The graveyard was sunk in the shadow of hundred foot tall hardwoods that had taken more than a century to grow. Headstones, jumbled like a child's blocks, leaned in every direction and to the right, a great, black hole yawned as if in waiting for another victim.

         Caroline Potter shivered and edged a little closer to the sunlight that laid the mountaintop waste in August dun. "I thought we were going to Barclay," she grumbled and hiked up one leg to knock the burrs off her white city slacks.

         "Oh, there isn't anything left of the town. They hauled it all away. I thought you would like to see this, though. You can learn a lot from the study of old graveyards." Her cousin, Lottie Barnes, had never left the valley, but she knew where all the bodies were buried.

         Caroline had gone off to find her fortune, and had come home a successful novelist looking for her roots.

         "This place is spooky," Caroline shivered as her eyes adjusted to the dim, cool light of the graveyard. "This graveyard is enormous. When the old folks talked about Barclay, I always had the idea it wasn't all that big. There must be a thousand headstones here, Lot."

         "I heard there were several thousand citizens, or should I call them the Barclay slaves, during the heyday, before the Depression," Lottie was on her haunches, pulling debris away from a tiny marble lamb, a marker for the grave of a child.

         She walked carefully, the forest floor was inches deep in rotting leaves, fallen branches and a thick miasma of decay. Back in the 20s it must have been well-maintained, but Caroline could see a few more years of neglect would return this final resting place to its forested original condition.

         "Watch where you're going. The coal mines ran under the graveyard and it has caved in a couple of places," Lottie jerked her head toward the pit to their right. "If you look really close, you can see the coffins and the bones that fell down into the shaft."

         "Gruesome," Caroline tiptoed to the edge, but she couldn't see anything. Deep down, she was glad.

         "So, where are the Barclays buried?" She dug in her shoulder bag for a reporter's pad and pen. "I'd just as soon get the dates I wanted and get out of here, this place is spooky as hell."

         The Barclays, once owners of the mountain, the mines, all they could survey, lay tidily buried behind a corroded wrought iron fence.

         Caroline yanked at the gate and grunted. Thick with rust, the gate still guarded the owners' remains with steadfast loyalty. At least something was still loyal to the fallen empire. She dropped her bag with a sigh and balanced on the nearest uprooted tombstone, managed to swing one long leg over the spiked barrier and unto the base of a weathered monument topped with a tall barren spire.

         "Argh." Long rusty streaks marked the pristine white of her slacks, stained her hands like old blood.

         "I told you to put on something junky," Lottie watched with amusement as her cousin broke a fingernail and cursed as she tried to scrape gray-green lichens from the monument's base. "But you were in to big a hurry."

         "I thought we were going to Barclay," Caroline cleared the dates quickly, jotted them down on her pad. "They're all here, John, Marrianne, Lucinda... Where's Thomas? The Barclay's had a son, didn't they?"

         Lottie had strolled off humming as she walked. She left behind a strange, eerie tune that seemed quite in keeping with the macabre setting.

         Caroline completed the ruin of her summer whites climbing back over the derelict fence and contemplated the fate of the Barclays.

         According to legend, they had once owned most of the mountain, had raped the land for the coal and timber, kept hundreds of families in near servitude, then lost it all in the Stock Market Crash of `29.

         The old folks, her grandparents and their contemporaries had talked about Barclay a lot when she was younger, but gradually they had all died off and the story had become sketchier and sketchier as time wore on.

         A breeze, almost arctic in its force, swept across her face and Caroline stepped back a pace, nearly toppling into the sunken graves.

         "You look as if you've seen a ghost," Lottie called from across the expanse of toppled tombstones and rotting debris. "I can see how pale you are from way over here. Are you all right?"

         "Huh?" Caroline had the sudden, insane feeling someone or something had tried to communicate with her. The icy wind's malign presence was almost alive.

         "We shouldn't to hang around here too long," Lottie headed sturdily back towards the car. "Everyone says this place is haunted, you know."

