Prologue

The lone car drove north on Twin Mound Road at a good clip, zipping past all the cross roads like they didn’t exist. The driver slowed only a little as he wound around the soft curve that followed the base of a small hill. Only farms dotted the rolling landscape but the small hamlet of Stull could be seen as the car passed Bethel School Road. About a half mile from Stull the driver slammed on his brakes, coming to a screeching halt. In the middle of the road, walking southwest across the road, a woman dressed in white crossed the road, went into the road and disappeared.

The driver put his car in park and got out, looking toward the trees where the woman vanished. He nervously looked around but saw nothing except the dim lights of a farmhouse half a mile behind him and the collective lights of Stull half a mile in front.

1.

Stull, Ohio was essentially located at the intersection of Stull Road, which ran east to west, and Twin Mound Road, which ran north to south. The small town consisted of only a dozen homes, an abandoned schoolhouse, three churches-one of which was also abandoned, a rural cemetery and three businesses. The businesses were simple, the main one was a bait shop and auto repair place situated right on the intersection, the other was a one-pump gas station just a few feet west of the intersection. The last business was in a small building behind the auto shop. It was a make-shift detective agency called Three Sundays In a Week, after an obscure Edgar Allan Poe reference, founded by Matthew Spader, a tousled-haired young man who started the agency to get into actual ghost-hunting. He opened Three Sundays after his mom passed away two years ago and left him $1.2 million. He worked side-by-side with his best friends, Randy Foster, Miriam Hoefner and Lori McAllister. Two other people also worked there: Andrew Watterson and Katie Sebelius. Business was not exactly booming but Three Sundays survived on Matt’s inheritance.

Stull was founded in 1834 between the Emmanuel and Wyandotte Creeks by emigrants from Pennsylvania. The original settlement was located where the cemetery is now and was called Emmanuel Hill after the rising hill the town was on. After seven years, the town moved to it’s present location after an old dirt trail called The Devil’s Road became a popular overland route. When the town filed for a post office, the government showed little imagination for a name by choosing the last name of the one of the petitioners, Harold Stull, who would become the first postmaster. Stull lived a quiet existence until 1866 when the city platted the new Stull Cemetery on the old townsite. At the top of the hill the townspeople built their first church that, after six years, had to be replaced by a new one at the bottom of the hill, across the road due to difficult accessibility and a larger congregation.

Stull’s big chance at being a city arrived in 1888 when a church group, funded by the state, opened a school for boys on the other side of Wyandotte Creek. The massive five story brick building taught physically disabled boys simple schooling and religion. Unfortunately, most of the boys would grow up and be placed into a state hospital at 18. Some boys even died. The Bethel School for Boys closed in 1938 and the last of it was demolished in 1944. Stull never had a population larger than 100 and currently has only a population of 25. The old church of 1866 stands abandoned and dilapidated at the top of Emmanuel Hill, the old Greenwood Creek School, built in 1871, stands windswept and alone at the corner of Stull Road and Greenwood Valley Road a mile to the west and a new church was built at the main intersection in 1952 to replace the other church of 1872-which still has a dwindling congregation.

Today, Stull is little more than a village but most of it’s people are proud descendants of the original founders-emigrants from Pennsylvania.

2.

10 miles to the east of Stull in the city of Globe, in a large older house, Matthew Spader was up and in the kitchen brewing his daily pot of coffee. Also in the kitchen but sitting at the table was Katie who was unwrapping a new pack of cigarettes and putting one in her mouth.

She had the lighter ready to flick when Matt let out a quick whistle. “What did I tell you about smoking in my house?” he asked, snapping his fingers and pointing.

“Don’t?” she shrugged. He nodded. “But it’s gonna be pretty hard to have a conversation when I’m standing outside on the porch,” Katie got up and went out the back door to the patio.

“That’s fine. I’d rather listen harder than develop cancer anyway,” Matt joked. “I can only imagine what your insides look like.”

“Oh, I’m fine. A little phlegm in the morning but a nice, hot shower loosens it right up.”

Matt smiled and shook his head.

Upstairs, Randy walked in on Lori who was drying off in the bathroom. “Randy! What the hell…?”

“Calm down, Lori. It’s not like you have something I haven’t seen before,” Randy said and began brushing his teeth.

“It’s just out of courtesy to wait until the lady is finished before entering the bathroom,” Lori said, holding her towel closed.

“It’s was just you, not a real lady,” Randy said, his voice muffled by the foamy toothpaste. Lori scoffed and raced off to her room.

