Used to be, my daughter-in-law didn't hold much with talk of ghosts and such. To this day you won't get her to say a word about such things. But I notice Lizzie's got a couple mean-looking jack-o'lanterns on her front stoop every October and a candle in her front window every night of the year.
 
Lizzie got spooked real good by what happened out at the old Eldon place a few Octobers past, and I can't say as I blame her. It had a lot of folks round these parts sleeping with their lights on, and they didn't live right next door to where it all happened, like she did.
 
Now, Lizzie had been married to my boy Daniel a few years before they moved down here. It took her a while to get used to life in these parts — she's a Yankee clear through, but we don't hold that against her. She loves Dan, and understands how much it means to him to be raising his young'uns back here in the hills.
 
When they first came back, it was kinda on a trial basis. Dan wasn't real sure about his new job, and Lizzie hadn't been able to find work yet. So they rented that old trailer out at the Eldon place for a year while things got settled.
 
We all told 'em the Eldon place was haunted, has been for years, but that didn't matter to them. After all, it was the big house what was haunted, not the trailer, Dan said. Lizzie just laughed. Anyhow, Tammy Eldon's kids were about the same age as my grandkids, so that worked out real nice, them all having someone to play with. Lizzie did some babysitting for Tammy, too. I made one thing clear, though: Under no conditions did I want Tammy looking after my grandbabies.
 
Tammy Eldon was one sorry piece of work from the get-go. She was a born con-artist, liar and cheat, and by my reckoning, it was her evil ways that started all that trouble in the first place.
 
Mind you, I won't say one word 'gainst Sammy Eldon.
 
There's been plenty of people what blame Sammy, but I know in my heart the boy didn't have a thing to do with what happened to them kids, least not directly. The Eldons have always been good people, and Sammy's no exception, save for one thing: He had mighty bad taste in women.
 
When he was still in school, he took up with that Sallaman girl, and I hear it was her got him into the drugs. They say he was fixin' to marry her — that's the sort of talk this place thrives on, you understand. Wasn't to be, of course — Sammy's mommy found the two of 'em passed out in the boy's bedroom one night, naked as jaybirds. Both overdosed. Sammy made it; the girl didn't.
 
She wasn't the first lost soul to come to a sudden end at the Eldon place. Sad to say, she wasn't the last, either.
 
Sammy ended up spending some time as a guest of the state on a drug charge, and his daddy made sure he got himself cleaned up while he was there.
 
Sammy stayed off the drugs, but there ain't no treatment for damn poor judgment. I reckon he dated every cheap whore and welfare queen in the county. But he didn't settle down with none of 'em till he met Tammy Adams.
 
Now you have to understand about Tammy, she weren't no stupid little thing who made a few bad choices in life. She learned how to get what she wanted out of men at her mommy's knee, and Tammy wanted a whole lot more than a double-wide trailer with propane heat. She wanted fine things and a big house and her ticket out of town.
 
Sammy's people had money, not to mention the biggest old house in the county. Wasn't too long Tammy had his ring on her finger and his baby in her belly. Sammy's daddy gave them the big house as a wedding present, with the warning that the place had better stay in the family. Tammy reckoned she was on her way.
 
Except Sammy wasn't rich. He had a pretty good office job at the mill, but that was all. He wasn't the sort to be taking money from his rich daddy, either, not if he could help it. Sammy's other sin, in his wife's eyes, was that he was a practical man. Oh, that diamond ring on her finger was mighty fine, and she drove around in a cute little red convertible. But Sammy insisted on putting some money into things like savings accounts and new roofs, where Tammy wanted him to spend it all on her.
 
Sammy was a young man with a future, but she preferred one with presents. She had a boyfriend afore they'd been married a year, and it was widely held that Tammy's second child weren't no Eldon. That wasn't enough for her, though. Damned if she didn't divorce him. Sold the big diamond ring to pay a high-price city lawyer and ended up getting the house, the car and a nice big alimony check each month — not to mention child support for both kids. Everybody told Sammy he ought to insist on a paternity test on the boy, but he wouldn't hear nothing of it. Hurt his pride too much, I reckon, to admit Tammy had been cheating on him that way. Still, it became pretty plain that while he'd call the boy "son," it was the little girl Sammy adored.
 
Nadia was always a sweet child — it's difficult to believe a hard-hearted bitch like Tammy could be her mom. From the time Nadia was just a tiny thing, she was special. You couldn't hardly see that little angel walking down the street without smiling to yourself. Got good grades in school, too, from what I hear. By the time Nadia was eight, she had two little brothers and a little sister. Tammy being busy with her boyfriends and all, Nadia spent a lot of time taking care of the little ones. Not so much, though, that she didn't have time to play.
 
Soon as Lizzie and Dan moved into the trailer next door, Nadia made herself known, showing up at their door with an apple pie her Grammy sent over. The child was two years older than Ethel, my oldest grandchild, but that didn't make no difference to the girls. They did everything together: Gymnastics class, Indian Maidens, video games, what have you. Lizzie told me the girls liked playing house best. They'd drag their doll babies and play dishes out to the old empty barn out back and play for hours. In the summer, Nadia talked her daddy into bringing in some hay bales, which they stacked up to make "walls" for their play houses.
 
In a weak moment long after it was all over, Lizzie once admitted she spent some time out there herself. The girls had put quite a bit of imagination and energy into their make-believe world, and Lizzie wasn't above accepting an invitation to tea just to see what all they were up to. What stuck most in her mind was Nadia's dolls, or rather her dolls' clothes. They were gorgeous things, rich satins and velvets frilled with lace and fancy braid. Nadia said her Grammy made them for her.
 
