Chapter 1
The December sun had only just begun its rise in the sky, and the morning, though clear, was a cold one. There had been little snow so far which made hiking the wooded trails much easier. The frozen ground crunched under foot as Ella Daniels moved up the trail in the company of her black cat, Raisin. They both loved the woods and exploring the paths and trails, enjoying being outside in nature and breathing in the fresh air.
People were always surprised to find a woman and a cat walking together and they often commented on how much like a dog Raisin was. This did not please the cat at all. She did not like being compared to a dog one bit and would usually flick her tail and move away from the person who made the offending statement.
Ella checked the time. “We can be out for about another hour before I have to be at the university,” she told the feline.
The thirty-year-old woman was a professor of American history at one of the universities in the city of Quinsigamond. She’d grown up in the Green Hill area of Quinsigamond in central Massachusetts, a city of cozy neighborhoods, access to woods and lakes and to a small mountain close by. The city was known as being comprised of seven hills, but there were actually eleven of them.
Ella and Raisin were hiking on Nipmuc Hill, a good spot for a quick walk, with pretty views looking over the spread-out city.
They moved along a bend in the trail and approached a section of the woods that always caused a sensation of pins and needles over Ella’s skin.
Raisin was up ahead on the trail, but she stopped trotting forward and turned back to the young woman. The cat was sensitive to things that floated on the air and she checked to be sure that Ella was all right.
“It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
Raisin lifted her little pink nose and sniffed, and then began to dart around in the brush on the sides of the trail causing a flicker of nervousness in Ella.
“What’s wrong? Are you just being a crazy cat?” Ella pulled up the zipper on her winter jacket and glanced into the woods. Many years ago, at the end of December, four teenagers had lost their lives in this area and the thought of it always made Ella uneasy and sad … and occasionally, she had the feeling that someone was watching her as she hiked by.
Once in a while, she thought she should avoid this section of the hill, but it was such a pretty walk, she didn’t think something sad from the past should turn her away.
“Raisin?”
The cat came out from under a bush, her black fur covered with tiny pieces of old leaves. Raisin sat down, gave herself a shake, and stared at Ella.
“Come on, we need to keep going so I’m not late for my class,” the young woman encouraged.
The cat wouldn’t budge, and instead, turned to face the woods.
Ella glanced in the direction the cat was looking, and was about to call to her again, when her entire body flooded with an icy cold sensation.
Breathing in a long breath, she searched the wooded area with her eyes, when at last, she saw it.
About thirty feet from Raisin, a form took shape. It wasn’t anything solid and firm … it was translucent and shimmered in the morning sunlight.
The ghost of a young man stood between the trees dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and a dark winter coat. Raisin trilled at the spirit.
Ella was slightly taken aback. She’d never before seen a ghost on Nipmuc Hill.
“Hello,” she said softly and nodded. “My cat and I are able to see you. It’s okay. There’s no reason to be afraid of us.” Ella could see smudges of soot on the teen’s face and she noticed some burn marks on his hands. “Is there something I can help you with?”
The young man kept looking from Ella to Raisin. There was no fear on his face, only a slight expression of interest. Ella was pretty sure that being near someone who was able to see him probably had never happened to the ghost.
“Why are you here? Why haven’t you crossed over?” Ella asked gently. “You’re from the fire, aren’t you?”
The teen held the young woman’s eyes and blinked at her giving her the sensation that she was right about how he had died.
Twenty-five years ago, a group of teens from the surrounding neighborhood decided to build a clubhouse in the woods, a place where they could hang out, play some cards, talk, and once in a while, drink a beer. A few of them drew up some plans and talked about how to get the supplies. They each checked around their homes for scrap wood, nails, and some tools, and pretty soon, they had quite a stack of boards, plywood, newspapers for insulation, and some shingles for the roof. They started building and the shack as they affectionately called the structure, took shape. There was one window and one narrow door on the first floor, and there was even a ladder to a second floor crawl space where the boys could sit comfortably even though there wasn’t enough headroom to stand up.
It was a great place to hang out away from parents and pesky siblings, and having designed and constructed the clubhouse themselves gave the boys a feeling of accomplishment and a sense of pride. When it got cold, they added a thick, steel drum to the first floor where they could burn fuel to keep them warm on the winter evenings.
That addition to the clubhouse would end up being a mistake.
“My name’s Ella and that’s Raisin.”
The teenager gave the cat a slight smile and when Raisin meowed at him, the smile widened into a grin.
