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It
hadn’t taken me long to discover that my adopted
small town was alive with the idea of ghosts. My young
students all knew and loved telling stories of local
ghosts, zombies and spirits that haunted every part
of town from the grape vineyards up in the hills down
to the warehouses along the river. My middle-aged students
told me about their disturbing and vivid dreams of ghostly
ancestors choking them in their sleep every time they
considered doing something unconventional.
Then one night, in a small adult
class, my oldest student quietly told the class, in
nearly perfect English, that she had been haunted by
the ghost of her young daughter for over thirty years.
The five year old girl had been riding in the backseat
of a car that was hit broadside by a truck, killing
the little girl instantly. Ever since then, when the
weather was hot and close as it was the night the girl
died (and as it was the night we heard this story),
the girl's ghost would briefly appear in the shadows
of her neighborhood, drifting from doorstep to doorstep,
as if the little girl was trying to find her way home.
After the woman finished her story we sat in silence
for quite a while with no idea what to say next.
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