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the rear, we roared out of my driveway and headed across the meadow. Instead of turning toward Frog Pond, we kept going past the hill where we’d run down through blackberry brambles the night before. From there, we hit one of the recreation trails and stayed on it until we reached Peterson’s Mountain. Driving the four-wheelers there is legal so long as we stay off the main highways.
    Peterson’s Mountain was owned by Marcus Peterson in the 1890s. Therefore, he was dead and gone long before I was born. Just his name is left as a reminder that he once walked among us. But there’s a family graveyard up on the mountain. All the Petersons were buried there since they lived in isolation back then, as did a lot of old-timers. The graveyard is believed to be haunted since, well, it’s very old and there are even graves for babies and young children. Four generations of Petersons were born, raised, and died up on that mountain. It’s a place we Allagashers often use to test each other. “You think you’re so brave? How about spending a night all alone on Peterson’s Mountain?”
    The only proof now of those families that once lived up there, other than their names on weathered, vine-covered stones, are the remains of a few old foundations and water wells, sunken into the earth and forgotten. It’s a creepy place. I mean, there are even stones, just plain rocks, for two dead dogs in that graveyard. What’s scarier than a ghost dog? Nothing, unless it’s a ghost baby, one that cries in the woods just as the clock strikes midnight. But as scary as the place is in the middle of a sunny day, I never once saw anything unearthly there. Not yet, anyway.
    However, come 7 p.m., the sun would be sinking and casting shadows this way and that. All those pines and spruce would be blocking the dying sunlight and catching up moonlight instead. Was there any better place for my plan?
    Meet me TONIGHT after dark at the picnic table on Peterson’s Mountain, near Calley’s Creek.
    I knew that if a pretty girl sent Johnny a note to meet her on Mars, he’d show up five minutes early. But I wondered if Miranda Casey would be too afraid to come. She spent a lot of time in the girls’ bathroom at school, staring at her face in the mirror. Or fluffing up her already fluffy hair. I guess it would all depend on how crazy she was over my stupid brother.
    Oh, did I tell you that Calley’s Creek was named after Mr. Peterson’s twelve-year-old daughter, Calley? It happened a hundred years ago, back at the turn of the century in 1914. Calley caught pneumonia. In her delirium, she left her sickbed late one night and wandered out into a raging snowstorm. The next morning, Old Man Peterson found her lying next to the icy creek, still dressed in her white nightgown. She had frozen to death. Southern Maine might be known for its big fancy ocean, its seafood, and its crimson sunsets. But up here we’re known for blackflies, moose, and raging snowstorms. It was just Calley’s bad luck not to have lived in Portland. If she had, she might have wandered down to the ocean and ordered a lobster.
    Where you’re born can affect your entire life.
    Everyone in town has heard of Calley’s Creek and the sad story of how she died. It’s said she still walks those woods at night, following the creek back upstream and trying to find her way home.
    Meet me TONIGHT after dark at the picnic table on Peterson’s Mountain, near Calley’s Creek.
    Are you picturing this as I am? Who needs aliens to scare the daylights out of someone when a ghost story is right in my own backyard?
    This trip on the four-wheelers up to Peterson’s Mountain was, however, a test run. As I said, I’m a perfectionist. I get things done right. And if you’re going to scare the daylights out of someone, it has to happen at night. I’d need this evening to prepare. Then tomorrow, once the sun had set,