The Green Ghost (5 page)

Kaye knelt and touched the saw. She tugged on it once. It didn’t budge. She looked back into Lillian’s glowing face.

“It’s stuck,” Kaye said. “And anyway, the tree’s too big. Don’t you think it’s too big?” She spoke gently as though to someone much younger than she was, someone who might not understand.

“No,” Lillian said. “It’s just right. Elsa will love it.”

Kaye said it again: “But this tree’s too big. And the saw is stuck. See?” She tugged on it again to show Lillian just how stuck it was.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lillian said. “Just tell her. Bring her here and tell her.”

Kaye stood up. “Tell her what?” she asked.

“Tell her I’m here,” Lillian said.

And even as she spoke, Lillian stepped back toward the line of trees and disappeared. She simply vanished.

Kaye gasped. For a few heartbeats, she stood in the silence of the snow-filled woods. Alone. She didn’t know when she had ever been so alone.

“Lillian,” she called. “Lillian!” But she knew. There was no point in calling. There was no point in running after her, either. Lillian was gone.

Kaye trembled. She shook from head to foot. Even her teeth clacked together.

A sound came from her throat, but she wasn’t crying. She certainly didn’t mean to be crying.

How could this girl have called her from her bed and then left her here … in the night … in the woods?

Kaye tried to calm herself so she could think. Lillian expected her to go back. Lillian wanted her to take a message to Elsa, so she clearly thought Kaye would know how to find the house.

The sound from her throat kept growing louder. Kaye covered her mouth to make it stop.

And then she spotted the footprints. The full moon rode high in the sky. She could see footprints clearly in the snow.

The snow was new. All Kaye had to do was follow the footprints back to Elsa’s house.

She took a deep breath and swallowed her tears. Then she turned and set her foot
in the first print. She trudged forward through the fresh, deep snow.

It was only when she was halfway back to the house that she realized …

The footprints she followed … there was only one set. Only her own footprints showed!

That meant Lillian had to be a …

Kaye couldn’t say the word. Not even in her mind. But it rang through her as if she were a bell.

And the next thing she knew, she was running … fast. She was running and stumbling through the trees and down the hill toward Elsa’s house.

L
illian stopped sawing to look over at her sister.

Elsa had tipped over onto her side. She lay curled in the snow like a kitten. But she didn’t have a kitten’s warm fur. Even with two coats, she was shivering so hard that her teeth chattered.

Lillian rushed to her sister’s side again. “Oh, Elsa, I’m sorry,” she cried. “We’ll go
back. We’ll go back home right now.”

But Elsa didn’t answer. She didn’t move, either. Lillian lifted her, but she couldn’t get Elsa to stand. Her legs were rubbery.

If Papa had been here, he could have carried Elsa back easily. Even Mama could carry her. Elsa was short for her age, but she was a chubby little girl. Lillian could lift her, but she couldn’t get far with such a load.

Lillian considered leaving her and running back home for help. But Elsa looked so tiny lying there. So tiny and so cold. How could she leave her? And what if she couldn’t find her way back to this spot quickly enough?

So Lillian did the only thing she could think of. She gathered Elsa into her arms. Then she carried her into the shelter of the tree she had been trying to cut. The limbs were thick, so there was little snow near the
trunk. Lillian laid Elsa on the bed of soft pine needles.

Lillian tucked both coats more closely around her. Then she lay down behind Elsa and pulled her close. She wrapped her own body around Elsa as tightly as she could.

“It’s all right,” Lillian whispered. “It’s all right. Papa will come.” And she breathed her warm breath into her sister’s neck.

Elsa cuddled in closer.

Lillian lay perfectly still, holding her little sister.

After a time, Elsa quit shivering. Lillian was glad of that. She was so glad she hardly noticed that she was the one shivering now. Later, though, she did notice when her own shivering stopped.

She must be getting warmer. She
was
getting warmer. She was certain of that. And in
that gathering warmth, Lillian slipped into sleep.

She dreamed that Papa was coming. She had always known he would come!

