It was late December 1965 when Susan Holcomb found Black Mountain, North Carolina. She must have lost her mind thinking she could buy an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere, but solitude was impetrative at this place in her life. Susan was there under the guise of writing a book, based on the true mystery of Nellie Pritchard, who disappeared off the face of the earth in the early thirties. Nellie wasn’t famous, not even known off the mountain by anybody other than family, but Nellie’s mother was Susan’s grandmother’s sister. The family legend said Nellie walked off into a fog and her body was never found, but Susan’s grandmother believed Nellie’s husband had something to do with both Nellie and her mother’s disappearance. Nellie’s mother left her home in Asheville in search of answers concerning her daughter and never came back. Since Susan wrote ghost stories it seemed the logical subject for her next novel. She explained to her editor she needed to live in the community where Nellie last lived.

“Susan, what are you thinking? You can’t live on some mountain with a bunch of hicks. I must admit I like the idea of this character being a relative of yours, but Black Mountain. Who ever heard of Black Mountain, North Carolina?”

“I have to be here to interview the community. Many of the people that knew my second cousin are still alive. I have to live here or they will not talk to me. According to my grandmother, they are very clannish.”

“Okay, but don’t go walking off into some fog. Got it?”

“Got it.” Susan hung up the phone and packed her clothes, books, and portable typewriter. Her real motive for leaving New York was pregnancy and no husband to go with the condition. In 1965 this was the kiss of death. Robert, the man Susan thought would marry her, left for a girl fresh out of his college English class. He had been Susan’s professor ten years earlier. That should have told her a thing or two, but she was too busy falling in love and too stupid to see beyond this raw emotion.

Her new home, a log cabin, that once belonged to Maude Tuggle, granny woman for the mountain, provided Susan with the perfect seclusion. She was taken with the description of a granny woman, a woman that does a little doctoring, that the real estate agent provided. Maude Tuggle was an appropriate spirit companion. Yes, Susan saw Maude the first day, looking out the window as she parked her newly purchased jeep close to the front porch. Susan thought it was the real estate lady welcoming her. But, as Susan stepped onto the porch, the figure behind the window dissolved in a blink of an eye. Just because Susan wrote ghost stories, didn’t mean she believed in the spooky creatures; instead, she chalked them up to the over active imaginations.

The snow began to fall as she unloaded her belongings. At dusk, she stood on the front porch taking in the beauty of fresh white landscape. She was thinking of Nellie, this poor young girl lost in such a place when she saw a light floating like a snowflake, bright yellow, hovering in the field next to the cabin, moving ever so slowly. Closer and closer, but she remained calm. What kind of creature could cause such a light, some animal she never heard of? Thirty feet from the porch it made a sharp left and hung in the air like magic under the big oak tree. Was it some kind of natural phenomenon? Susan was from New York City and all she knew of the country was short weekend trips to bed and breakfast inns.

Later that night, when she crawled into bed with her book, a movement caught her attention. A woman stood in the shadows for a spilt second. The next morning Susan found one of Maude Tuggle’s old books—much of her belongings remained in the cabin—opened to nutrition during pregnancy. Ha! Her granny woman was at work.

The world turned white overnight. Susan wondered into the snow like a child on Christmas vacation. Under the large oak tree, she found three granite headstones. One belonged to Maude. Great, now she had the dead owner buried in her side yard. The inscription on the stone read: A mother of the strongest character. She had understood that her granny woman never married. This fact drew her to the place. A cold, stiff wind blew around her, rattling one brown leaf in the tree, hanging on, refusing to fall. Susan decided to take a walk.

Thirty minutes later she stood in front of an old Victorian home. The real estate agent had claimed it to be haunted by a pastor that was murdered thirty years before. The wife was placed in a hospital for the insane where she died, and the daughter died quite young of a throat aliment.

A youngish man shoveled the walk in front of the house. “Awful cold for a walk.” He threw the words over his shoulder without looking at her.

“I’m from New York. I’m used to the cold.”

When the man turned to face her, she was amazed at the depth of his stare. “You’re Susan Holcomb. I’ve read everything you’ve written. I confess a good ghost story is better than a good meal.”

“So much for solitude.”

He laughed.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the minister of Black Mountain Baptist Church.”

“Well, Mr. Minister, which I must say I find it hard to believe, how in the world did you recognize me? I mean that stupid jacket photo is horrible.”

He walked closer. “I think you look like the photo, but this is a small place Miss Holcomb. Most of the folks around here have lived here all their lives. They can smell the scent of new blood blowing in the wind.” He leaned on his shovel.

“The realtor. What else did she tell?”

