Lost Spirit: The Hannah Griswold Series, Vol. 2

By Robert Kanehl

In her second adventure, Hannah Griswold begins to experience ghostly visitations once more. The ones she had back in 8th Grade
had nearly destroyed her. Now it’s happening again. Worse, Nathan, her best friend’s boy friend, who had once teased Hannah unmercifully, is also experiencing the ghostly presence.

As they study local Civil War History and learn more about a troop of Union Soldiers who had enlisted in their home town— more
and more strange events begin to happen. Nathan and Hannah both have visions from the past. Sickness, fever, a lost young solder, and a weeping mother, who calls her a “stupid little girl” leave Hannah puzzled. Trouble lives at home, too, as Hannah’s parents seem to be at war. Only her grandmother understands, as the ghostly visitations continue.

Can Hannah solve the mystery of a missing Civil War Soldier who stands accused of desertion? If she doesn’t, will her best friend
ever forgive her for seeming to share more than a casual friendship with the her steady, Nathan?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Words Inc.
• Release date: May 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781613863251

Book preview

1

Lost Spirit

A Hannah Griswold Mystery, Vol. 2

By Robert Kanehl

© 2014 Robert Kanehl All Rights Reserved

First Electronic Edition, May 2015

ISBN 978-1-61386-325-1

Published at Smashwords by Write Words, Inc.

Chapter 1

The willow tree looked spooky and thin, as if a strong wind would knock it down. However, I knew that would not happen. It had not happened for a hundred years, I told myself, it would not happen now. Looking again at the etching engraved on the red sandstone gravestone, I snickered aloud. That tree’s been there for a hundred years, it’ll be there for another.

Reaching out I touched the cold stone. I allowed my imagination to shift my world from color to black and white, as I drifted back in time to the engraving’s birth. Each finger traced the drooping branches, symbolizing eternal life and mourning simultaneously. A shiver ran through me, and I smiled. You’re spooking yourself, I whispered hoping no one heard me, as I remembered my secret ghost. That was so long ago, and she is finally at rest.

The touching of the gravestone created a shadow in my mind, a spirit from a different time looking down at me. Could Anna be watching I thought? Haunting memories of the young girl, whose dead spirit had changed my middle school years, danced around my head. Did coming into the cemetery trigger her spirit to life again? Or, a nagging mind voice questioned me, have you found yet another spirit looking for help? I shook my head clear of the visions and saw again the gravestone in front of me. There was no lingering vision, no feeling of being watched.

High school girls have the ability to create whole worlds around a simple act. I also know that this creativeness was not as sharp as it had been for me in middle school, when I discovered the spirit of Anna. Looking around the cemetery at my classmates, I allowed my mind to fill in the colors of reality.

Tracing the name of Deacon Joshua Good, with my fingers, I relaxed. There was no electricity tingling through my body. I had placed it all to rest as well. Born 1689. I read the inscription. Died 1774, what a shame he missed the new nation. I pondered why I would care. Then continuing I read, God called him to a higher service this April.

Looking around I watched as other students in my high school history class filtered their way through the cemetery. Their bodies created eerie shadows against the stones in the small tree filled Litchfield, Connecticut East Cemetery. The sun cut through the branches of these trees at weird angles causing the visual effects. The trees also cut off sections from the sun creating a series of patches of cold sensations for visitors to the cemetery. I had felt these cold spots when I had first walked up the hill from the entrance, remembering middle school.

Birds sang from the trees, making the visit pleasant. Being devoid of sound, I think, makes a place creepy. There is a famous haunted place near Litchfield, but I don’t think it really is haunted. I think people freak out because it is just silent as you walk through the woods, few, if any birds sing there. This cemetery was different from that place. The trees and the bushes gave the birds and other small animals a place to live. There is also a small still pond near the middle of Litchfield’s East Cemetery, which brings in other birds, and allows a visitor a place to pause and reflect, other than in front of the graves.

East Cemetery is located just east of the center of town, what today we call, the Green. It is the final resting place of some of the most famous residents of Litchfield, and the nation. Among those entombed, there are a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the man who caught Major Andre. The old cemetery section joins with a modern section still being used today, allowing for a continuum of historical spirits at the site.

The sounds of crackling dry leaves crunching under the steps of my classmates only increased the slight chilling feeling I had on my arms. It was mid-September, and the stores already were sporting displays for Halloween. I thought and looked about the graveyard remembering too much.

All Saint’s Eve, or the Day of the Dead, I whispered to myself

The names played in my mind, as I tried to focus on the clipboard sheet of scavenger hunt questions I had to answer.

Like in middle school, I found myself back in a cemetery to study American history. I shook my head, amazed by the concept that history was a circle, constantly repeating. It was something I had actually seen in my seventeen years of life, not only in school but on the basketball court as well. Considered a star basketball player, now that I was starting my junior year in high school, but in eighth grade, I was just a lanky stretch monster who was the top scorer because I was too tall to guard.

Less than three years after being in an eighth grade study of the Litchfield Green, I was now involved with my Litchfield High School class conducting an archaeological dig at Camp Dutton, an old Covil War camp once located within Litchfield.

The first phase of the archaeological study, my history teacher Jonathan Wright had explained was a cemetery study. Mr. Wright was famous in the small Connecticut town for his hands-on approach to history. He was a prominent member of the Litchfield Historical Society, a constant lecturer at social studies teacher conventions, and the biggest pain to any Litchfield student who had his class.

