Hello there, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest, spookiest tales on earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This picturesque tale story club, might make you stay away from

odd artwork and old hotels. It's one I call Muriel. Megan Clark did not want to stay in the

creepy Woodhouse Hotel downtown. Her parents assured her, though, that it would be fun. She and her mom and her dad were

visiting New York City during an impossibly hot summer, and they thought that the Woodhouse Hotel,

which was over a hundred years old, would be a cultural experience for their fifth grade daughter.

Besides, the Lower West Side Hotel was walking distance to many parks and museums in the

area, as well as the subway. Oh yeah, big whoop on the culture, Megan thought. The place was a

total dive. Paint peeling off the walls, roaches scamping in the bathroom as soon as you snapped

on the light, and the air conditioner was barely working well enough

to combat the muggy dog's breath air outside.

Yeah, if this is culture, I'll pass.

One thing that did interest Megan, though, was a floor-to-ceiling mural in the lobby of the hotel.

It was a painted scene with birds and trees, which was nice, but the focal point of the painting

was this pretty girl around Megan's age in a flowing white sundress, bonnet, and holding a

parasol. Something about the mural captivated Megan. When she and her parents passed the mural

for breakfast in the morning, Megan had to stop and look at it. And later that night, after

dinner, again, she had to look at it. She snapped a picture of it with her phone, but it didn't

quite capture the quality of the mural. The brush strokes were so fine. After a long day of

sightseeing in the city, Megan and her parents returned to the

...