“Oh she said you were writing another one of your lovely ghost stories about our most famous ghost, Hobbs Pritchard. But, you know this house would be a good story too. But, Hobbs is a pretty good story if you like mystery. Why are you so interested in that story? How do you know about it?”

“Nellie Pritchard was my second cousin.” She allowed the news to sink in.

“Kind of makes you family.”

“I really don’t see how. Nellie was from Asheville.”

“That story will never be solved, but now, Pastor Dobbins’ murder is a whole other story.” He looked almost shy. “In a community like this one, you find all kinds of secrets. I’ve seen a young, beautiful girl in my bedroom here. I’m pretty sure she was Pastor Dobbins’ daughter. I don’t know how she died, but I don’t believe it was from a throat aliment. You see we create stories to protect our own. Elizabeth was one of our own, according to my mama.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“How do you write such good stories?”

“Just an overactive imagination.”

He took the shovel in his hand.

“So you’re from here?”

“Yes. I left the mountain long enough to go to seminary.”

“It’s a beautiful home.”

“It comes with the job. Built with Dobbins family money. He wasn’t the best of preachers, but he had good taste.”

“That’s obvious. You should talk with Shelly Parker. She lives on the little farm behind this house. Her mother and her worked for the Dobbins. She was on vacation with the family when the pastor was killed. She knows a lot about this mountain. She might can help with you with Nellie’s story. Or you could start a new story.”

“The Shelly Parker, the writer?” Any writer with a decent education knew Shelly Parker’s writing. She wrote essays that made the harshest of critics sit up and take notice. She traveled the South, speaking. But, it was her poems that made Susan stop in her tracks, poems of men who acted as if they were animals, killing the souls of the women around them. “I imagine she’s much too busy to speak with me. I just write ghost stories.”

“I imagine she loves a good ghost story. And, she’s here right now. She’s been here for months, which just ain’t like her. She told me she was waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“That’s what I asked her, but she just smiled and told me to mind my own business.”

“That’s strange.”

“She’s cut from her own bolt of cloth. The folks on this mountain believe she has what they call sight.”

“What’s that?”

“You call yourself a ghost story writer?” He laughed. “It means she sees the spirits that roam the earth. Don’t ask her about it. She nearly bit my head off once when I asked her.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I get a chance to speak with her.”

“You should come to church. We don’t have enough young women these days.”

If Susan didn’t know better, she would have thought he was flirting. “I don’t think so.”

“Too bad. I can preach a good sermon now and then.” He sounded disappointed.

Susan laughed. “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Preacher.”

“I’m Ralph Morgan. Please call me Ralph.” He extended his hand. “You go on up the mountain and visit my uncle Tyler and his wife Mollie. He can tell you a good story about old Hobbs and what him and some friends of his found near Hobbs’ house. Visit Hobbs’ place. His brother and wife lives there now. You’d like them.”

“Thanks.” She turned to leave.

“Just remember solitude can turn to loneliness in a matter of hours.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Susan walked home thinking of her good luck. Tomorrow she would visit Hobbs Pritchard’s place.

Susan arranged her typewriter close to the front window on a well-worn desk. In the drawers, she found a logbook, more like a journal, Maude’s daily activities for 1945. She delivered thirteen babies that spring, a baby boom. One of those pregnant was a sixteen year old Shelly Parker, who came through one of the worst snow storms to hit the mountain. Penciled beside her name were two words: kept baby. Shelly Parker again. Susan closed the book and began to type. When the light dimmed outside, she stopped to prepare her supper of canned soup and a ham sandwich. She had written several pages of a granny woman in the mountains, not the story she intended at all.

The light floating across the field made her stop. She had read in Maude’s journal how she used her oil lantern to light her way at night. A woman in labor must have felt some relief when they saw that tiny light working its way through the dark. Susan slept like a baby for the first time in weeks.

The next day she gathered the courage to visit the Pritchard place. It wasn’t too hard to find. She didn’t want to call ahead and scare them off.

The house sat in a clearing with one of the prettiest views. When she knocked on door, the house was quiet. She walked around to the back and a man, wearing a suit from the turn of the century, stood on the edge of the woods. He walked into the clearing as if he were making sure Susan could see him. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She turned to look at the house, and when she looked back, he was gone. Needless to say, Susan left without visiting with anyone. Had she seen a ghost? If so, who?

The next few weeks went pretty much like same: Susan woke in the morning and struggled to begin her new book, but she always found herself turning to the story of the granny woman. She was straying far away from her intended subject. Her stomach grew and the first warm day she traveled down the mountain to Asheville, where she presented herself as a tragic young widow. The doctor suggested she move from the mountain. He couldn’t remember her husband’s name, and he knew all the folks on Black Mountain. Susan assured him he wouldn’t have known her husband and that she was right at home with no plans to leave. Her due date was late spring. Three months to find an answer to her problem.

