Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful young heiress named Elizabeth who had very bad taste in suitors. In fact, one of them--Lawrence Ichabod, the penniless heir to what had once been a vast shipping estate, murdered her one night after drinking too much dandelion wine.
He killed himself before he could be tried for the crime, but his death did not set Elizabeth free. Oh, no. Because of her horrible taste in men, Elizabeth was doomed to wander the earth until she found her one true love. Only then could she live happily ever after.
Well, after the disastrous courtship and the death of Mr. Ichabod, Elizabeth didn't want anything to do with men or true loves. She moped around for a few decades, haunting the halls of her ancestral home, but when the house was torn down to make way for a highway, she decided that she had to do something with the rest of eternity.
She traveled around the United States, helping out with hauntings here and there as she went and reading everything she could find on the subject of ghosts, the undead, and anything that had to do with the afterlife.
She thought she was happy and content until she met Delia, a little girl ghost who had lived (for such a short time!) and died in a very small town in Ohio. She had died by accident after falling into a dry well, and her body had never been found. Over the years, Delia had waited and waited for someone to find her body and lay her to rest, but no one had ever come.
When Elizabeth arrived, Delia was so happy to see another person that she didn't realize that Elizabeth was a ghost at first. And even then, just the novelty of having someone to talk to was so refreshing that Delia found she didn't really mind that Elizabeth had not come to lay her to rest. And she became Delia's travelling companion for years until Elizabeth realized the need for the Orphanage of Lost Souls.
You see, ghosts aren't nearly as popular as you might think. The people that have ghosts in their houses (or cornfields, for that matter) don't want them, and the people who want them have no way to find them. The haunted resort to drastic measures to eliminate unwanted ghosts, even though people would line up at their doors to adopt their unwanted guests if the opportunity presented itself.
After travelling around the world and reading everything she could, Elizabeth was quite the expert on hauntings and ghosts. So, when she found the old, abandoned school in the middle of what once had been a bustling little town, (and was now, of course, a ghost town) she decided to put her knowledge to good use. With Delia's help, she opened the one and only Orphanage for Lost Souls.
Over the years, the adoptions of ghosts have been kept fairly quiet. Only a select few even knew about the Orphanage's existence, and those ghosts who were lucky enough to get adopted were the envy of every ghost who remained.
Until now.
The Orphanage is getting full. Homeless ghosts are clamoring for attention. Elizabeth had to do something, so she decided to open up adoptions. Evangeline will be the first, and she is up on ebay now (May 18th) so if you want a very polite little ghost in your house, now is your chance!
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