Arcelia saw a picture of her ancestor proudly holding his deed. Wow, a perennial wellspring of affection with natural beauty that to apply makeup would be like painting a stained glass window, and was nominated "Best Legs" in her junior high school yearbook, gramsplained that her grandfather wanted to create a rush to Molson during the gold bonanza, making the Pacific Northwest's Inland Empire a golden link between California and Alaska. "This photo was taken on the day he bought the land, and the same day that the last gold nugget was found." She continued to say that after the mine failed her grandfather lost most of his fortune during the Great Depression, but was left with the deed for the abandoned town.
The eleven-year-old noticed a photo of the baggy-trousered prospector with his horse's nose affectionately under the crook of his arm, beside a sack of oats and a campfire heating a dented coffee pot.
Suddenly a rogues' gallery of ghoulish children stood in the doorway with surly-looking stares. "You see them too, right?" Arcelia asked her grandma. The visiting girl's brood of cousins were made-up like spirits to scare the tourists. The reluctant house guest agreed to come along. Wow busted out dipped ice cream bars all around with spooky spiderwebs dribbled on.
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