chose the most compelling stories, the ones that existed on the edge of credibility.”

“Maine Ghosts and Legends,” published by Down East, is available at all major bookstores, locally it can be purchased at Sherman's Book & Stationery and at www.downeast.com.