When she returned home, a note was tacked to the front door:
I would like to speak with you about your condition. I will drop by again.

Something in the pit of her stomach told Susan it was Shelly Parker. That evening as Susan heated her soup, someone knocked on the door. A thin black woman greeted her with a creased look as if somehow Susan had barged in on her. “I’m Shelly Parker. I’ve come because Maude Tuggle will not leave me alone. As for your writing project, you need to leave well enough alone. Some things are not meant to talk about.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m sitting down to dinner.” Susan peeked around the door so as to hide her stomach.

“I’m here because of your baby. Maude won’t let me sleep a wink. She’s driving me crazy. I can’t write.”

Susan stepped out from behind the door. “Okay. This has to be the strangest conversation I’ve ever had. You’re here because of a dead woman?”

“Strange. I have this curse and it’s a real pain in the ass, but I’ve learned to listen.” She stepped in the door. “The night is cold.”

Shelly Parker stood in her living room.

“Maude is concerned over that baby. I can’t put my finger on the problem. It might be because she doesn’t think you should give it up for adoption. She gave her child up, you know. She’s the reason I kept my son. You have riled her, and she’s driving me crazy. I can’t work on my writing because of her standing over my shoulder.” She looked deep into Susan’s eyes. “You’ve seen Merlin Hocket, haven’t you? I don’t know what that means. The old belief says a soul who sees Merlin Hocket has doom. Nellie Pritchard saw Merlin Hocket before all her tragedy.”

She looked away. “You don’t believe me. You’re one of those hack writers, who write about ghosts for fun, but not a bone of your body really believes. I know how that is. I didn’t believe when I was young.”

“I confess I don’t believe in ghosts.” Susan tried to laugh. “But, I do enjoy a good ghost story.”

Shelly shook her head.

“Would you like some soup and a sandwich? I’m not much of a cook so it’s all I have to offer. I need to ask you some questions.”

“I could eat. What’s your connection to Nellie? I can feel it.”

Susan walked to the kitchen. “Actually, Ralph Morgan suggested I ask you some questions about the pastor that was murdered.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.” Shelly opened the refrigerator and removed lettuce, tomatoes, and bacon. “I love fresh garden tomatoes. Maude grew the best I’ve ever tasted. She taught my son. We had no school here on Black Mountain for Negroes.” She nodded at Susan’s stomach. “Hiding out here won’t make your problem go away. What are you going to do when the baby is born?”

“Where is your son?”

Her face relaxed and revealed a younger woman. “He works for Dr. King. William is such a passionate man. But, these days intelligence and passion doesn’t keep you alive. I worry about him. He isn’t street smart. So, are you giving that baby up?”

“Tell me something about the pastor who was murdered.” Susan felt the baby kick.

Shelly’s stare bore into Susan. “He was an evil man, the kind of man who hid his evil behind his robes or collar. He deserved everything that happened to him. This I know.”

“Yes, I plan to give my baby up for adoption.”

“Ralph said you had that look.”

“How would he know?”

“Oh you’re the type who wears your secrets on your face. Anyway, one of the fine ladies here in the community was at the same doctor as you the other day.”

“So, what do you know of Nellie Pritchard?”

Her face darkened. “I know her spirit doesn’t roam this mountain like most believe. I know she was married to Hobbs Pritchard and he killed my daddy two weeks before I was born. Of course, he never even got into trouble. He ran the biggest whiskey still back in those days. He ran his sister Liz off the mountain. No one ever saw her again. She’s kind of like Nellie, lost in the world. Once a soul leaves the mountain there’s no coming back, or so the old folks say. I’m writing a book on the mountain folklore.”

“What about Hobbs? Do you see him?”

She looked at Susan with a cutting stare. “I thought you didn’t believe in spirits.”

“I don’t.”

“His soul is locked to the land where he beat Nellie. She was such a good soul. He tried to beat the goodness out of her, but it didn’t work. Somehow he lost his life. Violence is a calm word to describe what happened to him. I’m not sure who committed this crime. But, the act locked him to the place. That’s his hell.”

“Pastor Morgan sees your pastor’s daughter.”

Her eyes darkened like a gray hurricane sky in the distance. “Elizabeth was big on secrets. Every soul on this mountain knew Maude had a baby. She didn’t hide a thing. She saw him once. He came up this mountain right before he set off for college. He was shooed down the mountain real quick.” She stopped a minute. “Elizabeth’s secret killed her. I’m the one who found her. I lost part of my soul that day.” She reached into her pocket of her pants and flipped out a photo. “That’s my son. Yes, he could pass for white. He is the only soul alive that knows the whole story.”

