Giving Up the Ghost
A Georgia Mountain Mystery
by
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The panic started at the edge of my consciousness and expanded throughout my being until I felt totally consumed by it. I didn’t know whether I wanted to scream or cry hysterically or curl up in a fetal position and withdraw my mind from whatever it was that was happening to me. Because I didn’t know what was happening to me. All I knew was that I was sitting on wet clay and rock, that there was a rock wall behind me, and there were tons of rock above my head, just waiting to fall down on me. There was no reason why they should, but there was no reason why the Arabie should have had a cave-in either. They were waiting to fall down on me. . .waiting to bury me. . .dead or alive. . .I was going to be buried. I sat there with my arms wrapped around my knees and rested my pounding, spinning head on them. I closed my eyes tight, resisting the impulse to rock back and forth because it made my head ache even more and made me feel sick. Having my eyes closed somehow made me less aware of the darkness and helped me to think. . .I turned my head in each direction like a deer scenting the wind, hoping for some sense of where I should go. And then I saw it. I didn’t know if I was hallucinating or dreaming, but I thought I saw a faint glow ahead. My panic had taken me beyond fear. “Hey!” I yelled. But there was no response. I forced myself to stand up and ran toward the glow—at least I tried to run. It was more of a fast hobble, but the light always seemed some way ahead. “Stop! Oh please stop,” I sobbed. I couldn’t catch up with it. No matter how hard I tried, it was always up ahead. I couldn’t keep running. I leaned against the wall and started to cry. I’d never get out. I had been abandoned and nobody knew where I was and nobody was going to help me. After a minute I stopped crying. I felt something was near me, something comforting. And then I knew. I knew as surely as if I had been Eugenia. Edmund was here and he was helping me. Or maybe I had passed from fear into insanity. Just like Eugenia. I couldn’t see him; he didn’t speak. But as surely as I knew I was in the depths of a mine, I knew that he was here. I breathed deeply and tried to remember what Miss Eugenia had said about her communication with him. She said that they didn’t need to speak. So I thought about him. “Is it you, Edmund?”
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About the Book
Anna Sherman has decided to get a life. She wants to come out of her shell and meet new people. One step toward this is interviewing people in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains for an oral history project. She meets a ninety-something lady who has been keeping company with a ghost since she was a little girl, and her sister-in-law, who owns most of the mineral rights to north Georgia. She also meets a rugged mountain man who would like to get his hands on those mineral rights and a handsome geologist who just might have more on his mind than gold. Then odd things start happening. Anna is trapped inside a dirt tunnel gold mine, dropped down a mine shaft, and accused of murder. Can anything else go wrong?
About the Author
When growing up, Heather Olson spent week-ends in the north Georgia mountains with her family and heard numerous stories of how life was in the mountains before the interstate highways shortened the drive from the cities. She has used many of these stories in this, her first novel, set in those same mountains. Heather Olson has a Ph.D. from Georgia State University, and teaches English and Mythology at The Art Institute of Atlanta. She has traveled over much of the world and been the recipient of two Fulbright grants, one to Germany and one to Japan. She has two grown sons and now lives in Atlanta with her husband.