The Ghosts of Misty Hollow

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “Could be they aren’t sensitive to spirits,” Emma noted as she moved two stocky white candles from a side table to the coffee table. Phil lit them while she dimmed the overhead lights and made herself comfortable next to Phil. She noticed that Fran had closed the album but left it on her lap, her hands laid on top of it.

  “So séances really do use candles to beckon the dead?” Gino asked as he handed Fran her drink. “I always thought that was just an embellishment for the movies. Do we hold hands, too?”

  “Ghosts will come with or without candles, Gino,” Emma told him, “but it does set the atmosphere. Plus, the darkness might help Fran and I see them if they are a bit shy.” Emma gave him a small amused smile. “But no holding of hands or chanting, I promise.”

  Emma settled back against the sofa and made herself comfortable. Phil did the same. Across from them Fran calmly sipped her drink while keeping one hand on the album. Only Gino seemed antsy. “So this is it?” he asked, still standing. “We just wait and hope they show up?”

  “Pretty much,” Emma told him. “Just relax and let’s have a nice visit.”

  Gino took another sip of his drink and rolled his shoulders to relax. “Okay.”

  “Fran,” Phil asked, “are there any of the Brown clan still in the area?”

  Fran gave it some thought while she sipped her drink. “There are Browns in the area. It’s a common last name, after all, but I don’t think any of them are direct descendants of these Browns. As I recall, the last members of the Brown family to own Misty Hollow were Alice and Robert Brown. They were quite elderly and their children had left the area. When Robert passed away, the kids convinced Alice to sell the place and move closer to them. I believe it was someplace in North Carolina.” Fran stroked the album. “Such a shame that no one in that family appreciated the history of this property enough to hold on to it.”

  Emma looked at Fran. “The first time I held that album I got a distinct vibration from it. Are you feeling anything?”

  Fran shook her head. “No, but I have gotten such sensations from other items connected to spirits. I was hoping I would with this.”

  “Vibrations from the dead?” Gino went to the bar and brought the brandy bottle back. He refilled his glass and held the bottle up in question. The other three shook their heads, turning down the offer. “I don’t know whether to be amused, scared, or fascinated,” Gino said with a laugh. “Maybe all three.” He put the bottle down on the table and took a sip from his glass before settling on the sofa next to Fran.

  Phil looked at Fran. “I was going to ask the Browns about this, Fran, but since we have time to kill, so to speak, let me ask you. I was going over those old newspapers you gave us and noted that the Brown children weren’t the only people to go missing around that time.” Gino put down his drink and perked up, paying close attention.

  Phil got up and went to a big high-back reading chair. It was the same chair Vanessa had been seated in the night before. On a small table next to it was the bound volume of old newspapers Fran had given them. He fetched the book and returned to his seat next to Emma.

  “Phil’s had his nose in that book ever since we got home from your place,” Emma noted to Fran. “He only stopped for dinner.”

  “It’s fascinating reading,” Phil said, putting on his glasses. “The stories really give you a sense of life in this area at that time. There are farm reports, weather reports, birth and death notices—it’s a time capsule for that period.”

  “But other children went missing then?” Gino asked, his eyes bright with curiosity.

  Phil nodded and reached for a lamp next to his end of the sofa. He glanced at Emma. “Is it okay if I turn this on, darling?”

  “Sure, go ahead.” Emma was just as eager as the others to see where Phil was going with the information.

  After snapping on the light, Phil opened the book to one of several places he’d marked with slips of paper. “It starts here, about two years before Chester and Clarissa disappeared. A girl went missing from another town. There are a couple of follow-up stories, but it doesn’t look like she was ever found, or if she was, the paper didn’t write about it.”

  He flipped through a few more of the pages. “Here’s a story a few months later about a missing boy from Passer Heights.” He looked at Fran. “I looked for that on a map, but didn’t find it. Do you know where that is?”

  “Was,” Fran clarified. “It was a small village about ten or twelve miles from here. It struggled to exist until a major fire destroyed it around 1900.”

  “Gino,” Emma said, “you were telling us about villages that disappeared for one reason or another. Passer Heights sounds like that kind of place.”

  “He’s right,” Fran confirmed. “It happened a lot, especially in the 1700s through the mid-1800s. These were mostly small settlements that never took hold or that people gave up on and moved from after some sort of catastrophe. After the fire, Passer Heights was never rebuilt, and years later the area was annexed by another small town. Passer Heights is now the name of the housing development that sits on the site of that old village.” Fran pointed out the French doors. “Even the making of that lake took a settlement.”

  They all turned, but could see nothing in the dark except for the lit outline of the dock and a few low-level lights lining the paths to it and the guesthouse.

  “That lake is man-made?” asked Phil.

  Fran shook her head. “Not really, but originally there were two lakes, a small one and a large one, almost side-by-side, separated by a strip of land. This end was the original larger lake. Farther up was the smaller lake. On the land that separated them was a small village known as Job’s Arm. It was originally settled around the time of the American Revolution by a man named Job Armstrong.”

  “Didn’t that village have flooding problems in bad weather?” asked Gino.