“Whew, what’s her problem?” Miriam asked coming into the bathroom.

“Do you mind? You could at least wait until I’m out before you talk to me!” Randy said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Miriam backed away and went downstairs to the kitchen. As Miriam entered, Katie was coming back in from the porch. “Morning, Matt. Katie. What’s on the agenda today?” she sat down at the table and Katie sat across from her.

“A lot of leg work. There’s three mysteries in Stull that we have to solve. We’re gonna get the history, explore the areas, ask the townspeople. By tomorrow morning, Stull will once again be a quiet little berg,” Matt said.

“I really hate it when he talks like a narrator,” Miriam said to Katie.

Prologue Two

The two college boys walked up the gravel path through the cemetery toward the old abandoned church. “I should’ve worn a jacket,” said one of the boys as he shoved his hands in his pockets.

“This church is so cool. I hear it’s haunted,” said the other.

“Both the church and cemetery are haunted,” the other corrected.

“The church looks like it could fall down at any moment.”

“Stop!” the boy grabbed the other’s arm and pulled him back. “Look,” he pointed over to a group of tombstones where a small blond-haired girl was standing. She looked like she was glowing but was probably just illuminated by a nearby streetlight.

“What’s she doing here?”

“Probably visiting relatives. Let me handle this,” he slowly approached the girl who looked incredibly young but had the showing signs of puberty. “Excuse me, little girl? Do you need help?”

“No,” the girl turned and smiled. “I’m just visiting my daddy.”

The boys approached her and one kneeled down so they were face-to-face. “What’s your name?”

“Eimile. What’s yours?”

“I’m Josh. This is Nick. Eimile, that’s a very beautiful name,” Josh smiled. “How old are you?”

“I’m fourteen. I’ll be fifteen next month.”

Well, happy birthday, Eimile,” Josh was enjoying himself but was growing antsy. Nick pulled Josh to his feet. “What?”

“We came to look for ghosts not talk to a little girl! Now wrap this up or I’m turning around and leaving you here!” Nick said.

Josh pushed Nick away and turned back toward Eimile who had suddenly disappeared. “Where’d she go?”

“She should be right around here. There’s no way she could’ve gotten past us,” Nick said.

“Didn’t Eimile say she was only fourteen?” Josh said, kneeling down at the tombstone Eimile was visiting.

“Yeah.”

“Her father died in 1934.”

“Then Eimile would have to be at least 60 years old.”

“Unless Eimile was the ghost we came here to see,” Josh said, ominously, pointing to a tombstone that showed Eimile died in 1933.

3.

Matt turned into the gravel parking lot that surrounded not only Three Sundays but also the auto repair shop and gas station. Matt, Katie and Randy got out of the car and walked over to where Andrew parked and was sitting.

“Where’s Miriam and Lori?” he asked.

“They are at the library getting some information on Stull. They should be here in an hour or so,” Matt answered. “All right. Well, until Miriam and Lori get back we are going to ask around about anything that could help us solve these mysteries. Andrew and Randy, you will talk to Marie Folds. She lives in a house near Wyandotte Creek and it’s that house where the ghostly woman appears from every week. Katie and I will talk to the Waverly sisters about the caretaker and cemetery. They’ve lived in Stull since 1919 so they should know quite a bit.”

Andrew and Randy knocked on the door of Marie Folds, a widower who was still in the prime of her life. Her hair was done back in a prairie woman’s bun and her glasses slid down her nose. She and her husband moved to Stull from Cochise, a town of 4,000 about 100 miles north of Stull. Mrs. Folds opened the door and was startled when she saw the two boys standing on her front porch.

“Mrs. Folds, I’m Andrew Watterson and this is Randy Foster. We’re from the Three Sundays In a Week detective agency and we had an appointment to speak to you.”

“Oh, yes. Please come in. Would you like some coffee? It’s all ready.”

“I would,” Randy said.

“You don’t mind if we ask you some questions while you do that, do you?”

“Not at all,” she said, walking into the kitchen.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the stories that are associated with Stull, correct?” Andrew asked.

“Of course.”

“Well we want to talk to you about the woman that crosses the road out here every week.”

“This used to be her house, you know,” Marie said.

“What?” Andrew and Randy said at the same time.

“This house was built in 1911. The woman was pregnant and had a son in 1912 who was not as developed and had to go to the school for boys…”

“Wait. School for boys? What was that?” Randy asked after sipping the coffee.

“It was a horrible place in Stull history. If you want to know more about it, one of the teachers still lives in Stull on Bethel School Road, in the big brick house.”

