Emmeline pulled up Ania from the chair, "let us go downstairs and start the hunt!" Emmelines said a smile on her face. She ushered the ghost girl out of the room towards the back of the Octagon house to the kitchen.
***
Ania was born in the fall of 1908 in a suburb of Detroit. She was the youngest daughter of two Polish Immigrants. Her father a factory worker and her mother a homemaker. Ania had two older siblings, the middle child was a girl, Sylwia born in 1903. The oldest child was her brother, Pawel, born in in 1899. They were neither wealthy nor poor, they were comfortable and they were happy.
In the summer of 1914, when Ania was 6 and her sister, Sylwia, was 11, were playing in a park, tossing a ball with the neighborhood kids, their brother watched from a nearby stoop. He had been instructed by their mother to keep them safe. One of the other children tossed the ball to Ania, but the ball had slipped through her little fingers and the ball went into the street. Sylwia without looking ran into the street to retrieve the ball for her baby sister.
A Detroiter Model B1 Touring came pummeling down the street, the driver drunk turned the corner without even stopping ran the young Sylwia over, killing her instantly. Ania ran to the street when she heard her brother call out. He ran and scooped his sister up and ran to the nearby hospital. The doctors were not able to do anything, Pawel had been carrying the corpse. He blamed himself, he couldn't keep her safe.
Ania was still young, when she attended the funeral of her sister Sylwia. She had run to the open casket of her sister trying to shake her awake.
"Sylwia stop playing. Wake up, wake up. I'll let you play with my dolls." The young young Ania cried out. Her brother held her hand and led her away from the casket. "Pawel, why isn't she waking up? Why is Sylwia not talking to me, do you think she is mad at me."
Pawel knelt down, and held his baby sister's hand, "Ania, Sylwia is gone."
"Nuh uh," she is right over there. Ania pointed to the casket. "Sylwia is just sleeping."
"Ania, do you remember that bird we found not too long ago?"
"The pretty blue bird, I remember."
"Remember how I told you the bird was gone. It went to live in Heaven?"
Ania scrunched her face up, she took a look at Sylwia and then brought her eyes back to Pawel. "Sylwia is in Heaven?"
"Yes, she passed away. The angels took her soul and she is safe in heaven. Sylwia is with babcia and dziadek."
"She is never coming back? She would rather be with babcia?"
"One day we will see her again, one day."
Ania began to cry. It was her first experience with death and funerals. Their family was not quite the same after the death of Sylwia. Unfortunately that would not be the last tragedy for the Wiśniewscy family. Three years after they buried Sylwia, the US entered the first world war, 'the great war'. Pawel being 18 decided to enlist and serve his country. He was in the first round of 'dough boys' that headed to Europe, two months later Mr. and Mrs. Wiśniewscy received the telegram. Pawel was dead, the body would be coming in the following month.
Ania heard mother and father cry out, their only son was dead and gone. Mother had collapsed in the doorway. Father carried her safely to the sofa to recover from the shock of losing her first born child.
They had a funeral for their oldest son, it was closed casket, there was no way to salvage the body. The army told the family, "better to not remember him that way."
This was Ania's second funeral for a sibling. She was wise this time. She touched the top of the casket. "Pawel, take care of Sylwia, tell her I say hello and I will meet you one day in heaven. We will be a family again." Ania whispered to her dear brother. She was both proud of her brother and angry that he couldn't make it home. He promised her before he left. 'I'll come back in no time. the enemy will surrender.'
Two months after they buried their son, Mr. Wiśniewski was involved in a workplace accident which left the right side of his body mangled, he couldn't walk or work again. The fire that was in his eyes disappeared and he began drinking heavily. Ania stayed home and took care of her father while Mrs. Wiśniewska began to work as a laundress.
Mrs. Wiśniewska came home tired, she barely had the money to support the three of them and it didn't help that Mr. Wiśniewski was drinking more and more with each passing day. Ania did her best, but her father wasn't the same, mother changed as well. Ania did the best she could, she kept the house, did the shopping, and prepared the meals. But mother was always angry and always tired.
But their family wasn't done yet, at the beginning of December 1919, the Wiśniewscy family came down with the Spanish Influenza. Mrs. Wiśniewska began to get better after two weeks of illness, Mr. Wiśniewski never got better and passed in the evening, 1 week before Christmas.
Ania spent her time caring for her parents while they were both sick with influenza. When her father passed away, they could do nothing for him. Somebody came from the health department and took his body away to be buried a paupers burial in a large grave with all of the other unfortunate souls that died due to the sickness that was not only ravaging their city, but the country. Ania was so upset, she became dizzy and passed out. Ania too had contracted the disease.
But sadly, she could not escape the influenza, she lay in bed and on Christmas Eve she began to feel better, one more nights sleep and she could be back to normal. That night, in her mothers desperation, she grabbed a pillow and smothered her daughter. Ania tried to fight, but she was still recovering, she was only 11 years old, she was too weak to fight against the older woman. Ania died. Her mother took her out the next day and her body was collected by the health department and tossed with her father in the same mass grave with the other victims of the disease.
Mrs. Wiśniewska did not regret her decision. But after the murder of Ania, she moved out of the city of Detroit mystifying her friends and neighbors of her sudden departure and never to be heard again.
When Ania died, she did not see her siblings or her father. There were a handful of other ghosts near the grave, but not her family. Her 11 year-old ghost could not figure out why she wasn't in Heaven with her family. She couldn't figure out why her papa didn't wait for her. She wanted to see Pawel, Sylwia, and Papa.
For several years after her death she wandered the suburbs of Detroit making her way North to the small town of Washington, where she discovered the Octagon House and her savior, Emmeline.
Ania had told her the story of her death, but left out the simple fact that it was her mother that murdered her and not the disease that caused her death. She was too ashamed to tell anyone that fact and she would make sure it never came to light.