“We walk here pretty often,” Ella told the ghost. “But this is the first time we’ve seen you in the woods.” The fact that the spirit must have been hanging around for over two decades concerned her. Why hadn’t he shown himself to them before this?
The ghost held Ella’s eyes and as a terrible sense of dread filled her body, she shivered.
The young man turned his head to look down the trail, then he looked back at Ella. The expression on his face sent a shock of adrenaline racing through her veins, and she wheeled and began running down the trail.
“Where?” Ella called to the ghost.
When the trail forked in two different directions, Ella halted. “Which way?”
The spirit materialized and pointed, and Raisin took off with Ella right behind.
The next section of the path through the woods ran along a field with a stone wall separating the trail from the open meadow. Ella stopped and as her eyes searched the space, something tugged at her, and she climbed over the wall, and hurried into the field.
When Raisin howled, Ella raced in her direction, and in less than thirty seconds, she found the cat standing over something in the grass.
“Oh, no.” The words caught in Ella’s throat as she approached.
A young woman with long, dark brown hair lay on her back, her lips tinged blue, her eyes closed. There were no visible wounds. All she had on were a pair of jeans and a turtleneck, no coat or jacket was anywhere to be seen.
Kneeling beside her, Ella spoke. “Are you okay? Can you open your eyes?”
There was no response.
Ella placed a small leaf beneath the woman’s nose to see if she was still breathing and then reached for her hand to check the wrist for a pulse. The hand was like ice.
“She’s alive.” Pulling off her jacket, Ella covered the young woman and tucked the sides in close to her body. “I wonder how long she’s been out here?” she said to Raisin. “She must be suffering from hypothermia.”
Ella made the emergency call, and then she stretched out on the ground next to the woman and put her arms around her trying to warm her up.
Raisin lay down over the woman’s chest … and they waited.
* * *
It seemed like forever before the emergency personnel arrived, but it had only been about fifteen minutes. The EMTs wrapped the young woman in blankets and lifted her onto the stretcher while Ella talked to an officer explaining how she found the unconscious person.
“Did she call out or make a noise?” the officer asked.
“No, she didn’t.”
“What made you go into the field?”
“My cat was running around in there,” Ella fibbed. “When she howled, I ran over to see what was wrong.”
“The cat howled?”
Ella nodded.
“So the cat found the woman?”
“Yes.”
Raisin lifted her chin proudly.
“Okay,” the officer said. “We might need to speak with you again.” He took down Ella’s name and number.
Ella watched as the attendants carried the stretcher away through the woods and to the trails that led to the opposite side of the hill and to the little parking lot at the bottom.
Heading in the other direction to where she’d parked her SUV, Ella and Raisin hurried away so Ella could get to the university on time to teach her class.
As they turned left to head down the path towards the lot where they’d parked, Ella saw the teenager’s ghost standing near a few pine trees off the trail watching her.
Looking around to be sure no one was nearby, Ella said to the spirit, “Thank you. You saved that young woman’s life. We’ll come back to see you. Then maybe we can talk, if you want to.”
The spirit’s form glowed and sparkled, and then he was gone.
Chapter 2
Ella’s older sister, Livvy Daniels Smith, owned Sit a Spell, a popular café-gift shop on the main street of the city’s Green Hill neighborhood. The shop sold coffees, teas, some baked goods, soups, sandwiches, books, and all kinds of gift items. There was a popular section of the store with stones and crystals, herbs, tarot cards, fairy and unicorn jewelry, tea blends, aromatherapy items, candles, and essential oils.
Painted in soft, muted colors, there was a fireplace on one wall surrounded by plush chairs and two sofas, café tables set near the windows, soft lighting, and cut-glass, crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. The shop’s cozy atmosphere encouraged customers to stay as long as they wanted to browse, read, enjoy a drink or snack, or sit and chat with friends and acquaintances.
Raisin perched in a chair at the table listening as Livvy, Ella, and their Aunt Jin sat together in a corner of the store discussing Ella’s early morning interaction.
“I’ve never seen a ghost on Nipmuc Hill.” Livvy sipped from her coffee mug. “It’s a good thing that spirit alerted you to the unconscious young woman or she might not have made it. It’s freezing outside.”
“Were there signs of injury?” Aunt Jin asked. Sixty-five-years old with short, light blond hair and dark blue eyes, Jin was a medical doctor and Ph.D. researcher who studied learning disabilities at the same university-medical complex where Ella worked as a professor.
“No signs of any injuries. No blood, no marks on her that I could see,” Ella reported.
“How old did you think she was?”
“Mid-twenties?” Ella guessed.