You have to love history, I told myself, speaking under my breath so the teacher would not hear me. You have to love history because it repeats itself. I lowered my voice trying to sound like Mr. Wright. Just remember the greatest field commander in American history George Patton, was so good because he knew his history. A shadow stretched across my face, and I looked up.

* * *

I hate Mr. Wright. Carissa smiled. She looked down at her wet white sneakers that carried on them pieces of leaves, and freshly cut grass. What are we doing out here, getting our feet wet? Brushing back her naturally curly black hair from her face, she leaned on the gravestone in between us. A creepy feeling rocked through me.

Don’t do that, I half-shouted at my best friend. You’re standing on them.

Oh grow up, Carissa said and started to swing her arm at me. A quick hit to my shoulder, was Carissa’s typical response to any correction I gave her. Over the years that I have known her, she has made up for her small size, by not being afraid to use those fists. Many times, my shoulders had been her target, not in anger, but as a sign of friendship. I flinched anyway knowing the hit was going to hurt. You’re acting like you’re still in middle school She looked back down at the ground under her.

At least she had dressed for the trip, I thought noting her tight blue jeans and brown button down shirt, a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her black curly hair. It was better that her usual mid-length skirts and tight shirts, something she had grown into wearing. For years, she had refused to wear anything that might have told the outside world she was a girl, but when she came to high school, she began to show off her softer side. I also dressed similar, but I was usually dressed in blue jeans, and a pullover shirt. Today I also had on sneakers, and a University of Connecticut sweatshirt with a hood. I knew it was not going to be warm in the cemetery. Looking in Carissa’s eyes, I smiled.

They can’t feel anything, she joked, drawing my attention to her smiling face. And if they did they should be happy it’s me stepping on them, instead of fatty Joe the center for the Torrington High Football Team. She puffed up her cheeks and rounded her arms to indicate a heavyset boy. Torrington was the town next to Litchfield, and though they were not our sport team rivals, they were always the brunt of high school jokes, concerning stupidity, obesity or any other deviant behavior. They were at the cemetery a few days ago. Didn’t you see their foot prints?

Those were tire ruts from the maintenance truck. I laughed back at her, the strange feeling inside of me slowly going away.

Ever since being caught in a thunderstorm in the little graveyard near my grandmother’s house, I have not really liked graveyards. Ever since Anna’s ghost came to me, I have not really like cemeteries. There was something about knowing that spirits were alive within the ground, which stopped me from walking aimlessly between the graves.

Well I still don’t like Mr. Wright. Carissa looked over at the teacher, standing near the entrance to East Cemetery. As usual he was dressed in a button down oxford with a matching tie, but instead of dress pants he actually had on blue jeans and hiking boots. Normally he was not an informal person. Everything was serious with him, as if he was conducting a collegiate conversation with professors of the most important colleges, even when he was addressing us in his one o’clock American history class.

What does this have to do with the Civil War? Carissa looked around at the top of the small hill that rose from the entrance to create a natural boundary between the older section of the cemetery and the rest.

This is the wrong cemetery, Carissa continued. You know as well as I do that the Civil War markers are in the cemetery by the school. This one has the Revolutionary War people in it like Oliver Wolcott and Colonel Tallmadge.

She actually looked toward the large table like markers of the Wolcott family. A fence surrounded these thick stone slabs with a plaque posted on it, noting the senior Wolcott’s status as a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

She was right, I knew it, but I argued anyway. Think about it. I looked at Carissa. How many times have you been to that cemetery, why not come here? The history teachers at both the Intermediate and the High Schools brought their students there to study some aspect of history. Personally, I was glad we were in this cemetery. There was no connection here between my family and the ghost I had known before. In that, other cemetery there was a grave with my name on it. This cemetery was quiet for me.

It was peaceful, my mind told my heart. There were no spirits or souls walking around here to play with my mind. I smiled to myself at that belief. It was a belief brought about by the clearing of my mind a few second before, while looking at Deacon Good’s gravestone.

Yeah but there are some graves of people from the Civil War here, I stated to Carissa, while coming around Deacon Good’s gravestone to stand next to her. The ones buried here died during the war. The other cemetery is just where the majority of the men who died after the war are buried, in a designated area.

I know I was there with you in eighth grade. Carissa shot me a disgusted look. Back when we didn’t know about boys and things, She smiled and nodded her head toward the Tallmadge marker. Nathan Martin was there reading the inscription, and writing something down on his clipboard notes. He’s changed and so have we.

Nathan had been the bane of our existence in middle school. However, in high school he had become a friend, either because he had matured, or because Carissa had become very attractive. The high school boys’ soccer player maintained his dirty blond hair about ear length, but it never was dirty even after practice. His face had also filled out along with his body, so that he did not resemble the weasel I saw him as in eighth grade, but more of a human being. More importantly, he had actually learned how to talk to people, share ideas, and reflect on his academics. Now he was trying to get into some of the top universities, not just be a pain in my life.

Stretch Griswold the nickname Nathan had coined sprang into my head, as I reflected on my own changes in the past three years. I was no longer the tall gamely girl I had been in eighth grade. Most of the boys had caught up with me, height wise, as had Nathan. Deep inside of me, however, I still felt like that middle school girl. I could not embrace a new person as Carissa or even Nathan had done. I felt trapped in my own cocoon unable to burst out.

Looking again at the boy studying the grave, I suddenly saw a shadow spread across the grass next to Nathan, as if someone was leaning on the marker in front of him, but no