The Green Ghost

Chapter 1
       The Cloak

Chapter 2
       In the Middle of Nowhere

Chapter 3
       The Light

Chapter 4
       Don’t Go Far

Chapter 5
       The Ugliest Tree

Chapter 6
       The Perfect Tree

Chapter 7
       Into the Woods

Chapter 8
       The Tree

Chapter 9
       The Cloak

Chapter 10
     Lots of Room

“P
apa! Look! Isn’t it beautiful?” Lillian breathed the words, long and slow. In the cold air, her breath clouded the store window. She wiped it clear again with a corner of her scarf.

The cloak
was
beautiful. It was dark green wool. The hood and the cloak were lined with velvet. The velvet was a pale, silvery green.

All that green made Lillian think of a Christmas tree. Not the scraggly junipers Papa
always brought home from behind the barn. It made her think of the white pine that stood at the front of the church on Christmas Eve.

Lillian’s father laid his hands on her shoulders. “The cloak
is
beautiful,” he agreed. “But it’s hardly the thing for a girl doing farm chores.”

“Oh,
Papa!”
Lillian said. But she knew he was right. The cloak hadn’t been made for her … or for any other farmer’s daughter.

“It looks so … warm,” she said.

“Warm” wasn’t exactly what she meant. But the word would have to do. “Warm” Papa could appreciate. The truth was, the cloak looked like something a lady would wear to a party. Yet it was sized for a girl. It was the perfect size for a nine-year-old girl like her.

“Yes,” her father agreed gently. “It does look warm.” He tugged at her scarf as he
spoke, wrapping it closer around her. He might have been reminding her of the love Mama had knit into that scarf.

Then his big hands turned her away from the store window. “We must be getting on home, Lilly,” he said. “Your mama will have supper waiting. And Ben wants the barn.”

Ben, their patient plow horse, stood with his head hung low. A blanket of snow covered his wide back. The snow had been falling all day. The countryside was thick with it.

Papa helped Lillian into the sleigh. He tucked a warm blanket across her lap, climbed up himself, and clucked at Ben.

Lillian looked back to check the cloak in the store window once more. Who would have thought their little general store would have anything so fine?

She tried to imagine what girl would find
it under her Christmas tree. Ruth, the minister’s daughter? Maybe Clarissa, whose father owned the town bank.

Whoever it was would, no doubt, have a perfect Christmas tree, too. She would have as fine a tree as the tall white pine at church.

Lillian sighed and snuggled into her father’s side.

“Are you warm, little one?” he asked.

“Warm as toast, Papa,” she said.

She didn’t need a green cloak. Not with Papa nearby. Still … she couldn’t help it. She had to look back one last time. The cloak
was
beautiful! As beautiful as …

But the thought stuttered and stopped. Another rose inside her like a dawning sun.

So the green cloak hadn’t been made for her. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have
anything
beautiful.

Junipers weren’t the only trees on their farm. The hills that rose on every side were filled with white pines. Those trees were as beautiful as any she’d ever seen at the church. A person had only to walk a bit farther to get one.

“Papa?” she said.

“Yes, Lilly?” he replied.

“May I bring in our Christmas tree this year?”

For a long moment, her father said nothing.

Lillian held perfectly still, waiting.

Ben clop-clopped along. The harness creaked. The snow kept falling.

“Do you think you’re big enough for such a task?” Papa asked at last.

“I am, Papa,” she breathed. “I am!”

He nodded slowly. “All right,” he said. “If it’s what you want. You may bring in our tree.”

Lillian clapped her mittened hands. Then she snuggled even closer to Papa.

“There’s lots of juniper just behind the barn,” Papa reminded her. “They’re close in. And they aren’t too heavy for you to carry.”

“I know,” Lillian told him.

But she knew something else, too. She wasn’t going to settle for any ugly old juniper. She would bring home the best tree in the forest.

Wouldn’t her younger brother and sister be thrilled with a tall green tree? Mama and Papa would, too. They just didn’t know it yet.

Lillian looked back in the direction of the green cloak. It would never be hers. She knew that.

Still, she smiled.

T
he snow didn’t fall. It flew. It flung itself sideways as if it never intended to land.

Kaye sat in the middle of the backseat so she could look out the windshield. All she could see, though, was the flying snow. In the headlights it became a white wall. The white wall divided at the last instant to let them through.

She checked the side windows of the car.
There she saw only darkness. She turned back to the wall of snow.

Kaye’s father gripped the steering wheel hard. Next to him, her mother leaned forward. She leaned and leaned as if she could get them to Gran’s faster that way.

Christmas was waiting for them at Gran’s. Christmas and cookies and gifts and a ham so huge the four of them could barely make a dent in it.

A Christmas tree would be waiting, too. The tree would touch the living room ceiling, only just leaving room for the angel. It would fill one whole side of the room.

The tree would have about a thousand ornaments on it, too.

Kaye’s favorite was the one shaped like a pickle. Gran always hid the glass pickle deep inside the tree for Kaye to find. When
Kaye found it, she got a special pickle gift.

At least she hoped a tree like that would be waiting.

Last year Gran had surprised everyone by saying the tree was too big, too messy, too much work. “I’m going to get one of those artificial trees next Christmas,” she’d said.

All year Kaye had wondered if Gran would really do that.

It would hardly be Christmas with an artificial tree. Gran wouldn’t even be able to hide a pickle ornament in one of those scrawny things.

But whether the tree was artificial or not, tomorrow was Christmas. And they still had a long way to drive. “A long, long way,” Dad had barked the last time Kaye asked.

She wanted to ask again now, but she
didn’t. This time Dad might say, “A long, long,
long
way.”