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“I wanna make it a snowwoman,” her daughter insisted.
“It’s a snowman,” her son said, sounding as though he was about to cry. “ ’Cause I’ve got aboyhat for it.”
“Guys, don’t argue.” She turned to scold them. “It’s not like snow people have private parts. They aren’t men or women. Just snow people.”
A flash of immediate regret as she saw her daughter’s mischievous look.
“Let’s put private parts on him!” her daughter said.
“Oh my gosh, guys, donotput private parts on the snowma—snowperson, please.”
They giggled. She knew behind her back they’d already be sculpting snowy genitalia of one type or the other in exaggerated dimension. Decided not to further engage in this particular battle now that the kids were at least getting along.
“A couple inches of snow on the trail, almost a foot everywhere else,” her husband said. “I can’t figure it out.”
“It’s weird,” she agreed.
“Istillthink it’s ghosts!” her daughter shouted over to them. “At Halloween, the ghosts had those long skirts. That’s what sweeps the path.”
“Skirts?”
“You know, like sheets.”
“You mean how people use sheets as ghost costumes?”
“Yup.”
“We know you’re just trying to scare your brother,” her husband chided. “That’s not kind.”
“It could be deer?” she mused. “I remember as a kid they’d make trails through aspen groves. Wore paths right down to dirt. If there’s enough of them, that could be it. Could even explain why there’s not so much snow here in the winter. Deer might tamp it down.”
“I bet that’s it!” her husband said. “If you don’t see deer around here, it just means you’re not looking hard enough.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” she agreed.
That night her son woke her with a hard tap directly between her eyes.
“I saw a ghost,” he whispered.
“Let me guess,” she said as she tucked him back into bed. “Was this ghost in a sheet?”
“No.” The little boy yawned. “He wanted me to follow him down the stairs.”
Her son woke her the next night, tiny hand squeezing her neck. He woke her again the next night with a shocking flick to her closed eyelid.
“A ghost. He wants me to play with him. Can I have the lights on?”
“He’s not letting you get any sleep,” her husband said. “We’ve got to nip this in the bud.”
Unsurprisingly, her photographer husband turned to photography to solve the problem. He bought a wildlife camera designed to be Velcroed around a tree. It was motion activated, camouflage cased, solar paneled, and waterproof. Her husband made a big show of it, brought the kids out to help put it up. Pointed the camera lens at the spot where graveyard changed to trail. The next morning, they watched the video, huddled together over the small screen embedded in the back of the camera under a protective hinged cover.
The video flicked on to show deer after deer passing down the trail, silent and colorless but with their night vision–lit eyes flashing through coils of blowing snow.
Her husband tapped the screen. “You see that? Trail must act like a wind tunnel with the trees so thick there. No wonder it looks so good.”
“Ghost deer!” her son blubbered, covering his face.
She squinted at the screen. With their eyes aglow and shrouded by shifting white clouds of snow, she saw with dismay that the deer had an unsettling otherworldliness.
