LITMIR.BIZ

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very sad.”

      Alan gently placed the picture on Kelly’s desk. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Kelly. I could understand it if only one of you thought you saw this ghost. Clara is high-strung, and she is at the age when some women begin to get a bit peculiar.”

      “Sure. That’s what I said, and you got angry at me for saying it.”

      “Be sensible, Kelly. That’s not something you say to a person’s face! Clara is very sensitive about her age.”

      “Sorry, Dad. I know I was rude. But why do you think that I saw the ghost, since I’m not at that ‘peculiar’ age?”

      “Well, you were alone last night, up late, and your room is full of things from Soda Creek’s past and. . .”

      He looked down at the picture again, his forehead wrinkling above his thick, greying eyebrows. Then he shook his head, as if to clear away unsettling thoughts.

      “Come on, Kelly. Let’s forget about it for now. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. I’ll do the bacon, if you can find that package of pancake mix, and we’ll have breakfast together, just like we used to.”

      “Sure, Dad. That sounds great. Just the two of us, right?”

      “Right!” he answered, and then the doorbell rang.

       Chapter 4

      Kelly and her father looked at each other, and Kelly could feel the tears inching their way back into her eyes. “Well, there goes our breakfast together,” she said, trying to control her voice.

      “No, we will have some time to ourselves today, Kelly,” said her father firmly. “I’ll see who it is and tell them we’re busy. Send them away.”

      “Sure,” said Kelly, unable to make herself believe that her father would be able to do such a thing; trying to believe it, but already seeing their quiet hours together vanishing.

      As her father went to the door, Kelly headed for the bathroom to wash her face. After the tears, her cheeks were flushed and her nose seemed almost as red as her hair. She splashed her face with cold water several times, and it seemed to help a bit. In just an hour her hair had curled its way out of the tight braids, and thick tendrils clung to her forehead and cheeks. She retied the ribbon firmly in a band around her forehead, then went out into the kitchen where she could hear her father talking to someone.

      “I knew it,” she thought. “He hasn’t had the heart to get rid of whoever was at the door.”

      At the kitchen table sat two people, obviously from the commune, although Kelly had not seen either one of them before. Her father, busy filling the coffeepot with cold water, turned as she came in, looking apologetic. “Kelly, this is George and his nephew David from the place down the road. Their pump is frozen and they need a hand getting it going again. Um ... do you mind if I just run down for a while and have a look?”

      “It’s okay, Dad. Do what you have to do.”

      “We’ll get that time to ourselves later, I promise. Maybe we can make something special for dinner, or how would you like to go into Williams Lake this evening, and we’ll have dinner out?”

      “Sure, Dad.” Kelly smiled, not as upset as she thought she would be. Dinner out sounded good. At least she wouldn’t have any dishes to do afterwards.

      “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset your plans.” George had spoken, and he looked uncomfortable. He had long hair, past his shoulder blades, tied back in a pony tail. He seemed a bit older than her father, late forties she guessed, and he had long, slender fingers that he tapped nervously on the kitchen table.

      David was much younger, and even though he was sitting, Kelly could see that he was short, almost as short as she was. He was thin, too thin, and his dark eyes seemed almost too big for his face. His pale skin made the dark circles under his eyes seem drawn there, charcoaled in against the white skin. He looks very fragile, Kelly thought, surprising herself with that word, but then he smiled at her and his face lightened, softened and became almost handsome. “Hi,” he said, “where did you get that hair?”

      Kelly was startled. People often commented on her hair, but usually they waited until they got to know her, didn’t come right out with a question like that the first time they met her. She could see her father watching her, waiting for her to reply, the coffee pot overflowing with cold water now. She smiled at him, reassuring him that she would be polite, then turned back to David.

      “From my grandmother, my Irish grandmother,” she answered, and heard her father give a small sigh of relief that she hadn’t snapped at this visitor the way she had at Clara Overton. Then, suddenly self-conscious, she reached up and tucked a wiry strand back under the headband. “It runs in the family, but it skips a generation. That’s why Dad doesn’t have it.”

      “You’re lucky,” said David. “It’s really something.”

      Kelly found herself blushing. Never in her sixteen years had she thought herself ‘lucky’—more like being cursed—with her red, wiry hair. She sat down self-consciously as her father put out clean mugs. “It’s an awful nuisance,” she said. “But . . . but, thanks.”

      “Poor Kelly’s been called ‘red’ and ‘carrot-top’ and all the other names people can dream up for redheads,” said her father. “She hates her hair, always has. When she read Anne of Green Gables, she ran around sighing for ‘auburn locks’. She even dyed it, the way Anne did in the book. Made her look as if she’d escaped from a circus. Her mother cut it off, really short, and when it grew back it had all that frizz to it.”

      “Dad!” Kelly said sharply, annoyed at him talking about her as if she weren’t there. Then, to change the subject, she asked David, “Have you been here long? With the group at the farm, I mean?”

      “Just a few weeks,” he answered.

      “David’s been sick,” said his uncle. “Mononucleosis. He’s in first year university, or was. Had to take some time off when he got sick. His mother thought the Cariboo air would fix him up, so she sent him up here.”

      “Hey!” said David, “Do we get to talk about you two now? Come on.” He and Kelly shared a grin. “Parents and uncles can be so tactful at times, can’t they?” he said, shaking his head.

      “Anyway,” George went on, hesitant, not sure if he was on safe conversational ground, “anyway, he’s much better, and we’ve been keeping him busy.”

      “That’s an understatement,” said David. “I’ll have to have a relapse to get any rest. But I’ve almost learned how to milk a cow. The cows can’t wait until I really get the hang of it.”

      “He’s not doing badly—for a city boy,” laughed George. “Except he’s started seeing things in the barn. Guess the mono’s got to his brain.”

      “Come on, Uncle George, I was only half awake this morning.”

      “You saw something this morning?” asked Kelly. “What?”

      “Well, I really wasn’t completely awake, and I was worried about the big cow that likes to kick, so I was distracted, but I could have sworn I saw a little girl in the corner of the barn. I thought at first that it was just one of the kids from our place, then I realized that she was much younger, only about two or three.”

      Kelly and her father looked at each other in silence. Alan finally spoke. “What did she look like, David?”

      “I didn’t see too well. The lights in the barn are kind of weak, and it was still dark outside, but she looked as if she was wearing a dress and boots, and she had lots of blonde hair.”

      “What did she do?” Kelly asked, her voice strained. “Did she say anything?”

      “No, she just stood there, didn’t

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