The two women sat listening to the absolute stillness. A knowledge burned into her thoughts. Pastor Dobbins was William’s father and not by choice. How did Susan know this? She looked at Shelly as she took bacon from the platter.

“It’s snowing. Funny thing about this mountain is one day you can have spring and then be right back in winter. Now fix yourself a big sandwich. Put some meat on your bones.”

They ate in comfortable silence as if they shared some special friendship that didn’t require words or chatter.

Susan watched as Shelly’s truck lights became smaller, until they disappeared over the hill. Loneliness colored the dark shadows against the snow. The baby moved to remind her she had company. “I can’t keep you. How can I keep you? What would we do with each other, alone on a big old mountain?” But, somehow Susan didn’t feel so alone.

Later, she fought to keep her eyes on her book, Maude appeared in the corner of the room, not a shadow as before, but a figure pressed into the air. She wore a pair of men’s pants and work boots. Her face was clear, soft, crinkled from the sun. When she made eye contact with Susan, she smiled and disappeared. Susan sat straight up in bed, no longer sleepy, but not afraid either. She had her first ghost sighting.

Days turned into weeks and they, baby and her, turned the corner into warm weather. Their souls intertwined together, companions, as she grew inside of Susan, who spoke to her throughout the day. Susan knew in her heart it was a girl. Her writing turned soft, and her story of the granny woman blossomed into a full-blown novel. She wrote of lost love and unwanted babies. She pushed Nellie’s disappearance to the background and planted an herb garden in back of the cabin and a flower garden in front, where she could relax and look at the valley.

Her stomach grew. She heard the baby’s rapid heartbeat like small waves rolling in on the beach. The doctor nodded his approval as he moved the microphone around her stomach. She fell in love with the little girl.

Shelly came for a visit and brought her son along. William talked of his work in Mississippi, of hatred, and in some cases of the deaths that took place near him. Shelly watched him with an adoring stare. William sipped his tea and watched Susan.

“Why are you writing up here on this mountain?”

“I came here to write about my second cousin, Nellie Pritchard. We’ve always wondered what happened to her. Nellie’s mother disappeared from Asheville six months after Nellie dropped off this mountain. My grandmother, Nellie’s aunt, always wondered what happened to her sister. She received one letter a year after both disappeared. Nellie’s mother talked of her new life and how my grandmother shouldn’t worry. She never mentioned Nellie’s death or her sorrow. The postmark on the letter was North Carolina.”

“So, that’s what you’re writing, a ghost story about Nellie Pritchard, our famous ghost story?”

“No, somehow I put that aside. I’m working on a novel based on what I know of Maude Tuggle. Understand it’s not a ghost story at all.”

Shelly smiled. “That’s my girl.”

“You’re writing a book about Maude?” William looked into the kitchen. “I think it will be a fine book. She was one of the best women I knew.”

“Ever since I’ve moved here, Maude visits me each night.” Susan waited for his reaction.

Shelly laughed. “So, the ghost story writer saw her first ghost?”

“I have a hard time thinking of her as a ghost. I’m not quite sure what she is.”

“A spirit.” Shelly sipped her tea. Susan’s baby kicked.

William laughed. “Now, Mom I see what you like in Susan.” He looked at Susan. “Mom needs a friend. She chooses not to have many.”

A ridiculous tug pulled at Susan’s chest and in that tug, she saw herself on that mountain, raising her child. When her new friends left, she called her editor and told him she was pregnant and that she planned to keep her child. Next she called Robert, who hung up on her when he heard the news he was going to be a father. Sobs crushed her chest as she walked from the cabin.

She walked hard, blind, crying, until Black Mountain Baptist Church loomed into view. A group of people worked on a fence that enclosed a newer brick building. But, the older building, whitewashed clapboard, appealed to her more with its simplicity. Like all communities around the country, Black Mountain worked to move into the new era, shucking away their old ways. Ralph Morgan stepped away from the group.

“So, you finally decided to look me up? Good.” He looked past her pale blotchy face and large stomach. A man, a good looking man, even if he was a pastor, was looking at her. “I would offer you a hammer, but in your condition I might get beat up by the others.”

“I can hammer. I have two gardens.”

“Come on, I want you to meet some of the folks that make this mountain, Black Mountain.”

They walked up to a tall, lanky man. Beside him stood a petite little woman with blonde hair streaked with gray. Ralph put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “This is my uncle, Tyler Morgan. He’s a lot older.”