  “Yes,” Fran answered, “except the middle of the land was elevated. When there was flooding it became like a small skinny island, which according to historical accounts, old Job liked just fine. He was supposedly a bit of a crabby recluse and tyrant. He and several generations of his family lived on that land until sometime in the 1800s. After Job died, the family started leaving Job’s Arm, nearly abandoning it. Eventually the strip of land was blasted down and leveled off well below the water line so the two lakes could become one large lake.”

  “I’m surprised that’s not mentioned in the album,” Emma said.

  Fran shrugged. “It happened up toward the other end of the lake, so maybe didn’t figure into the history of this place. Most people from around here don’t even know that once there were two lakes, let alone a village called Job’s Arm.” She turned to Phil. “Were there other missing people?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” Phil said, putting his reading glasses back on. “Starting two years before the Brown children went missing, there seems to be several accounts of people disappearing, mostly young women and children, from various parts of the area. None are very close together in time, and they might not have anything to do with each other, but I found it interesting nonetheless.”

  “Maybe a serial killer?” suggested Gino.

  “The thing is,” said Fran, “news back then wasn’t immediate like it is now. There were no telephones. Mostly folks got news from people who traveled through the area. By the time a story of a missing woman or child found its way into the paper, it might have been several months old, unless someone looking for the missing person immediately hopped on a horse and went from village to village making inquiries.” She took a sip of her drink. “Also, sadly, it wasn’t that uncommon for wives and older children, or servants, to run away from bad or abusive situations. Life was hard back then and people were hard. Job Armstrong wasn’t alone in that.”

  “They didn’t run away,” said a voice from near the fireplace. Fran and Emma turned in unison to see Blain
e Brown come into view just as the candles flickered, then steadied themselves.

  • CHAPTER FOURTEEN •

  “I’M guessing we’re not alone,” said Phil to Gino as he put the bound book of old newspapers down on the table. Gino turned in the direction Fran and Emma were looking, but saw nothing.

  “Blaine Brown just arrived,” Emma told them. She turned to Blaine. “Thank you for coming, Blaine. I believe you know Fran Monroe already.”

  “Nice to see you again, Blaine.”

  “Fran,” Blaine said tipping his head slightly. “Maybe together you can find Chester and Clarissa.” The words came out in fits and starts, like a bad cell connection, until he came clearly into view. “My family would be grateful.”

  “Ask him about other missing people,” Phil said to Emma.

  Gino got up and retreated to another high-back chair a few feet away, taking his brandy with him. “Don’t mind me, folks, but I think I can observe better from here. You know, a wide-angle view of everyone. I don’t want to miss a thing.”

  Phil laughed. “You think you have a new book idea here, don’t you?”

  Gino raised his glass. “I’d be a fool if I didn’t.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Fran said with excitement, pressing her hands down on the album on her lap. “The book is definitely talking to me now.”

  “Blaine,” Emma began, “there are questions we’d like to ask Abigail. Is she coming tonight?”

  “I think she’s already here,” Fran said. When Emma looked at her, Fran jerked her chin over toward the door. Emma turned and saw the outline of Abigail come into view. “Well, I’ll be,” Fran said again quietly. “This is a first for me. Thank you, Emma.”

  After Emma made the introductions and let Phil and Gino know what was happening, the spirit of Abigail Brown drifted closer to them.

  “Abigail,” Emma began, smiling at the image of the old woman, “thank you for coming. We have a few questions to ask you that might help us find Chester and Clarissa.”

  “I’m here to help,” the spirit said just as Emma noticed the flames on the candles dancing and hazy images start to appear. “We’re all here to help.”

  “Oh my,” said Fran with wonder as she turned her head this way and that as the room filled with shadowy forms.

  “What’s going on?” asked Gino.

  “It seems,” answered Fran in a hushed voice, “that we have a Brown family convention going on here. The room is filled with spirits, but only Abigail and Blaine are clearly visible and are speaking.”

  Gino took another swig of his brandy.

  “Ask about other missing people, Emma,” Phil prodded.

  “Abigail,” Emma began, “around the time the children went missing, did you hear of other people disappearing? Maybe some other children who were never found?”

  The ghost of the elderly woman thought about the question, then answered, “From time to time you did hear about a young wife who left her man and went back to her people, or a young man who left to find his fortune.”

  “Are you sure that’s what happened to them?” Emma asked.

  “You were never quite sure, of course,” Abigail said. “Not in all instances. Sometimes the young man would return, sometimes not.”

  “What about children specifically?” asked Fran. “There’d be no reason for them to take off on their own.”

  “Sometimes young boys ran off,” Abigail said. “Especially if they were being mistreated. There was that time young Albert Kenmore went missing right after his mother passed. His father was an awful, awful man. Some folks even believed he killed the boy, but then someone ran into Albert a few months later working for a blacksmith near Worcester.”

  “What about the time those girls went missing?” said a fuzzy image by the bar. The voice was male but that was all Fran and Emma could tell about the spirit.

