As I clamored up the green jungle slopes of the mountain I began to pant in a most unladylike fashion. It was a hard climb. Especially in wet, stupid, ankle length skirts and petticoats.
But such a beautiful place! The huge trees of the old growth forest creaked and swept the sky while the vines and tropical flowers waved with the wind coming down the mountain. Different birds sang for mates and shouted insults at their rivals.
I was not looking forward to sailing back home. My life would be a round of balls and parties which would be fun but at the end of the season I would be expected to have offers of marriage. I was supposed to accept one of the older more monied candidates and settle down, have children and go nowhere and do nothing. How boring!
A trickle of water crossed my path and I stopped to drink the crystal drops delicious from below ground. I looked around and took a deep breath absorbing the heavy smells. Flowery perfumes, greenery reaching for the sun and the odor of things that had died and decayed long ago.
Taking out my journal I made another entry for today. The last had read;
My father and all the other scientists left the the ship at dawn after we had raised sails and come closer to the cliffs and beach at high tide.
While my governess was chatting to a sailor I slipped overboard down the anchor chain. I then swam to the shore which was very close so I could keep my journal, instruments and pack tied on the top of my head and dry. Governess saw me when I got to the beach and was shouting. I waved and disappeared into the jungle.
I continued my entries.
I so want to do my own exploring. Governess won’t send anyone after me as she doesn’t have total authority over what I do. Besides I was obviously well, and my stubbornness is legendary.
I am halfway up this mountain slope and I have sketched a number of birds and and an odd shy creature rather like a very small elephant but the trunk and ears are much shorter. I wonder if my father knows of it. I will tell him about it after he is done being angry with me.
I want to make a real scientific discovery here so they will all pay attention to me even though I am a girl.
I put my pencil down and put away the journal.
When I woke later it was to laughter. Children’s laughter.
There was fog so thick I could hardly find my own hand in front of my face. It moved past me in ghostly waves as children laughed and talked around me.
“Me temo, su piel es blanca pálida !” I heard from in front of me. My Spanish and Italian lessons helped me and I knew she’d said, “I am afraid, her skin is pale white.“
The other children laughed uproariously at this.
“Very funny idea for a ghost. You are white and a mist.”
“They cut down and take away our trees, the elders that shelter us all.”came an angry whisper from the left.
I shook my head to see if I was still asleep. My head hit a branch and it hurt so I wasn’t.
“Hello…where are you?” I asked loudly.
The voices quieted for a moment. Then there was laughter and whispering again. It was hard to be scientific and measure something I couldn’t see I thought with irritation.
I put a fresh point on my pencil, made a sketch and noted down all that occurred and some of the snatches of conversations I heard as they talked around me.
As the sun slanted I packed my things and headed back down the slope for the ship. The fog still covered everything, even obscuring my feet sometimes. Other times I got glimpses of the pathway ahead.
I felt the gentle hands of a breeze help me over huge fallen trees and whispers in my ears. Surely the beach was close now.
I climbed down the hill further and heard the children laughing as a waterfall roared.
As I took my next step I had nothing to stand on and fell forward. I was wrapped in mists and surrounded by shouting voices in the mists of the waterfall. The plummeting downward was simultaneously wonderful and terrifying.
My broken body and diary were found by my father. During the trip home I laid in a bunk below decks not moving except to breathe.
What no one else seemed to hear were the children. They came in to tell me of the tricks they played on the sailors on the deck above, stories from the forests of the islands, stories of how their parents had sacrificed them and put them inside the trees so that the forest would live.
My breath wheezing I called the governess.
“Please fetch my journal and write these stories as I dictate them.”
After some of the stories were told a child’s voice might disappear and I mourned the loss, wondering where they had gone. The others couldn’t tell me anything except more stories and legends.
Back in England my father had the stories published. For years my nurse pushed me from lecture to lecture so I could talk about the island ghost children and their stories and adventures in the world. Sometimes there was a slight mist on the stage with me as the children came with us. Many books were sold and they thought it a great joke.
To make them feel at home many trees were planted around my house each year and a forest grew.
My accident means there is no husband for me, of course. But my house is often shrouded in a blanket of fog and the sounds of children.
My door is frequently hammered on by the city dwellers complaining about missing items and tricks played by ‘my children’.
One day the noises vanished and the fog disappeared.
The children placed my body high up in a space where the tree grew around it. The village didn’t find me. 

One day a boy laying on the grass on a picnic with his family looked up at a shred of mist in a tree.
“Hey, that looks like a girl up there.” He said pointing at my tree.
“Hello!” I said.

And he heard me.