Papa
was
coming. In his arms he carried a woolen cloak as richly green as any pine tree.

“G
host!” Kaye cried.

She banged through the door into the kitchen. Without shedding her coat or boots, she clattered up the stairs. She burst into the bedroom where her parents were sleeping.

“Ghost!” she cried again. “She’s a ghost! I know it!”

Her father sat up. His hair poked out in every direction, the way it always did when
he slept. “What?” he cried. His arm reached to pull her into a tight hug. “Kaye, what’s wrong?”

“What is it, sweetheart?” Her mother sat up, too, and laid a hand on Kaye’s back. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Kaye cried. She shook herself free of her parents. “She was real. She was a ghost, and she was real!”

But her mother wasn’t interested in the ghost. She touched Kaye’s jacket, her cheeks. “Kaye!” she cried. “You’re cold. You’ve been outside!”

“Is something wrong?” It was Elsa, standing in the doorway to the bedroom.

“Is she all right?”

And so Kaye explained about waking to find the girl sitting on her bed, about following her into the woods, about the enormous tree.

“She wants you to see it,” she said to Elsa. “That’s why she came to me. So I could take you to see the tree.”

Elsa stood very still, saying nothing.

“It’s a special tree,” Kaye explained. “It’s
a Christmas tree … for you. A really beautiful one.” Kaye didn’t know when she had begun crying again. She swiped at the tears running down her cheeks. Elsa had to believe her. She just had to!

Kaye could see the adults exchanging looks over her head.
We know this is nonsense
, the looks said.
But she’s upset. Maybe she’ll calm down if we do this thing she wants
.

“Okay,” her father said very slowly. “Why don’t you show us?”

Kaye wiped away her tears.

Before they left, Elsa made hot chocolate for everyone. “To warm your bones,” she said. While they drank it, she whipped up a coffee cake and put it into the oven.

Then they put on their coats. When they stepped out onto the porch, the sun was just rising behind the trees on the hill. The
slanting rays gave the fresh snow a rosy glow.

“That way.” Kaye pointed to her footprints, the ones going and the ones coming back. There were still no other prints beside them.

She set out, and the adults followed close behind.

When Kaye reached the line of trees at the edge of the clearing, she stopped and took Elsa’s hand.

“It’s right up here,” she said.

Elsa nodded.

And so they stepped together into the clearing.

Before them in the sweet morning light, the tree rose … and rose … and rose. Its limbs stretched out on every side. Snow lay on the branches.

“It’s for you,” Kaye told her.

Elsa gripped Kaye’s hand tightly. “How did you know?” she asked. “This tree … this …” But she said no more.

“I told you,” Kaye said. “Lillian brought me here last night. She wanted—”

Elsa released her hand. She stepped away. “Lillian?” she whispered. “You saw Lillian?”

Kaye nodded. Hadn’t she said the girl’s name before? Maybe she hadn’t.

“What was she wearing?” Elsa cried. “If you saw Lillian, tell me what she had on.”

“A cloak,” Kaye answered. “She was wearing a long cloak … with … with a hood.”

Elsa gasped, but the question hadn’t gone out of her eyes. “What color?” she demanded. “What color was it?”

Kaye tried hard to think. In the moonlight, nothing had any color. Everything was shades of black and white.

But then she remembered that first moment. She remembered opening her eyes
to find a girl sitting beside her on the bed. A light had shone from the hall, and she’d been able to see color.

“The cloak was green,” she said. “It was a rich, beautiful green … just like this tree.”

Elsa burst into tears.

Kaye stood before her, silent and amazed. Had she done something wrong?

Finally Elsa explained. She told how her sister, Lillian, had taken her that long-ago winter afternoon to cut a special tree. “A spectacular one,” she said. How Lillian had put her own coat on Elsa to keep her warm. How she’d finally given up and cuddled Elsa to warm her.

Elsa could remember going to sleep in her sister’s arms, though she didn’t know until their father came that Lillian wouldn’t wake again.

Papa, Elsa said, had gone into town and bought the green cloak Lillian had wanted so much. They buried her in it.