         Caroline carried the dank feeling of cold and darkness back to the Lottie's dust-covered oven of a car. The August sun was relentless. It bleached out the greens, left the meadow to their left a dull, lifeless brown. She was glad for her slacks, even though they were ruined. The seat was like a frying pan. Hot, cold, she was glad when Lottie gunned the motor and went bumping over the rutted lane.

         "Where are we going now?" She found her brush and dragged her long ash blonde hair back into a ponytail and secured it with a tacky rubber band from the bottom of her survival-kit purse.

         Lottie waved her hand to the right. "That's where the railroad was, ran right down into Towanda." She handled the old Chevy like it was a log truck.

         Caroline shivered again. It was almost as if the chilling presence from the graveyard decided to hitchhike to town. "I found all the graves, but the son's. What happened to Thomas?"

         "Drank himself to death, or so they said," Lottie swerved to avoid a fawn that poked its nose out of the brush, hesitated, then awkwardly dove into their path. "That was close."

         The young deer skittered away on angular, toothpick legs.

         "There was some story about Thomas falling in love with one of the mill girls, but I don't know if you could find anyone who could tell you about it. Must have been sixty, seventy years ago," Lottie turned at a nearly invisible crossroads and maneuvered the vehicle down a forest path. "This is where the town was, but most of the buildings were torn down when the workers moved out. The big house stood for a couple of years until it was struck by lightning or something. Now there's just a big hole in the ground."

         "I can't wait. It was nice of you to bring me up here, Lot," Caroline tried to see through the brush that lined the road, but it closed in, brushing the sides of the car as the lurched along.

         Lottie's mouth had thinned in a narrow line of concentration. "This is going to beat the hell out of my car," she complained. "This road hasn't been used in years."

         Caroline made soothing sounds. She'd hoped for more. Records, physical remains. According to Lottie, the graveyard was about all that was left of the empire that once was Barclay.

         "You could try over at the County Farm," Lottie downshifted and steered the car into a clearing. The mountain rose on either side of the shallow valley. Faint lines that might have once been streets were just visible through the brush. "This is it."

         "Doesn't look like much, does it?" Caroline got out her pad and tried to visualize the extent of the community. "You don't know if there are any pictures or maps of Barclay around? The town didn't shut down until the twenties, so there might have been something. If I only knew where to look."

         "I think there used to be some real old pictures up in the attic," Lottie backed slowly out of the valley to the turn. "They might still be up there, but Pop took a notion to clean things out a couple of years back. You never know. He might have got rid of them. It was Mom's people who lived in Barclay way back."

         "They did?" Caroline hadn't known that. Or had she? She had been around when Grandpa Stalter told his dusty old stories about being a kid in Barclay, but who pays attention when you are a kid? She'd been too busy reading fairy tales. And writing them on any piece of paper that wasn't tied down.

         Her parents had tried to break her of it, but it hadn't worked. Here she was thirty years old and still chasing Hansel and Gretel through the forest. The bread crumbs were few and far between.

         At least they weren't around to complain anymore. Dad had had a heart attack in `89 and Mom only hung around a year or so to discover being alone was not at all to her liking. She'd told Caroline she was going ahead and rejoin her father at their last meeting.

         "You'll live forever," Caroline had kissed her Mother's smooth, white brow and never saw her alive again.

         Her Aunt Kat and Uncle Dean weren't far behind. They died a year later within months of one another. Lottie worked in Canton at the bank, but she said she was going to keep the farm when they were gone.

         Caroline had had a couple of novels do well and was always on the lookout for a story to write. Her vacation with Lottie had given her lots of ideas, but the Barclay story was at the top of her list.

         The one-man empire, the hundreds of serfs at labor to serve his every need, the children of wealth, Lucinda and Thomas, the poor little serving girl who took the attention of the rich man's son. It was the stuff of a novelist's dream.

         But where, oh where, was she ever going to find the rest of the pieces of the puzzle? Barclay had been gone for more than sixty years. Any adult who lived there had to be either dead or suffering from Alzheimers Disease.

