Ghost Matchmaker
GHOST MATCHMAKER – July 2, 2025 – Ouray, Colorado, USA
The first time Rose saw her new home in Colorado, it was from the passenger seat of a moving truck. Her parents were both teachers, and for some reason never made clear to Rose, decided they needed a change in location. They accepted positions at the Ouray high school with only a video interview. They leased their house based only on pictures. All they knew about Ouray was what they read online and that it was called the Switzerland of America.
The pictures proved to not do the actual town justice. When Rose stood for the first time in the valley surrounded by towering peaks, the view almost took her breath away. On one end of the valley, a waterfall poured hundreds of feet down a sheer cliff face. Two-story wood frame houses dotted the valley floor like a colorful patchwork quilt draped over an unmade bed. Rose’s father drove the moving truck to one of the houses at the end of a short, narrow street. The exterior was painted yellow, except for the white wooden shutters. The roof was steep and designed to shed the deep snow that fell during winter.
Rose’s parents had consciously downsized their possessions so they fit in one truck and would not overcrowd the little house. Rose’s older brother and sister were now in college, leaving fifteen-year-old Rose feeling something like an only child. She got the smaller of the two bedrooms on the yellow houses’ second floor. There was only enough room for her bed, dresser, bookcase, and reading beanbag. What it lacked in space, it made up for in scenery. From her window, she had a clear view of the town’s thundering waterfall and forest-green mountain slopes.
Transferring boxes between the truck and house made Rose realize that every square foot of the floor creaked. The stairs were especially loud and served as a built-in monitoring system broadcasting who was in the house.
“How old is this place?” Rose asked her father.
“At least a hundred years,” he answered as if being older somehow made it better. “It was probably built in the gold and silver rush days, when people were moving to Ouray to strike it rich. If these walls could talk, imagine the stories they could tell. Maybe you’ll find some gold nuggets under the floorboards in your room.”
Rose tapped on her floor looking for hiding spots but did not discover anything obvious.
Arriving in a small town in mid-summer and only knowing her parents was not a formula for a great teenage social life, but Rose did not let that bother her. She made friends easily and planned to find plenty of new ones when school started. Until then, she had a long list of books she wanted to read and her new room proved a cozy place to disappear into a story. She learned when to open her window to capture the cool mountain air and when to close it and enjoy her room’s modern air conditioner.
When she needed a change in scenery, Rose grabbed a book and hammock and tramped through the patchy backyard grass to a hole in the surrounding chain-link fence. After a shortcut through a grove of trees, she emerged onto a paved walking trail leading to the waterfall. The trail was popular and seemed to have someone always walking or running down it. Rose found shady places to hang her hammock between trees and swung gently back and forth as she read.
During her first two weeks in Ouray, she comfortably settled into her reading routine, swapping places between her room and the waterfall trail. She plowed through almost one book per day. Ouray quickly felt familiar and safe and Rose seemed to have met hundreds of new people through her books.
When she looked back at that July, most of her new acquaintances faded from memory. One clearly remained. Nellie. Nellie was not conjured from printed words or imagination. Rose was at least 99% sure of that fact. Nellie appeared suddenly, although Rose sensed her for a while. She was like someone you kept recognizing from a distance before finally getting close enough to say hello. Or maybe she was like someone at a party you kept hearing from across the room without ever being introduced. Analogies based on normal human interactions fell short because Nellie was a ghost.
When Rose confided in others about first meeting Nellie, she would start by saying something like, “I kinda felt someone was in my room. It wasn’t a scary feeling, but I knew I wasn’t alone. And then I started seeing movement out the corner of my eye. If I turned to look straight on, nothing was there. Until this one day . . . “
Nellie walked toward Rose from an angle. The floorboards did not creak. Viewed from 45 degrees, Rose could see a girl about her age wearing a simple gingham dress. When Rose turned her head to look at the girl directly, most of her color and features disappeared and it was as if Rose was looking through a girl-shaped soap bubble. The first encounter shocked Rose and left her speechless, but never actually afraid. Her friendly personality took over and after a few awkward seconds, she was the first to speak.
“Who are you?” Rose asked, her voice thick with wonder and curiosity.
“Nellie,” the girl answered. Her voice had a strange vibrato to it, as if the sounds had to fight their way through a liquid barrier. “You’re Rose. I’ve been watching you.”
“I kinda thought so. I guess you’re a ghost or something. I probably should be freaking out. Unless I’m going crazy. Are you real or am I going crazy?”
