The Green Ghost (4 page)

At first the saw kept slipping. It wouldn’t bite through the bark. But Lillian didn’t stop trying until it took hold.

“You’re coming home with us,” she told the tree. “Our family’s going to have the most beautiful Christmas tree in the whole valley.” And she set to pulling and pushing at the saw.

Lillian worked for a while. Then she stopped to catch her breath. She stepped back to gaze up at the tree again. It
was
tall. It must be twice as tall as Papa. Maybe more.

Was that too tall? Would it be too heavy to bring home? Would it even fit in their farmhouse?

Lillian checked Elsa. She sat in the snow, her arms wrapped around her knees. “Are you all right?” Lillian asked. “C-c-cold,” Elsa said.

“Oh, Elsa, I’m sorry.” Lillian dropped the saw and went to her little sister. Lillian gathered Elsa into her arms. She tipped Elsa’s chin up so she could see her face.

Elsa’s cheeks and nose had been cheerfully red a few minutes ago. Now they were white.

“I shouldn’t have brought you so far,” Lillian said.

Elsa snuggled into her arms. “It’s a b-b-beautiful tree,” she whispered.

“Yes, it is.” Lillian looked up to the very top. The sky beyond was no longer a bright blue. The color seemed to have drained from it the way it had from Elsa’s face.

But still … the tree
was
perfect. Even Papa
would love it! “Do you think you could wait a little longer?” she asked Elsa. “Just until I can get it cut?”

Elsa nodded.

“Here,” Lillian said. “I’ll keep myself warm with sawing.” She took off her coat and wrapped it around her sister. If only she had that green cloak. That would have kept Elsa warmer still.

Elsa snuggled into the extra coat. Lillian leapt up and went back to her work. She sawed and sawed. The blade bit deeper. But when she stood and pushed on the trunk, the tree didn’t even sway.

Lillian pulled harder on the saw. She pushed back hard, too. On the next pull, the saw caught. She tugged, but she couldn’t budge it.

She tried to pull it out so she could start
again on the other side. But that didn’t work, either. The blade was firmly stuck in the trunk.

Lillian shivered. She was cold now, too. She should stop and take Elsa home. She could bring Papa back tomorrow to get the tree.

If she could find it again tomorrow.

That was the problem. She could find her way home easily enough. The wooded hills sloped down to the river and to their farm. So she had only to go down. But coming back to find one tree in the deep woods would be much harder.

No. If she was going to get this tree, it had to be now.

Lillian bent again to the saw.

W
hen Kaye opened her eyes, a girl was sitting next to her on the bed.

“Oh!” Kaye said. She sat up.

At first she thought,
I’ve seen this girl before
. Then she knew she couldn’t have.

The girl smiled at her.

“Where did you—?” Kaye started to say.

But the girl interrupted her. “Are you ready?” she asked. Her pale face glowed
softly from under the hood of a dark cloak.

It occurred to Kaye later that she should have been frightened. It was certainly odd to wake up in the middle of the night to find a strange girl sitting on her bed.

Kaye wasn’t scared, though. Maybe because the glowing face looked so friendly.

“Are you ready?” the girl asked again.

“Ready for what?” Kaye asked.

“To get a Christmas tree,” the girl said.

“A big one?” Kaye said.

“Of course,” the girl answered. “Big, and beautiful, too.”

Kaye’s feet were on the floor instantly.

But even as she stood, second thoughts flooded in. “Now?” she asked. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“The middle of Christmas Eve night,” the girl pointed out.

Kaye understood. What was the point of a tree if it wasn’t there on Christmas morning? “Okay,” she said. “Where are we going?”

This time the girl didn’t answer. She just
floated out of the room. Well, no. She didn’t float. Not really. She must have walked. But she walked so smoothly, so silently, it seemed like floating.

Kaye pulled on her jeans and sweatshirt. Then she followed the girl. Kaye found her waiting downstairs in the kitchen.

“Get your coat,” the girl said. “You breathing folks get cold, don’t you?”

You breathing folks!
What other kind of folks were there?

Still, Kaye pulled her jacket down from the peg where Elsa had hung it. She put on her hat and boots, too. Her boots were fleece-lined, so it didn’t matter that her feet were bare.

She looked for her scarf and then remembered. The wind had stolen it on the way to Elsa’s house.

And that made her think of the storm. Was it still raging out there? Did she want to go outside?

But the girl waited beside the door, so Kaye opened it. The girl moved out ahead and Kaye followed.

She stopped on the edge of the porch, amazed. The storm had blown itself out. The night was as still now as it had been blustery before. A round, creamy moon rode high in the sky. The world was sketched in shades of black and white.

Even the old barn across the way looked beautiful under its sparkling blanket of snow.

Kaye stepped down from the porch. The snow lay everywhere, deep and untouched.

“Where are we going?” she called to the girl, who had gone ahead.

“Not far,” the girl called back.

For the first time, Kaye hesitated. Should she go off with this strange girl? What if her parents woke and found her gone?

But she couldn’t let the girl get away.

Besides, they wouldn’t be at Elsa’s much longer. The storm had stopped. The plows would come through. A farmer would pull their car out. She and her parents could have Christmas breakfast with Elsa. And
maybe the girl would be there, too? Then they could go on to Gran’s.

Wouldn’t it be nice, though, to leave Elsa with a beautiful tree? Family tradition or not, nobody needed a scraggly old juniper for Christmas.

Kaye hurried to catch up.

“What’s your name?” Kaye called after the girl. If she was going to follow this stranger, she should at least know her name.

“Lillian,” the girl called back.

Lillian
, Kaye thought.
I like that!

And lifting her feet high to make her way through the deep snow, she followed Lillian into the woods.

L
illian led the way. No matter how fast Kaye walked, the girl always stayed a short distance ahead.

Kaye followed her through the scrubby trees behind the barn. She followed her into the moon-shadowed forest.

Here the land sloped up sharply. Lillian didn’t slow her pace.

Kaye’s legs began to ache from walking
in such deep snow. But she kept her eyes fastened on the dark cloak.

“Do you have a saw or ax?” she called to Lillian. “To cut the tree?”

“We don’t need one,” Lillian answered.

A shiver ran through Kaye. Not from the cold, exactly, just from … She wasn’t sure what it was from.

What did Lillian plan to do, pull a tree out by its roots?

Again Kaye quickened her pace, trying to catch up. Again the distance between her and the strange girl never seemed to shorten.

If the moon hadn’t been so bright, Kaye wouldn’t have been able to follow at all. With her back turned, Lillian’s glowing face was hidden. She became little more than a moving shadow.

“Could you slow down, please?” Kaye called. Her heart was beginning to pound. Her breath stuttered.

“Sure,” Lillian said.

But if she actually slowed, Kaye couldn’t tell.

What if this girl was playing a trick on her? What if she was trying to get Kaye lost in the woods? Could she find her way back to Elsa’s alone if she had to?

Just when Kaye was beginning to think the worst, Lillian called cheerfully, “We’re here!” And she stopped walking.

Huffing, Kaye caught up. She stopped beside Lillian and looked around to see where “here” might be.

They had stepped through a thick line of trees and now stood in a clearing. At the center of the clearing rose a magnificent
pine. 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.