“Thank you. Do you know the name of the woman who lived here?”

“No. The house passed through many hands since then and I only know what the realtor told me.”

“What was the name of the realtor?”

“Maryanne Grenault. She’s from Topeka.”

“Thanks. Have you ever experienced her first hand?” Randy asked.

“No but everyone around here I talk to has. She doesn’t hurt anyone boys so you shouldn’t hurt her.”

“We won’t. We just want to know why she exists,” Andrew smiled and he and Randy waved and left the house. “Okay, Randy. You’re gonna drop me off at that brick house on Bethel School Road and you are going to Topeka to speak with Ms. Grenault. Remember to write down any detail that sounds important and we’ll continue later.”

The Waverly sisters were 93 years old and lived in Stull 86 of those years. Both of their husbands were long dead and buried in Stull Cemetery. Their spacious house looked out over all of Stull and could even see a small corner of the 1866 church from over the trees. Matt and Katie had to wait a long time before Mathilda Waverly opened the front door.

“Are you from that detective agency?” she asked, eyeing Matt and Katie.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Matt Spader and this is Katie Sebelius.”

“Come in. Come in. We’re waiting.”

Mathilda led Matt and Katie to a room where the other sister, Rita, was sitting and sipping tea. “You two must be from the agency. Sit down. Ask us anything.”

They both obliged and began questioning: “What do you know about the ghost in the cemetery?”

“We’re amazed that you haven’t seen her. She appears in the cemetery every night as long as it’s clear,” Mathilda said.

“It’s a her?” Matt asked.

“Yes. She is Eimile Paulen and she died in 1933,” Rita began. “Her father, Adam, was hired as the cemetery caretaker in 1930 after his wife died in Cleveland. He came here with nearly nothing but his daughter-a beautiful blond-hair, blue eyed girl.”

“She was a headstrong girl and snuck out one night to the city-Globe. While there she was raped and beaten. She made it home but died before the sun rose. It was only a month before her fifteenth birthday,” Mathilda continued.

“Her father,” Rita started up again, “went-well, I wouldn’t call it crazy but something like it. The story is not Eimile but her father and their house.”

Matt and Katie looked at each other and then back at the sisters. Matt leaned forward with a perplexed look on his face. “What house?”

Prologue Three

Greenwood Valley School opened in 1871 and was consolidated with Welcome Valley in 1956. The land the school sat on was owned by Manford Kueffer who refused to donate or sell his land for the school. A cantankerous curmudgeon, Kueffer went about his daily business for the next week. When town officials returned to give him one last chance, Kueffer was gone and never heard from again. The land reverted to the city and Greenwood Valley School was constructed out of native limestone and a thatched roof, until 1912 when a tin roof was added. After the school was completed, no one questioned the whereabouts of Manford Kueffer.

Nellie Bryant was a school teacher at Stull from 1896 to 1903. She lived in the one-room shack that Kueffer had built as a shed. The Kueffer land extended from Stull Road to Wyandotte Creek half a mile to the south. Students were told not to go beyond the retaining wall that was on school property. Miss Bryant loved to explore the land around the school. She was with her fiancée, Rodney Sutner and they had grown weary of walking after walking nearly all the way around the property and Nellie sat down on the edge of an old stone well that was constructed by Kueffer.

Rodney went off-just a few feet-to pick some flowers for his love and when he returned Nellie was gone and there was no sign of her. Rodney ran back to town to get the sheriff but Nellie was never found and the well was boarded up. Life around Stull continued and the mysteries surrounding Manford Kueffer and Nellie Bryant were all but forgotten.

4.

“This house was what we called the Visitor’s Hotel for the Boy’s School,” said the old man as he guided Andrew through the large brick house. “Parents of boys could stay here when it was visiting week.”

“What did the school actually do?” Andrew asked.

“It took mentally and physically disabled boys from around the state and taught them basic skills and education along with a sense of religion. The boys stayed here until they were 18 and then they were no longer this school’s problem.”

“Whose problem did they become?”

“For the ones that made it out, they usually became burdens on either their parents or the state in some other facility. We were a good school-up to a point-we just taught the basics. No social skills and no workplace survival. I can only remember two boys able to actually go into the real world.”

“What did you do at the school?”

“I was the administrator for the school from 1925 until the school closed in 1938.”

“Why did the school close?”

“The church that founded the school pulled out and the state refused to fund the school after that. I handled the books and without the state money, the school was doomed. The boys were either sent back to their parents or, for the really disabled, to a state hospital.”