“I’m real. I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but I’ve never seen or talked to a ghost before, so it’s hard to figure out what’s going on. Why can I see you now when I couldn’t before?”
“I don’t know. You’re the first person who’s seen me in a long, long time. Maybe it’s because I feel comfortable around you.”
Rose struggled with the best angle for viewing her semi-transparent visitor. She settled on something off-center in which Nellie appeared more solid but without focused features. Rose’s mind raced with possible questions about spirits and the afterlife. She settled on something closer to home. “Did you live here? Like before you were a ghost?”
“Yes. This is my room. I like to sit where you’re sitting. I like reading. Like you.”
“How long ago did you live here?”
The question confused Nellie. After a few moments, she said, “I think I still live here.”
Rose asked questions about her family, friends, and where she went to school. Nellie’s answers were vague and intermingled past and present tense. They ended up talking about the bedroom’s window and the best time to open it during the summer. And then Nellie said something about checking on a cow and she slowly faded away.
“Did that just happen?” Rose said aloud. She looked down at the book she had dropped and tried to remember if it contained anything about ghosts. Had she fallen asleep? Was Nellie part of a very vivid dream? She kept the questions to herself rather than consulting her parents. She did, however, search the internet for stories of ghost encounters. If she was willing to believe them, lots of people had seen and heard someone or something similar to Nellie.
Rose waited to see if Nellie would show up again. The next day, she made sure to sit in the same spot during the same time in the afternoon when Nellie had first appeared. Just like before, something moved from one corner of the room toward the reading beanbag.
“You’re back.”
“Did I leave?”
“I think so. And now I’m almost sure I’m not dreaming. So, I’m hoping you’ll tell me more about your life. Anything and everything. What did you do back then and what do you do now?”
“Everything about me?” Nellie asked in a flattered voice. “If you can keep a secret, maybe I’ll tell you about Jacob Morris and how I’m supposed to meet him at the July 4th festival.”
After hearing that Rose was interested, Nellie rambled about school and the boy she liked and how they were in the same class and how she was better at math and he was better at memorizing words. Nellie included hints about being sick with some sort of cough. Without asking for confirmation, Rose figured that was how she died. Nellie’s monologue continued nonstop until Rose was barely listening. She tried breaking in and offered to read aloud some of her book, but Nellie was not interested. With barely any warning, she decided she needed to go and again faded away.
The visit left Rose feeling tired. She tried to return to her book but nodded off instead. For the next four days, Nellie randomly appeared in the bedroom and shared essentially the same story. Although Rose should have been thrilled to communicate with an undead spirit, she could summarize their conversations with one word: boring. While Rose could confirm there was life after death, she knew few details about what it was like. Nellie proved to be self-absorbed and unobservant. She was like an unwelcome roommate in a room without a locking door.
Her new ghost roommate was obviously lonely, so Rose did feel a little guilty for spending more time out on the waterfall trail rather than in her room. But Nellie was kind of a downer who left her distracted and tired. Was it so wrong to want to enjoy her summer and her stack of books?
She was gently rocking in her hammock between two pine trees when she first met William. Like Nellie, William appeared gradually and then all of a sudden, sitting on the ground next to the hammock wearing long pants and a plain buttoning shirt. A surprised, but not shocked, Rose knew from his semi-transparent appearance that she was dealing with another ghost.
William stared out at the stream running next to the paved walkway. Rose had to speak to get his attention. “So, what’s your name?”
The boy turned toward the hammock in wonder. “You can see me?”
“Yeah, most of you. You see me?”
“Yes. You seemed friendly. Someone I’d like to talk to if I got the chance. That’s why I sat down. My name’s William.”
“I’m Rose. You aren’t the first ghost I’ve met.”
“Is that what I am?”
“I think so.”
William thought for a few seconds before saying, “It’s really nice to have someone to talk to.”
“You probably want to tell me about what you like about this place and what you used to do here.”
William smiled gratefully and told a meandering story about working in a mine and having lunch breaks along the stream. He was one of seven children and shared a room with four brothers. There was some type of accident in the mine. He did not know many of the details or remember anything that happened after.
William did 97% of the talking during the conversation. Occasionally, Rose muttered, “uh huh” or asked a question to show she was still listening. She kept her voice low so that anyone walking past her on the trail would not think she talking to herself. Like Nellie, William left on his own timetable without an explanation regarding where he was going.
