Ghost Girl: The true story of a child in desperate peril – and a teacher who saved her
A stunning and poignant account of an extraordinary teacher's determination from the author of the #1 Sunday Times bestsellers The Tiger's Child and One Child.Jadie never spoke, never laughed, never cried. She spent every waking hour locked in her own private world of shadows. But nothing in Torey Hayden's experience had prepared her for the nightmare Jadie revealed to her when finally persuaded to break her self-imposed silence. It was a story too painful, too horrific for Hayden's professional colleagues to acknowledge.But Torey Hayden could not close her ears… or her heart. A little girl was trapped in a living hell of unspeakable memories. And it would take every ounce of courage, compassion, and love that one remarkable teacher possessed to rid the "Ghost Girl" of the malevolent spirits that haunted her.
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First published in the US by Little, Brown and Company, Inc. 1991
This edition HarperElement 2006
© Torey Hayden 1991
Torey Hayden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780007218646
Ebook Edition © 2012 ISBN: 9780007370825 Version 2015-02-03
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Contents
There were 152 miles between the city and Falls River and from there another 23 miles to Pecking. All of it was prairie, wide flat, and open, interrupted only by the interstate. There were towns along the way, of course, although “town” was a rather grand description for most of them. The names, however, were always hopeful: Harmony, New Marseilles, Valhalla.
I’d alloted myself two and a half hours to cover the distance, setting off in the early morning darkness with an egg salad sandwhich and a thermos of coffee. Given no nasty surprises in the January weather, I anticipated reaching Pecking by eight.
For much of the way mine was the only car on the road. In and around Falls River there was the bustle of rush hour traffic, but otherwise, nothing disturbed the white emptiness of the plains for mile after mile. A faint breeze eddied powderlike snow across the highway, making the tracks of my tires disappear in a white sky. A litter of sundogs scampered in an arc around it. Passing through one small town, I peered down the main street. The time-and-temperature sign read −38°.
I was born and bred in the Montana Rockies, and my heart had remained in wide, wild places. Despite the enjoyable stimulation of city living, I found the confinement, the dirt, and especially the noise, oppressive. Consequently, what absorbed me most as I drove across the snow-covered prairie that January morning was not thoughts of the new life which lay ahead but rather a simple sense of unbridled freedom. I’d escaped from the city. I was alone with all that silent space around me, and the sense of deliverance it gave me verged on the ecstatic. I don’t believe I actually thought about where I was going at all.
Fact was, it probably wasn’t so much a case of not thinking as daring not to think. After nearly three years as a research coordinator and therapist at the Sandry Clinic, I’d thrown it all over in one wholly impulsive moment. Opening the Sunday newspaper one weekend before Christmas, I’d seen an advertisement for a special education teacher to fill a midyear vacancy in a class for the behaviorally disordered. A perfectly straightforward ad. Straightforward enough response, too. I saw it and I wanted it.
The strange part was that I hadn’t been looking for a new job at the time. I hadn’t even been thinking of looking. My time at the Sandry had been thoroughly enjoyable and professionally fulfilling. Staffed by seven psychiatrists and a handful of specialized psychologists like myself, the clinic was small, private, and pleasantly situated. I’d been taken on mainly for research expertise and for my experience in treating children with language-related psychological problems. In the years that followed, I’d often worked very hard and certainly there’d been a fair share of ups and downs, but the challenges had been worth it. I really did think I was happy there. Nothing available on a conscious level had clued me in to any desire to chuck the large, airy therapy room full of toys, the genial group of colleagues, and the stimulating research for another chance to gird my loins in denim and crawl around on some dusty classroom floor for the kind of money that would have paid traveling expenses at the clinic. But the Siren called and without a backward glance, I responded.