  Abigail raised her head and looked in the direction of the voice. “Yes, that’s right.” She turned her attention back to Emma. “There was a time when two little girls went missing. It was about a year before Chester and Clarissa disappeared. They weren’t sisters and it didn’t happen exactly at the same time, but about a month apart. One lived two villages over and the other was a girl from town, right here in Whitefield.”

  After Emma relayed the information, Phil said with excitement, “I remember reading about that.” Picking up the bound newspapers, he thumbed to pages he’d marked. “One was Penelope Worthington and the other”—he paused while he found the next marked page—“was Helen Foster.”

  Abigail nodded. “The Worthington girl was from Whitefield. Her father ran the general store.” Emma confirmed Abigail’s recollection of the names with Phil.

  “Penelope was a wild thing,” Abigail said, “and almost a woman. She behaved quite unseemly, much to her parents’ shame. She probably ran off with some young man. At least that’s what everyone, including her parents thought.”

  “Another thing,” Phil noted. “All these people went missing in the summer. Even allowing for a lag in news time, that’s pretty consistent.”

  “That makes sense, doesn’t it?” asked Gino. “If they were leaving the area, they wouldn’t travel in bad weather. Although that doesn’t explain the missing young children.”

  “True on both counts,” said Phil. “But according to these reports none of the disappearances happened in spring or even fall when the weather hadn’t turned nasty and cold yet.” He turned toward the fireplace. “Abigail,” he began, but Emma caught his eye and motioned to the left of his gaze, in the direction Abigail was hovering. He turned toward the ghost. “Abigail, was there anything special that happened every summer in the towns and villages around here?”

  A murmuring filled the room that only Fran and Emma could hear. “The others are considering your question, Phil,” Emma explained.

  Gino cleared his throat and rubbed his arms. “It’s getting cold in here. Just how many ghosts are in the room?”

  “Not sure,” Fran answered. “Blaine and Abigail are still the only ones who are visible. The others are more like shadows, but we can hear some of them.” Fran looked around the room, trying to make out individual images. “But I’m guessing maybe six to eight.”

  Phil glanced over at Gino and grinned. “Welcome to my world.” Gino ran a hand over his head a couple of times, but said nothing. He settled back in his chair again to watch.

  After the spirits finished talking over Phil’s question, Blaine turned to the living and said, “They say there was always just one big celebration in the summer. It was a summer fair and dance in the town square. It was held on July fourth in honor of Independence Day. The whole town and people from neighboring farms and villages came. It was the same when I was alive.” Emma took on the role of translating to Gino and Phil.

  “That fair and dance is still going on today,” Fran noted, smiling at the collection of hazy figures.

  “The year the twins went missing,” Phil asked, “was it after the Fourth of July or before? The newspaper account says it was shortly after.”

  “It was that same day,” Abigail answered before the others could confer. “I remember it clearly. We’d all gone to town for the dance, but we never saw Chester and Clarissa after that. I thought they were spending the night with their cousins in this house and everyone who lived here thought they’d come home with us. No one noticed they were gone until the next night when I walked over here to fetch them home.”

  While Emma filled in the men, Fran flipped through the book on her lap. “Emma told me that this photo of the big house with all of the family was taken shortly before the children disappeared.”

  “Yes,” Abigail confirmed. “On their eighth birthday a few weeks before. The traveling picture man took it.”

  “Who is the traveling picture man?” Emma asked.

  “He’s a man who passed thr
ough every year and took pictures of new babies and newlyweds and such,” Abigail replied. She laid a hand on the side of her face. “I can’t remember his name.”

  One of the other spirits floated forward, coming slightly into view but not completely. He appeared tall and muscular with a beard. Emma recognized him as Warren Brown, Abigail’s husband. “His name was French,” Warren said. “I believe it was Beau French.”

  Abigail pointed at the speaking spirit. “That’s right, Warren. I remember now. It was Mr. French.” She shook her finger in the air as more information came to her. “He was a widower, I believe. He traveled around on his buggy passing through year after year. He’d rent a couple of rooms at the small hotel in town and stay a few weeks taking his pictures. That year my father-in-law asked him to come out and take one in front of the new house. We all put on our Sunday best for it. It was such a beautiful day.”

  “What are they saying?” Gino asked with impatience, but Phil held up a hand, signaling for him to wait for Emma.

  Fran got up from the sofa and crossed over to Abigail with the album still in her hands. She showed it to the ghost. “Did Beau French take this photo?”

  Abigail looked it over. “Yes, he did. That’s the one.” She smiled and tried to touch it but her hands went through the book. “I’m so happy it survived all these years.” She pointed to a youngish woman standing on the steps just behind the seated twins. “Oh my, that’s me. Look at how young I was.” The other ghosts in the room all gathered around Abigail and the book, murmuring amongst themselves as they looked it over.

  Fran flipped pages until she found the other photo, the one of the old house. “Mr. French took that one, too,” said Warren. “I remember that day. He took a bunch of them of the other house, the kids, and the barn. I remember him saying that he liked taking pictures of people doing everyday chores and especially of children playing.” Emma and Fran exchanged glances.