Word of a ghost didn’t hurt business at all. It had obviously tapped into a group of people that they wouldn’t have expected there. You could tell the people who had shown up for the spiritual experience from those who came for the spirit. The former were well dressed, if bland in appearance. The ghost hunters were almost always in black and dressed very casually.

Xian felt that they tainted her attraction but she couldn’t think of any good way of shooing them out. They had just as much of a right to be there as anyone else. They posted signs near the entrance asking people to stay on the paths and be respectful of others in the garden. That was the best they could do.

There were some incidents. Four guys showed up dressed like the guys in ‘Ghostbusters’ each of them carrying some kind of exotic gun like thing. The one in charge was obnoxious and loud. They were detained and the police were called to escort them off of the property.

There were offers from cable shows to come out and verify that a ghost was haunting the place. Xian turned them down. The whole idea of a ghost cheapened what she had tried to build. She hoped that if they ignored it, the interest would die down and they could get back to normal.

That hope died a few weeks after opening. A young man had been alone out near the giant chimes. He was standing there waiting for them to ring. The subsonic tones that they created were almost chilling and it was widely felt that this was the most spiritual spot in the whole garden.

They had rung and he closed his eyes the better to drink in the sound. It peaked and he listened to it gradually drop off when it stopped suddenly. He opened his eyes and saw a young lady dressed all in white standing next to them. She was studying the chimes and had placed her hands on two of them. She didn’t seem to notice that anyone else was there.

He stood there watching her. She was calmly gliding her hands over the surface of the giant metal surface. He shifted his weight and made a small sound. She turned and noticed him, stepped behind the chime and disappeared. He waited to see if she’d come back out but she was gone.

This was the first of the ghost sightings but hardly the last. Soon others reported seeing ‘The Lady in White’ at other places. She was deep in the Bamboo Forest. She was on the small island at the koi pond. There were reports from all over the park but she seemed to like the giant chimes most of all.

Xian’s Wind Chime Garden became the hottest point on the ghost map. She had wanted pilgrims from across the country to plan trips to come out and meditate. Instead they were coming to see a ghost. Even worse, they thought the ghost was her mother.

She took some consolation that the reports invariably agreed that it was a young woman. Her mother had been quite old when she died. Anyone who saw her would have thought of her as ancient. If there was a ghost, and Xian still didn’t believe there was, maybe it was someone else. If the garden had been built on the spot of some other ghost’s haunt, she couldn’t possibly be blamed for that, could she?

She had wanted to build something spiritual. Some place where people could come and meditate. They would leave with peace and be grateful for it. She had consulted monks and priests. She had talked with leading spiritualists all in an attempt to create something respectful and eternal. Now, because of some bad camera work and the observations of a few gullible people, it was becoming known as some kind of ghostly theme park.

Xian did catch a break. A local television station had planted a mole within her attendants. Someone who would be on the lookout and see if the garden workers were doing something to fool the visitors. This was supposed to be a large expose which blow the lid off of a crooked company and if lucky, create something good for sweeps!

Nothing came of it. The mole could only report that she had seen nothing strange going on. There were no white costumes lying around. No strange, unaccounted conversations. The other workers seemed just as confused as everyone else.