“You’ve heard about the woman that crosses Twin Mound Road near Stull right?”

“Of course. Everyone has their own theory but I believe it’s the mother of one of the boys that died at the school. She’s visiting him.”

“So some of the boys died at this school?”

“Fifty of them. They’re buried on top of the hill at the intersection,” the old man pointed toward the east and Andrew suddenly recalled what hill he was talking about.

“Thank you very much for all your information. One last thing, you wouldn’t by chance know the name of the ghostly woman do you?”

“No, I don’t,” the old man sighed. Andrew turned and began to leave. “And if you share this with anyone,” the old man began, “please remember that the school was only trying to help.”

Andrew walked the mile and a half back to Three Sundays where Matt and Katie were already. “Where’s Randy?” Matt asked.

“I sent him to Topeka to speak with a realtor. What do either of you know about the Bethel School for Boys?” Matt and Katie shrugged. Andrew caught them up on what he learned involving the house and the Boy’s School. When Andrew was finished, Matt headed off to his car. “Where’re you going?”

“I want to see this cemetery. Come on, we’ll fill you in on what we found out.”

Matt parked on the side of Bethel School Road and the three walked up a winding trail leading up a mound and into the cemetery. The cemetery was neatly organized with small headstones placed in five rows of ten. The stones revealed names and dates.

“So shortly after the girl died, her father, the caretaker of the cemetery, hung himself in the attic and now he haunts the house?”

Seeing Matt was more interested in the cemetery, Katie answered “Yes. Apparently he’s a restless spirit and tries to harm anyone who enters the house. Matt’s going in tonight.”

“When Randy and the girls get back,” Matt said suddenly, “I think we have solved everything.”

5.

“The woman who used to live in that house was Phyllis Sinkler,” Randy began. “She was forced by her husband to send their son to the school. Mrs. Sinkler didn’t want to and she nearly went mad trying to convince her husband to let their son come home.”

“Mr. Sinkler died,” Miriam continued, “so Mrs. Sinkler went to the school to retrieve the child only to discover that he had died earlier that morning. She never got over it, went hysterical and that was all we could find.”

“Okay, so the way I figure it, she haunts the road. Every week she “visits” the grave of her son. As for the cemetery and the caretaker, the girl wants to make sure her father is okay but he is trapped in the house and because he can’t leave the confines of the house then he doesn’t know that his daughter is all right,” Matt explained.

“Then how do we get them to see each other?” Lori asked.

“I don’t know but I have an idea…”

“Caleb Sinkler,” Lori said to Randy as they sat at the desk in Three Sundays. “We went back to the cemetery and looked at all fifty graves until we found one with the last name Sinkler. 1912 to 1923. Caleb.”

The walkie-talkie made a staticy squeal and came to life. Randy grabbed it and pressed Talk. “Matt?”

“Yep. Andrew and I are at the front door. It’s boarded up but there a large uncovered window we can go into next to it.”

The house was big-three stories-and was a pale yellow. The house was completely surrounded by woods except for a trail that led from the clearing over a decrepit wooden bridge that spanned Emmanuel Creek and to the gravel cemetery road. Matt and Andrew carefully climbed through the window and began walking through the first floor. Holes were made in the walls by both hands and feet and there was dust and dirt strewn all over the floor and all the windows were boarded up.

“Katie?” Matt said into the walkie-talkie.

“Yeah?”

“We’re in the house and about to go upstairs.”

“Miriam and I have entered the cemetery and heading toward Adam Paulen’s grave. You just get that ghost near the window,” Katie said.

“Can do,” Matt smiled and began going up the rickety stairs to the second floor.

Epilogue

“What the hell are we doing here?” asked Andrew as he, Matt and Katie traipsed through the clearing behind the old schoolhouse.

“It was just something I found out about an old farmer and the disappearance of a school teacher,” Matt said.

“We solved everything! The woman, the ghost-child, the caretaker have all been solved. There’s nothing left. You two can meander through the woods if you want but I’m just gonna sit right here and wait for you, okay?” Andrew complained and sat down on an old well.

“All right. We’ll only be a couple minutes,” Matt and Katie headed into the woods but did only stay a couple of minutes. They emerged and saw no sign of Andrew. “Where’d he go?”

“He said he’d wait right here,” Katie said. “Maybe he decided to walk back by himself.”

“Maybe. Come on, we should be able to catch up with him.”

Matt and Katie walked away leaving the old well alone and abandoned…