Nyx in the House of Night

the museum’s collections.
    According to Tulsa tradition, Thomas Gilcrease still walks his property. The Gilcrease Museum therefore remains a staple for area ghost tours. In Tulsa’s Haunted Memories , Teri French relates multiple cases of supposed sightings of Gilcrease in the museum, the gardens, and the mansion. She suggests that Gilcrease’s ongoing appearances may explain the supposedly notorious turnover rate among the property’s night staff.
    Tom’s House, in particular, continues to capture the imagination of Tulsans. In the House of Night series, the Gilcrease home, like the Union Depot, sits deserted. In Tulsa today, the mansion is empty but in reasonable repair, and visitors may tour certain rooms. If the Casts have altered its condition somewhat for the purposes of their plot—it would, after all, have been more difficult for Rephaim to go unnoticed if museum patrons were touring his hideout—they nevertheless stick closely to Tulsa folklore regarding the mansion’s unearthly occupants. Just as Stevie Rae claimed, the house itself does have the reputation of being one of the most haunted buildings in Tulsa.
    In April and May 2002, the Paranormal Investigation Team of Tulsa (PITT) conducted two publicized investigations of the mansion assisted by the Oklahoma City Ghost Club. According to both organizations’ websites, the team members drew similar conclusions based on their experiences as well as the readings and recordings they gathered. These conclusions agree with the legends that say Thomas Gilcrease isn’t alone in visiting his home. The investigators claim that the spirits of several children also remain in the house, quite likely the ghosts of youngsters who lived there when it was an orphanage in the 1940s. Some of the footage from this investigation ran on local news channel FOX23, reinforcing and rekindling the stories surrounding the site.
    P.C. and Kristin build directly on the reputation of the Gilcrease mansion. In Burned , the authors make their boldest and most imaginative move in mythologizing Tulsa: they allow their fictional character Rephaim to interact directly with a spirit straight out of Tulsa legend, one of the several unnamed child ghosts from the Gilcrease mansion. While Rephaim lies low in the house, the spirit of a little girl appears to him, asking him questions about his identity.
    This sequence becomes even more compelling after one reads the rest of the novel, especially if the reader knows the history of the Gilcrease home. Later in Burned , the reader glimpses Rephaim in his human, Native American incarnation (which is appropriate, since Raven Mockers come from Cherokee mythology), but this occurs only after the ghost of the little girl has made him question what he really is. If the girl hails from the Gilcrease mansion’s orphanage days, it follows that she, too, is Native American, and quite possibly Cherokee. In short, the Casts use the legend surrounding the Gilcrease home as a means to bring two mythic symbols of the Native American past—the Raven Mocker and the ghost—into dialogue with each other in the present. They turn Tulsa folklore into a canonical part of their own fiction, just as they do with older myth and legend.
    HOUSE OF NIGHT TOURS
    The incorporation of Tulsa landmarks and their corresponding legends lends a rich authenticity and texture to the Casts’ books. In turn, the terrific success of the bestselling House of Night series means that many people are discovering Tulsa either for the first time or in a new way. As I write this, the publisher of the novels, St. Martin’s Press, is collaborating with the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and the Oklahoma Tourism Department to develop two innovative ways for readers to experience the Tulsa sites reimagined by the Casts.
    First, the publisher intends to offer a onetime tour of Tulsa locations for the lucky winners of a House of Night-themed sweepstakes corresponding roughly with the January 2011 debut of the eighth book in the series, Awakened . Second, St. Martin’s plans to provide through its website a virtual tour that will serve not only as a long-distance interactive experience of Tulsa, but also as a checklist for those who wish to go on self-guided tours of the city in person. This virtual tour is scheduled to go live in Spring 2011, and remain online for the foreseeable future to complement the final novels in the series—so you may be able to check it out for yourself right now.