Hattie’s name was there on the census from 1900 when she was an eight-year-old child. And there were three photographs of her that they could find: one as a girl, with her schoolmates, in 1899, their names written in careful cursive on the back. Helen didn’t need to check the names to find Hattie, though—she recognized her immediately. Seeing her—finding proof that she’d existed as an actual flesh-and-blood person, a student in the Hartsboro one-room schoolhouse, and wasn’t just a ghost in Helen’s kitchen—gave Helen a feeling of deep satisfaction. Helen looked down at the school photograph: Hattie was in the back corner, a shadow of a girl with dark hair that fell down to cover her eyes. She was frowning into the camera, scowling really. It was an I hate you all kind of look. But still, even as an angry little girl, there was something stunningly beautiful about her. Something captivating. It nearly took Helen’s breath away.

“Folks say that Hattie couldn’t read or write very well because she left school in the third grade, got kicked out, really. Strange things happened when she was at school—books jumped off shelves, desks shook. And one time, the stories go, she was writing in her primer and the teacher came over to look. There were three pages written in Latin.” Riley paused here, eyes widened for emphasis.

“Latin?” Helen asked. “How does a girl her age in Hartsboro, Vermont, learn Latin?”

“That’s the thing about Hattie. She knew things she shouldn’t have. Things the spirits told her. That’s what the stories people passed down say anyway,” she added.

The other two photos of Hattie were group shots at a town picnic and were dated 1909. Hattie was a teenager then and stood at the edge, away from the others. She was tall, her dark hair pulled back in a long braid, her eyes dark and stormy.

“Those pictures were taken around the time her family home burned,” Riley said.

“And her mother was killed?”

“Yeah, listen to this. It’s from 1909.” She pulled out an old article clipped from the local paper and read it out loud: “ ‘A fire of undetermined origin took the life of Mrs. Lila Breckenridge of Hartsboro on Tuesday, October 12. The Breckenridge family home was destroyed. Hattie Breckenridge, Mrs. Breckenridge’s daughter, escaped unharmed.’ ”

“ ‘A fire of undetermined origin’?” Helen asked.

Riley looked up from the clipping. “I’ve heard that a group of men from town went out and set that fire. They’d been drinking at the pub and got it into their heads that it was up to them to save the town from Hattie Breckenridge.”

“Jesus. She was the one who needed saving, not the other way around.”

Riley nodded.

“Okay, so Hattie’s mother is killed and Hattie’s left homeless. Those are two facts we know for sure.”