“She may have had too much to drink,” Jin speculated. “Or perhaps, she has a medical condition that caused her to pass out while she was hiking.”
Livvy narrowed her blue eyes. “But why was she outside without a coat?”
Jin lifted a forkful of salad to her mouth. “She could have wandered away from a party that lasted into the morning hours,” their aunt pointed out. “She might have been under the influence of alcohol, didn’t think about her coat, and ended up in the woods where she passed out.”
“I hope she’s okay.” Worry lines creased Ella’s forehead. “I hope she wasn’t out in the cold for very long.”
“Tell us more about the ghost,” Jin prompted.
Ella told them about her encounter with the spirit while on the hike. “At first, he seemed more surprised and curious than anything. I don’t think he’s ever run into anyone who is able to see ghosts. He was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, a winter jacket. I’d guess he was around sixteen. He had soot on his face and on his jacket. I could see some burn marks on his hands.”
“Did he seem distressed?” Livvy asked.
Ella shook her head. “Not at all. Slightly puzzled, somewhat curious. He wasn’t afraid.” She looked over at her cat. “He liked Raisin. He smiled at her.”
“Everyone likes the cutie cat,” Livvy said as she ran her hand over the feline’s black fur causing Raisin to purr.
“The ghost must have been in that fire,” Ella suggested.
The fire she referred to happened twenty-five years ago in the cabin or shack as the kids called it. Four boys died in the inferno and four boys managed to escape.
Jin sighed. “Yes, he must be from the fire.”
Livvy had been ten years old when it happened, and Ella had been five. Their brother, Ben, a firefighter and part-time blacksmith, had been eight at the time, and hearing about the fire on Nipmuc Hill as a young boy was one of the reasons he’d wanted to be a firefighter.
Of course, Aunt Jin and her sisters had been relieved that their children were too young to have hung out at the shack, but along with the rest of the community, they’d mourned the deaths of the teenagers and their hearts grieved for the families and friends left behind.
Although Ella and her siblings had heard about the tragedy, they didn’t know many details about the incident.
Jin’s face looked somber. “It happened a few days after Christmas. The kids were on winter break from school that week. There was a makeshift stove on the first floor. From what I’ve heard and read about the tragedy, one of the boys poured a bit of gasoline onto the wood fire in the stove and it burst into a flash fire. The cabin was engulfed in a matter of minutes … probably a matter of seconds.”
“Four were killed, right?” Livvy asked.
“Yes, and four survived.”
Ella thought about the teenaged spirit she’d encountered in the woods and how he’d never had a chance to live his life.
“Are the survivors still in the area?” Livvy questioned.
“They are. One moved to Florida for about ten years, but he returned and lives in his parent’s house near Nipmuc Hill,” Jin told them. “Most of the survivors are in their forties now.”
“And the four who died … are their relatives still living here?”
“I think most of them are.” Jin nodded. “Are you going back to see the ghost?”
“I told him we’d come back.” Ella looked at her sister. “Will you come?”
“Of course.” When Livvy nodded, her straight, shoulder-length black hair moved gently over her collar-bone.
“It worries me that he’s been hanging around on this side since the fire,” Ella said. “Why didn’t he cross over?”
“Maybe you’ll be able to find out.” Jin swallowed a spoonful of tomato soup. “He might not wish to leave. He might be happy staying here. Some spirits just don’t want to cross. We can’t make that decision for them.”
The family owned and worked part-time in a business called Green Hill Investigations that dealt with ghosts and the places they inhabited. The family’s mission was to help spirits understand what was going on and try to gently coax them to cross over, but if they preferred to stay on this side, then the family worked to make their stay amicable to both the ghost and to the people living near or with the ghost. They considered the work they did to be similar to being counselors.
Since meeting the teenaged ghost, Ella thought there might be a reason other than feeling at home on the hill that kept the spirit from crossing.
Jin checked the time and gathered her things. “I need to get back to work. The lunch was delicious,” she told Livvy.
“Are you coming for dinner tomorrow night?” Livvy asked her aunt.
The family members lived in antique houses within five blocks of one another in the same tree-lined, quiet neighborhood of Green Hill, a pretty area of Quinsigamond, and they often gathered at Livvy’s house for dinner.
Jin nodded. “I’ll bring dessert. See you then.” The woman shrugged into her winter coat, kissed her nieces on the top of their heads, nodded at Raisin, took her dirty dishes to the counter, and left the café.
Livvy made eye contact with her sister. “What do you think is going on with that woman you found in the woods? Did you pick up on anything?”
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