The trouble started about the time the kids started back to school. Tammy had a new boyfriend, and Nadia and her younger siblings started showing up with bruises on their arms and faces. They wouldn't say a word about where they came from. Lizzie called Children's Services straightaway, and the folks at school did, too. A social worker came out to the house but didn't do much more than write up a report.
 
Joke around town was that Tammy blamed it all on the ghosts.
 
Tammy and her boyfriend had a big fight that night, first of many. Dan said they could hear 'em all the way out in the trailer. He was afraid they'd figure out it was Lizzie who'd reported them and make trouble. Tammy started giving Lizzie the evil eye, all right, but that was it.
 
Lizzie asked Nadia about the fights and what all was going on, but the child didn't have too much to say except that her Grammy was staying with her at night now. That eased Lizzie's mind quite a bit. The bruises went away and for a few weeks everything seemed back to normal.
 
The day the "For Sale" sign went up in the yard, I was there when Nadia showed up at Lizzie's door in tears, dripping wet from the October rain and begging for help.
 
"Mommy says we'll all be rich, but I don't want to live somewhere else," the little girl said, sobbing. "Grammy says Mommy's making a big mistake."
 
Lizzie did her best to calm the child, wiped away her tears and fed her some cookies, then sent her to play with Ethel. Lizzie and I went back to our conversation, but I could tell something was fretting her, and I reckoned I knew what it was. Work had already started on their new house out on Dry Run Road, but if the Eldon place sold fast, they might have to move before the new place was ready.
 
I pointed out we wouldn't mind having house guests for a few months, if it came to that.
 
"It's not just that," Lizzie said. "I worry about those kids. I mean, as long as we're right next door I feel like I can keep an eye on them, you know? Just in case."
 
We both saw Nadia tilt her little head in our direction, trying to hear better.
 
Lizzie forced a smile. "Well, maybe now the ghosts won't beat them up so much," she said, trying to lighten things up.
 
Nadia turned around to look at us, real solemn-like. "Grammy says them ghosts ain't nothing for me to worry about," she said. "She says if they ever tried to hurt me, she'd chase them all away."
 
"That's right, Nadia," Lizzie said. "You don't worry about a thing."
 
It was one of those things that didn't strike me at the time, but looking back it sure as hell should have.
 
I went on about my way a bit after that, so I wasn't around to hear the big fight at the Eldon place. Nobody ever heard exactly what started it, but it ended with the boyfriend in jail and Tammy in the hospital for the night.
 
Dan and Lizzie took in the kids, which was no small doing. Nadia seemed pretty happy with the idea of sleeping over with Ethel, but the little ones were terrified. Lizzie stayed up all night with the youngest, trying to rock the little girl to sleep, but the child just kept shaking. Around about 3 a.m., Lizzie saw a light blink on in the Eldon place — jumped so bad she almost dropped the baby. The she remembered Grammy was staying there. Seemed a little odd the old lady hadn't watched over her grandbabies for the night, but Lizzie had always gotten the impression she didn't get around too good. Four wailing little ones was handful enough for a healthy young couple, probably too much for a frail old woman.
 
Sure enough, Lizzie saw the silhouette of a small woman come to the window of Nadia's room and give a friendly wave. She waved back, and that little movement got the baby crying again. By the time she looked up at the Eldon place again, it had fallen back into darkness.
 
Tammy was home the next day, a little beat-up but determined as ever. She picked up her little ones at the trailer without so much as a thank-you and went on about her business.
 
Rain gave way to a full-fledged storm that evening, and right in the middle of it all, Nadia came pounding on the door, carrying a little overnight bag. She said her Grammy Portia had to go away that evening and had sent her to spend the night.
 
Lizzie called Tammy to make sure it was all right, then put the kids to bed and watched TV with Dan until the electricity went out at 9. It was a bit earlier than they usually called it a night, but what with being up so much the night before, neither one of 'em had any trouble getting right to sleep.
 
The next day being Halloween, they got the kids up a bit early and into their costumes for the party at school. Nadia hadn't brought hers, so Lizzie just put a white sheet over her and called her a ghost, which Nadia liked just fine.
 
Tammy's boyfriend found the four bodies over at the Eldon place later in the day, when he came back to try to patch things up.
 
The three little ones had been strangled. Tammy's neck was slashed. The coroner said she killed herself sometime early that morning. The children died at about the same time.
 
Some people tried to blame Sammy, but most folks know him better than that. The boyfriend seemed a likely suspect, but he'd been in the county lockup the night before.
 
Of course, there was the matter of Nadia's Grammy. When they first found the bodies, Lizzie fretted quite a bit over what happened to the little old lady. None of the investigators could tell her anything, of course.
 
All along, when Lizzie mentioned Nadia's Grammy, I figured she was talking about Tammy's mom. Janie Adams ain't the sort of woman who normally shows much affection, but I reckoned grandbabies have a way of softening people up.
 
But Lizzie said no, Nadia had been talking about her poppy's ma, her Grammy Portia. And it turns out Janie Adams hadn't visited her daughter in months.
 
Thing is, Portia Eldon had a heart attack and died that night she found her son and his dead girlfriend lying in that same room where Nadia later slept. The shock was too much for her.
 
Don't get me wrong: Portia was a peaceful soul, never hurt no one. You know, folks had been saying that house was haunted a long time before Portia died.
 
Nadia won't say nothing of it anymore. She lives with her daddy in the big old Eldon place, and they never have any trouble with ghosts. Her and Ethel are still great friends.
 
Lizzie lets her little girl go over to the Eldon place to play, and even sleep over. The whole family's been to Christmas parties at the big house a couple of times — she and Dan have gotten to be pretty good friends with Sammy, what with the girls being so close and all.
 
But when Halloween comes around, Lizzie keeps her jack-o'lantern lit and her children home. She says she don't pretend to know what all goes on in them hills, and she don't want to find out.