When Tyler smiled he looked like a goofy high school boy. “You’re Nellie’s family. I didn’t know much about her. She was little thing and I was just a young whipper-snapper.”

“Tyler, you ain’t much different now.” Mollie raised her eyebrow at Susan as if to say, you know we have to humor men. “It’s nice to meet you, dear. I hope you like our mountain.”

“Oh yes. It is the most peaceful place. The same thing happens from one day to the next.”

Tyler ran his long fingers through his hair. “Just be careful. When you think things will never change, they do. Have you been up to see old Tom Pritchard? Him and his wife, Rose, are gone to Asheville today.”

“I went up there once, but I only saw a man. I’m sure he wasn’t Tom Pritchard. He was standing on the edge of the woods. His clothes came from the turn of the century.”

Mollie got white around the mouth. “You seen Merlin Hocket. Oh Lord.”

Shelly had mentioned him too, something about doom. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“This ain’t no regular ghost, sweetie. He ushers in bad things, always. Nellie saw him, he spoke to her. That’s what my mom told, anyway. Look what happened to her. Hobbs disappeared and she walked off into the woods lost forever just like Mr. Hocket.”

“It was nice to meet you, but I have to get home.”

“Now, look what you’ve done, Mollie. You’ve scared the poor thing to death.”

“I assure you, Mr. Morgan…”

“It’s Tyler, honey. I ain’t my daddy yet.”

“I assure you, Tyler, I’m not bothered in the least.” But, deep inside uneasiness worked at Susan’s heart.

“Can I give you a ride?” Ralph looked concerned.

“No, I need the walk.” Susan looked at the Morgans. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“You let us know when that baby gets here.” Mollie twirled a piece of her short hair in her fingers. A vision of her as young girl flashed in through Susan’s mind.

“Thank you. I will.”

Two weeks later, Susan sent the draft of the novel to her editor. She slept each night as if she worked physically the whole day in a field. Then, one morning she realized she hadn’t seen Maude in weeks. Maybe she finally made her happy. She painted the baby’s room a pale yellow on Shelly’s insistence.

“You can’t paint it pink and then have a boy.”

“I know she’s a girl.”

“I knew I was having a boy.”

“What are you naming this fine little girl?”

“Maude.”

Shelly stopped her paint roller on the wall. “She’d be both proud and touched.”

Susan was working the flower garden that afternoon when Maude appeared on the edge of the yard, near the field as if she had crossed it with her lantern. Their stares met and Susan’s water broke, running into the fresh turned dirt.

Eight month babies are in more danger than seven month babies. Maude’s lips didn’t move, but the thought floated in Susan’s mind. You need to call for help.

A pain shot across Susan’s back with steel fingers, squeezing.

Maude turned toward the house. Susan followed and called Shelly. The phone rang and rang. Then, she called Ralph.

“Hello.”

“I’ve gone into labor. It’s early. Maude Tuggle told me my baby is in danger.’ The words came out as a grip of pain wrapped around her stomach.

“I’m on the way.”

“I need Shelly.” Susan looked down to see blood dripping on her white shoes and the floor. She lay on the floor holding her stomach. Maude stood at Susan’s feet, her bag in her hand.

Child, we can live through anything, but it takes a strong soul to really live. Don’t be the walking dead. You hear me. She stroked Susan’s forehead.

What happened later was told to Susan after all the events came to pass. Shelly and Ralph found her on the floor; blood everywhere. Shelly put her in the truck and drove like a crazy woman down the mountain, talking to her the whole way. She swore Susan was slumped over Maude. Ralph followed in his car.

Susan was allowed to hold her baby daughter for an hour. She was gray, but she had the curliest hair, dark hair like Susan’s. She rocked her daughter and told her important mother/daughter things. She told her she wanted her more than anything in the world, and that she taught Susan how to love, really love. She told her she wanted to die, but she had to keep living for her. When she released the baby to the nurse, a piece of her soul ripped away, and she knew she would never mend the gash. Her baby had died and she lived.

The baby’s name was Maude, and Susan buried her under the big oak tree next to her namesake. Susan’s novel made the top ten bestseller’s list. Who would have imagined that a story about a granny woman, told in such a simple way, would be such a hit?

Three year later, Susan gave birth to the first of two sons. Her husband, Ralph Morgan, couldn’t have been prouder.

Shelly and Susan wrote a book together about a murder, but that was years later when no one cared what happened to a pastor from a little mountain church.

Susan never found out what happened to her second cousin Nellie, but something told her Nellie was alive and well, somewhere, laughing at that old mountain.

Susan never saw Maude again. She came to Susan as a doctor and helped teach her about life. She was thankful for the peace Maude brought to her soul.