KRISTI PETERSEN SCHOONOVER

My fascination with ghost stories is directly connected to my fascination with our personal pasts; so many of us are haunted by one thing or another, things that we don’t realize affect our choices in life many years later.

For me, RubyOtt—our childhood Adirondack summer camp—is one of those things.

Our family owned the camp from 1979-1986. 1985 was our last summer there; Dad quietly sold it after Mom passed away. It was a wonderful place to summer. Safe places to bike (often for miles), a stream to swim and play in, rocks everywhere (I was fascinated with geology), books to read, stories and poems to write, a General Store where we could buy penny candy. And then there were the trips we took: to Howe Caverns, to Lake Placid, to all of upstate New York’s bounty of summer attractions. Over the years, it haunted me that I’d never gotten…