         "What was that you said about the County Farm?" Caroline opened one more button at the throat of her wrinkled and dampened oxford cloth shirt. She had been neat as a pin before the trip, now she looked like something the cat drug in.

         Who cared? Her husband, Wayne, seemed to have his own agenda these days.

         "I said if you went over and talked to some of the old folks at the County Farm, you might find someone who remembers Barclay. There are a lot of them up in their eighties and nineties," Lottie swung the car onto a bumpy macadam lane. "Thank God. I though we'd never get down. The Barclays had the right idea with a private railroad. Can you imagine that hill in the winter?"

         "It must have been lonely as hell," Caroline suppressed a shiver in spite of the heat. The presence, or ghost, or idea, or whatever it was was she had encountered in the graveyard was still with her. It was almost as if something wanted her to write this story. It was almost as if she were going to get a helping hand at last.

         "Would they let me talk to those people?" She felt doubtful. Institutions were funny about people bothering the residents.

         "Well, we're related to about half of them one way or the other. There's the Terrys and the Stalters and the Barnes...." Lottie slowed. "Want to stop for a cold drink? I'm about ready to melt."

         Caroline had a birch beer. The sparkling spicy drink evoked memories of a younger, more innocent time in her life.

         She took a trip to the Poor Farm the next day. It was a working farm, run by the county for old folks who could no longer take care of themselves. Most of them had signed over their homes in return for care until their deaths.

         There was a nice, big old farmhouse with a rambling skirt of porch. More than a dozen rockers faced the road, each chair inhabited by one of the farm's clients, men to the right of the main front door, ladies to the left.

         They didn't even look up when she mounted the front stairs. "Good Morning," she said with all the cheer she could muster. In return she was rewarded with flat, blue stares and a flutter of toothless gums.

         "There but for the grace...." she thought and smiled in pleasure when a young nurse asked if she could help her find anyone.

         "Actually, I'm not sure who I am looking for," Caroline began her long, involved story about having an idea for a book and how Lottie had suggested she might be able to find someone living at the Poor Farm who had either lived in Barclay when it was a real town - or who knew someone who did.

         The young nurse, a country girl like she might have remained, had she stayed in LeRoy instead of going off to find her fortune, was both kind and helpful.

         "Well, I know all the patients, Lord knows, I work with them every day. Do you have any names?" Cindy Cates was petite, freckled and as pretty as sunshine after the rain. Caroline thought she remembered the name from high school, but she couldn't place the face.

         "Well, there were people named Terry, Snyder, Stalter, and of course, Barclay ..., I think there were probably a lot more, I was up on the mountain and saw the graveyard. Barclay was quite a town in its day," Caroline wished she had taken a little more time to jot down names, but the old cemetery had just been so spooky.

         "We have an Agnes Terry, but she's over a hundred. Does't talk much any more," Cindy's face squinched up with her obviously sincere desire to be of help. "There's Fred Snyder, you may know him. I think he was related to your cousin Lottie a ways back, but he's got Alzheimer's so bad most of the time he can't remember his name or what day it is .... If there is anyone, I don't know who it could be," Nurse Cate's face fell. You could see she really wanted to help.

         "I noticed Thomas Barclay wasn't buried with his family. Lottie said she thought he was gone, but ...," Caroline had hoped someone from Barclay would be left, someone who could help her fit together the puzzle. It would have been such a perfect story ....

         She looked toward the door, suddenly exhausted. Her vacation would be over in another few days and she would go home to Wayne and the embers of what once had been a fantastic marriage.

         If only she could have kept her head on that last book tour. If only she hadn't gotten involved with Dave ....

         "Wait."

         She hadn't heard the nurse come up behind her.

         "There is this old guy named Tom upstairs. He's in and out of it most of the time, hardly ever comes downstairs. The name on his chart is Harris, but it seems to me he talks about that old ghost town sometimes. Just when you think he's being good, he'll slip out and wander around looking for a woman named Anna ...." Cindy Cates' eyes got big. "You don't suppose ...?"