“What is it with me?” Rose whispered to herself. “Am I some sort of ghost magnet now? Who’s gonna find me next?”
Despite her worry, the only one who kept finding her near the trail was William, no matter which location she chose. It only took a few conversations for Rose to reach the same conclusion about him that she did with Nellie: he was deathly boring. Were all ghosts that way? Or was it her? She had yet to extract any clear description of the afterlife. Maybe someone else could keep Nellie and William focused and discover more exciting stuff, but they only seemed interested in visiting her. She grew wary of lingering in either her bedroom or on the waterfall trail.
As Rose brainstormed other places she might go to read, she suddenly had a different idea for solving her ghost problem. She walked up to her room and waited for Nellie to appear.
“Where have you been? I’ve looked for you,” Millie said as she glided toward Rose’s beanbag.
“Different places. Let me ask you a question. Do you ever meet different people like you?”
“Like me in what way?”
“You know, passed on. Not in a body anymore.”
Nellie thought for some long moments. “Maybe I have.”
“Would you like to meet someone for sure?”
“I wouldn’t know where to find anyone else.”
“I do. He’s really sweet. Very handsome.”
Nellie’s outline glowed brighter. “Where is he?”
“Near the stream.”
“I don’t know how to get there.”
“I can take you. Just follow me. Will that work?”
“I can try,” Nellie said in a determined voice.
Rose stood up and said, “Stay close. I’ll walk slowly and keep talking so you can see and hear me.”
Rose crept cautiously down the stairs and into the backyard. When she reached direct sunlight, she looked back to see that Nellie’s outline was almost invisible, but she was still following. Rose kept repeating, “Just keep going. This way. Keep going.”
They reached the paved pathway and Rose stopped between two trees with a good view of the stream. Nellie looked around in panic.
“Where are we? What is this place?”
“The stream behind the house. You know it. You’ve been here before,” Rose said in a calming voice.
“The stream. I think I remember.”
They stood there for at least ten minutes as Rose tried to prompt memories of the stream. Glimpses from the past came back to Nellie and she sounded less agitated. That was when William glided in from nowhere.
“Rose, you’re here.”
“Yes, and I brought someone. Can you see her? Her name is Nellie.”
“I think I see someone. Not as clearly as you.”
“I’m hoping you and Nellie can be friends. You have a lot in common. You’re both very sweet.”
Rose looked back and forth between her ghostly companions. They both turned uncharacteristically silent after introducing themselves and saying hello.
“I thought maybe you went to school together or would recognize each other.”
William and Nellie shook their heads. William shyly asked, “Have you ever been to the mine?” Nellie had not.
After a few more awkward questions and answers, William decided he was needed elsewhere. Nellie clung to Rose on their way back to the house.
“You were right. He is handsome. Do you think he likes me?”
“He definitely likes you. That’s why he seemed nervous. The more you talk, the less nervous he’ll be.”
“But I don’t know my way to the stream. Can you show me again tomorrow?”
Rose led the way to the stream the next day and the day after that and the day after that. By the seventh trip, Nellie walked eagerly in front and Rose followed. William learned quickly to find them and after the initial conversation dam burst, he and Nellie chattered nonstop.
On the morning of the eighth day after they met, Nellie stopped in Rose’s room to tell her she had gone by herself to see William. “He’s so fun. I could listen to him talk forever.”
“You could?” Rose asked skeptically. Then she remembered to be more encouraging and said, “That’s great. You two are a perfect match.”
“You really think so?”
“The best ghost match I’ve ever seen.”
Nellie returned to the bedroom less and less. Rose found herself mostly reading in peace and she proudly giggled over how successfully her plan worked. Once day Nellie appeared and apologized for neglecting Rose and not being a good friend.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rose assured her. “I don’t take it personally. If I were you, I’d be spending most of my time with William too.”
“That makes me feel better. You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”
That was the last conversation Rose had with Nellie or William. When the summer ended, she began to wonder if she had imagined or daydreamed the whole thing. Then, on the first day of school, two of the first students she met were a boy and girl who looked exactly like Nellie and William. They held hands and asked if Rose was new.
“Yes, it’s my first day,” Rose said as all her ghostly summer memories returned.
“Would you like to eat lunch with us?” the girl asked.
Rose hesitated. She had judged many books by their covers and could already hear the boring conversation she expected from the Nellie and William clones. “Thank you, but I’m eating with someone else.”
Rose was a friendly person. What she said would undoubtedly come true.
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