Ghost Soldier by Elaine Marie Alphin

nodded, still grinning. “Or I will. Don’t worry—we won’t leave you here forever!”
    I gave him a fake smile as he turned away. I was ready to bet they wouldn’t leave anybody here and just forget about them. I mean—somebody might sneak into their supersecret buildings and make off with a prototype game or something.
    â€œIt should be over this way,” said Rich, glaring at the departing guard.
    â€œIf we just take off, he’ll follow us,” I said. “Wait till he’s out of sight.”
    â€œWhy are they so worried about guests?” asked Rich. “Your father was invited—what has happened to our Southern hospitality?”
    I walked across the grass toward the lake, keeping an eye on the guard. “This isn’t a home, Rich,” I told him. “They’re not trying to be hospitable. It’s a business—they design computer software, and it looks like they worry a lot about someone sneaking out with stolen programs.”
    â€œI saw this place change over the years,” Rich said, frowning, “and realized it was no longer a home, but that’s no excuse for such rudeness.”
    â€œYou saw it change? But I thought you stayed at Fort Stedman.”
    â€œI would come back sometimes—” he said, “not often, perhaps every twenty or thirty years—to see if Louise, or someone with our family features, had ever come back to Two Stirrups. But I never saw anyone, so I’d return to the battlefield.” He looked down like he was embarrassed. “It was lonely here with everyone gone. And there were other ghosts at Fort Stedman who couldn’t rest either. We stayed together all those years. It’s fairly quiet except on the anniversary of the battle. Then we all experience it again. I guess we always will.”
    â€œI wonder why you were the only one to realize I was an out-of-timer,” I said, remembering all the soldiers crowded into Fort Stedman. Why had he zeroed in on me, someone who had lost his mother at the same age and who was going to end up so near Stirrup Iron Creek? There seemed to be an awful lot of coincidences bringing us together.
    Rich looked at me. “When the right out-of-timer comes for one of us, he knows. It’s meant to happen.” He seemed to be taking it all in stride.
    Rich glanced back at the computer company’s buildings. “The last time I came here, I saw those buildings and the lake and these trees around us. The buildings were brand new and I went inside, just to see if I could recognize anyone—”
    â€œWait a minute,” I said. “How did you get inside with all this security?”
    He smiled. “They never saw me, of course. I walked through that first building, and there were lots of small rooms, with people sitting by themselves, pushing buttons and staring at lighted windows. Then I walked through another building, and I saw people wearing strange, thick spectacles, working with tiny strips of gold and copper, laying them down in patterns on shiny green plates of something—glass or metal perhaps? I watched them for a long time but couldn’t understand the purpose of their work.”
    â€œThose green plates are called circuit boards,” I tried to explain. “They make a computer work. The guys in the little rooms were working at computers.”
    â€œComputers? Yes—that was the word they used,” said Rich. “But what does a computer do?”
    I scratched my head. I used my Mac for everything from games to writing papers to doing my math homework. Big companies used their computers to figure payroll and calculate engineering statistics and utilities usage, I guessed. “Well,” I said slowly, “basically it calculates things, only it does it really fast. And it remembers the calculations forever—at least until you tell it to forget them.”
    â€œIt figures?” Rich asked. His