And a true one -- yet another fond memory of the years owning a bookstore. Since it's halloween, I figured no time like now for amusing folks with this recollection.
A and my business partner were evening-shift cooks in the two most popular restaurants in town, and she started coming by the shop to visit before work. She was a few years younger than me, and living in the house her great-grandfather built; her grandfather and her mother had been born in the house. When A was in her early teens or thereabouts, her mother died, and A's family moved out of state. An aunt was ostensibly the house's caretaker but for all practical purposes the house was abandoned, empty.
When A turned 18, she elected to come back. The house had been badly vandalized, and A and her aunt spent hours cleaning up and painting over graffiti, replacing busted-out window panes, getting working light fixtures.
( The house was wrecked except for one room which had a few broken windows but was otherwise untouched... and that's where this ghost story begins. )
A and my business partner were evening-shift cooks in the two most popular restaurants in town, and she started coming by the shop to visit before work. She was a few years younger than me, and living in the house her great-grandfather built; her grandfather and her mother had been born in the house. When A was in her early teens or thereabouts, her mother died, and A's family moved out of state. An aunt was ostensibly the house's caretaker but for all practical purposes the house was abandoned, empty.
When A turned 18, she elected to come back. The house had been badly vandalized, and A and her aunt spent hours cleaning up and painting over graffiti, replacing busted-out window panes, getting working light fixtures.
( The house was wrecked except for one room which had a few broken windows but was otherwise untouched... and that's where this ghost story begins. )