         "What have I got to lose?" Caroline took her new friend's arm. "Lead me to him."

         The old man sat slouched in a chair beside the window overlooking the mountain. His hair, what there was of it, was neatly combed against his pink, shiny skull and his chin drooped nearly to his plaid dressing gown. His hands worked against one another in the nest of his lap. He did not look up when the two young women entered the room.

         "Tom," Cindy's voice was soft. "There's someone here to see you if you're up to it."

         "Anna?" The old man's head lifted slightly. He stared at Caroline with rheumy blue eyes and shook his head. "You aren't Anna. Where is she? Why don't you let Anna visit me?"

         Caroline exchanged a look of pity with the pretty young nurse who shrugged and moved toward the door. "I'll leave you two alone for a little while. There's a bell beside the bed if you need me."

         The cold took her again, suffocating. Caroline moved toward the old man and pulled a second chair close, until they were almost knee to knee.

         "Do you remember Barclay?" she said.

         "Anna lived in Barclay," his eyes were looking at Caroline, but focused on something far, far away.

         "Who was Anna?" Caroline didn't hold much hope for the interview. "Was she the girl Thomas Barclay loved? The girl from the mill town?"

         "Anna was beautiful," Old Tom closed his eyes, a smile of pleasure on his withered old lips. "As beautiful as the sky."

         "What was Anna's last name, Tom? Do you remember?" Caroline wanted to switch on the mini recorder she kept in her purse, but she didn't want to distract the old man, who suddenly had tears running down his pale, sunken cheeks.

         "Anna loved me," his voice quivered like a reed in the wind. Caroline's heart fell. This old man's name was Harris. He probably had no idea who Thomas Barclay dallied with when his father all but owned the world.

         "Tell me about your Anna," she tried a new tack. "She must have been a wonderful woman."

         "Anna was a queen," the old man's hand betrayed an agitation that also manifested itself in two crystal tears that snaked down the withered runnels and gulleys of his ruined face.

         "And you loved her?" Caroline prompted, knowing this interview could take a very long time indeed.

         "I loved Anna. She was my life," the old man's eyes closed. For a moment she thought he was asleep, but then he shuddered slightly and turned toward the window. "You aren't Anna. I don't want to talk to you any more."

         "But I want to write about Barclay, and you may be the only person who remembers what happened up there in that town before they tore it down," Caroline begged, she pleaded, but nothing did any good. The old man refused to meet her glance, refused to speak another word.

         Downstairs she sought out Cindy Cates.

         "How did it go?"

         "You tell me. All he wanted to talk about was his Anna," Caroline shivered a little. She would have given the world to have had a love that would stand the test of time like the old man's and his Anna.

         She said as much to the nurse. "What about Tom Harris? How did he come here? What can you tell me about his background?"

         Cindy Cates wrinkled her nose. "Not a lot, I think. If I remember correctly, he was indigent, living in a packing box or something equally gross up in Canton. Finally the sheriff decided he would freeze to death so he got the county to move him up here so he wouldn't have to collect the corpse."

         "What could have happened in a man's life to make him live like that? I never could understand people who can't seem to take care of themselves, who don't even care to try."

         Cindy shrugged and led the way into an office. She pulled out a file drawer and extracted a manila folder. "Here's his records for all the good they will do."

         Caroline thanked the nurse for going out of her way to help and sat at in the deserted visiting area, studying the meagre information.

         "There's nothing here," she announced to the walls, then went to find Cindy Cates and return the files.

         "Nothing?"

         Caroline shook her head. "He could have fallen from the sky." She turned to leave, then came back to the desk. "Could I come back? Try again? When is the best time to talk to him? You said he was in and out. Maybe if I could catch him at the right time, he might remember someone or something."

         She made an appointment to return right after breakfast the next day, her last day in LeRoy. If she didn't get what she came for by then, she might as well forget the whole story.

         If the icy presence that hovered near would ever let her forget.