Page 8 of Ghost Hunters 1
Jillian shook her head.Matilda didn’t know her sister very well.Claire never would have laughed at her feelings.The sisters had been very close, often sharing each other’s dreams and desires.They had grown up together to complement each other, a way of life often missing in today’s world.Jillian wished she could have met the sisters and Matthew for herself.She had a feeling she would have liked all three of them.
She went to the kitchen to make herself a sandwich.As she came through the doorway she happened to look up and she gasped in fear.
A black mist drifted into the corner of the kitchen.It seemed to hover briefly and then it was gone.
Jillian felt a shiver of something unexplainable.It raised the hairs on the back of her neck.She turned around and went back outside to the porch.Sitting down in the chair, she had to remember to breathe.
Poppy looked up at her from her spot on the porch and cocked her head at Jillian.
Jillian took a couple of deep breaths and exhaled slowly several times.She turned her head to stare in the general direction of the doorway to the kitchen.She got up and went back inside.
Poppy got up and followed her into the house.
Jillian felt comforted by the presence of her dog.She grasped Poppy’s collar to lead her to the kitchen door.
She waited for Poppy’s reaction to the kitchen door before she moved forward.Glancing around she didn’t notice anything out of place, nor did she find anything that shouldn’t have been there.
Jillian tightened her grip on the dog’s collar and moved forward into the room.Sweeping her gaze around she found nothing to be afraid of anywhere.She let go of Poppy’s collar and felt foolish for imagining the worst.
“There is nothing here to be afraid of,” she spoke the words aloud.Her voice echoed in the empty Inn.When Jillian didn’t hear or see anything else, she didn’t know if that fact offered her comfort or not.She wouldn’t find anything out about this happening either.
She went about the task of making a salad and a glass of iced tea.Then she took her lunch out to the back porch.She looked around the backyard as she ate her food.Her mind was busy thinking about Tilly and Claire.
Suddenly a sound caught her ear and she looked off into the distance.
Poppy had run off a few minutes ago and she could see her barking at something.Jillian got up to investigate.As she headed to Poppy she took note of the beauty around her.She walked about ten minutes before she found Poppy waiting for her just outside an old cemetery plot surrounded by a low picket fence.The fence had at one time been painted but age and weather had stripped the paint off most of the wood.
Jillian looked at Poppy and asked, “I wonder who’s buried here?Shall we find out?”She stepped over the low fence and Poppy jumped over it.Here, the grass was longer and the cemetery plot hadn’t been tended in years.She made her way to the mass of headstones in the center of the plot.She began pulling weeds and tall grass to clear the headstones.Brushing the debris away she began reading the names carved on the stones.
“Thomas Eugene Belmar, Beloved Father and Husband.Mary Ellen Belmar, Beloved Wife and Mother, Ian Belmar, Loribelle Belmar.”Jillian noted that Ian and Loribelle died as young children in the mid 1900’s.She continued to pull the long grass until she could see all the headstones.The oldest one belonged to Jeremiah Belmar.His date of death was 1908 and beside him lay his wife and seven children.There were other family members but she couldn’t find any headstones for Matilda or Claire.
Finally, Jillian sat down nearby and stared at the headstones.She couldn’t help but wonder why the sisters weren’t buried in the family plot.
Chapter Six
Jillian sat there formost of the afternoon.When she got up to go she realized that she had weeded almost the entire plot.She felt like it had been the right thing to do.No one had done it in years and it was a sad state to think no one cared at all anymore.
