The Green Ghost Read Online Free Page A

of the clearing rose a magnificentpine. It was, in fact, one of the most beautiful trees Kaye had ever seen. It had long, soft-looking needles. It had enormous pinecones decorated with snow. It was perfectly shaped, too. No other tree had grown close to spoil its shape.
    The pine rose and rose and rose, perhaps a hundred feet into the air. Kaye had to tip her head back to see the top. The round moon seemed to have come to rest there.
    “It’s … it’s beautiful,” she said.
    “Yes,” Lillian said. “It’s always been beautiful.” And she touched the tip of a branch.
    Kaye stared, first at Lillian’s glowing face, then at the tree. Then she looked back at Lillian again. Surely she didn’t think they could take a tree like this back to the house! If Gran’s trees had always been big, this one was humongous.
    It was much too tall to fit inside any house. And it would be too heavy to carry, too.
    Besides, as she had already pointed out, they didn’t have a saw or an ax. Lillian had said they didn’t need one.
    But that was when Kaye noticed it for the first time. A rusty saw poked out from the tree’s trunk. Clearly, many years before,someone had tried to cut this tree. And clearly, too, the tree had won. It had simply grown around the tool.

    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 footin 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.

Chapter 9

The Cloak
1938
    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