The Green Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page A

just rising behind the trees on the hill. Theslanting 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 eyesto 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.
    “When I was a girl,” she said, “Lillian visited me every year, right around Christmas.She’d make a joke about the ugly juniper Papa always cut for the house. And then she and I would walk out together to see this tree.”
    She tipped her head back to see the tree’s tip. “We’d bring strings of cranberries and popcorn to decorate it. We’d put suet and peanut butter on it for the birds. Every year she came … until I was about thirteen. I suppose I thought myself quite grown up that year. Too old to believe in …”
    She shook her head. “She never came again,” she said. “I quit visiting the tree. I thought she was the one who’d left me.”
    “No,” Kaye said softly. “She said to tell you she’s here.”
    Elsa cried again. Only this time she was laughing, too.
    “Oh my,” she said at last. “I think it’stime for breakfast. My coffee cake must be ready to come out of the oven.”
    And they all started back down the hill, following the footprints once more. There were multiple prints now, jumbled and crisscrossed.
    The group walked in a peaceful silence. Kaye knew her parents would have questions later. That was all right. She would answer them as best she could.
    But as they stepped out of the trees into the bright sunshine, she had an idea. It was a perfectly wonderful idea.
    “Elsa,” she said, “will you come with us to my gran’s?” Then she added, before Elsa had a chance to answer, “She’ll have a huge …” Before she could say “tree,” she stopped herself. She didn’t know what kind of tree Gran would have this year. Maybe