All the Lovely Bad Ones

All the Lovely Bad Ones Plot Summary

Introduction

The summer air hung thick with Vermont humidity as twelve-year-old Travis and his sister Corey stepped off the plane in Burlington, their grandmother's warm smile masking the dark secret that lay waiting at Fox Hill Inn. What began as an escape from summer camp—after their spectacular expulsion for unleashing chaos involving overturned canoes and deflated bicycle tires—would soon plunge them into a world where the dead refused to rest. Their grandmother's charming pink brick inn nestled against the Green Mountains carried whispers of its haunted past, mentioned in guidebooks that brought ghost-hungry tourists seeking thrills. But when the siblings decided to fake a few supernatural encounters to boost business, dressing Corey in a white nightgown to dance beneath the ancient oak grove, they awakened something far more dangerous than their childish pranks. The numbered stones scattered behind the barn held secrets of Fox Hill's darkest chapter, when it served as a county poor farm where children died in winter cold and cruelty reigned supreme. Now those children had returned, and they demanded justice from the living.

Chapter 1: The Mischief-Makers' Game: Pretending to Haunt Fox Hill Inn

Travis watched his sister emerge from her suitcase with the white nightgown, her eyes gleaming with mischievous intent. The inn needed guests, and what better way to attract them than to resurrect the ghost stories that once made Fox Hill famous? The Jenningses, an eager middle-aged couple clutching their well-worn copy of "Haunted Inns of Vermont," provided the perfect audience for their theatrical debut. Under cover of darkness, Corey transformed herself into a specter with white makeup caked thick as plaster, her face hollowed into a death mask with green shadows and purple lips. The filmy scarf concealed her hair as she glided across the moonlit lawn, arms outstretched toward the inn like a vengeful spirit seeking the living. Her piercing scream shattered the night silence, echoing off the mountains and sending every light in the building blazing to life. The performance was flawless. Grandmother attributed the disturbance to escaped peacocks, but the Jenningses knew better. They had witnessed something supernatural, and their breathless testimonies at breakfast drew more believers to Fox Hill like moths to flame. Travis felt the intoxicating rush of success as reservation calls poured in, each guest eager to encounter the mysterious woman in white who pointed accusingly at the inn before vanishing into shadow. But success bred carelessness. Night after night, Corey repeated her ghostly dance while Travis created indoor disturbances with blue flashlights and sound effects, never suspecting they were being watched from the grove's deeper shadows. The ancient oaks seemed to lean closer with each performance, their branches reaching toward the inn with an almost sentient hunger. Something stirred in the darkness between the trees, awakening to the children's mockery of death itself. The game had rules they didn't understand, and players they had never invited. What began as innocent mischief was about to become something far more serious, as the boundary between performance and reality began to blur in ways that would change Fox Hill forever.

Chapter 2: Awakening the Real Ghosts: The Lovely Bad Ones

The first sign of true haunting came not as Corey's theatrical wailing, but as children's laughter rippling through the inn's walls like water over stones. Travis felt invisible fingers pinch his skin while phantom voices whispered "bad ones, lovely bad ones" in the empty corridors. The power failed without warning, plunging guests into darkness before returning with every radio and television blaring at maximum volume, creating a cacophony that no living hand had orchestrated. In the library's dusty silence, three boys materialized from shadow and memory. Caleb Perkins stood tallest among them, his freckled face bearing the stubborn defiance that had sealed his fate. Dark-eyed Ira carried melancholy like a second skin, while seven-year-old Seth, gap-toothed and grinning, embodied mischief that death itself couldn't diminish. They were joined by dozens more, the "shadow children" who flickered at the edges of vision like candleflames in a draft. These were not the gentle spirits of Victorian parlor tales, but children who had known hunger, brutality, and early graves. They spoke of Miss Ada Jaggs, the woman whose cruelty had driven them beyond endurance, who still stalked the grove where she had ended her own wicked life. The boys revealed their true nature through acts of supernatural rebellion, overturning furniture and filling the air with the sound of their eternal play, their laughter now edged with something harder than innocence. Chester Coakley arrived with his hearse and ghost-hunting equipment, accompanied by the eccentric Eleanor Duvall, both eager to document paranormal activity for fame and profit. But the bad ones had no patience for adult exploitation, terrorizing the self-proclaimed psychics with manifestations that sent them fleeing into the night. Travis began to understand that he and Corey were not puppet masters but unwitting servants to powers that demanded justice, not entertainment. The temperature dropped whenever the children gathered, and objects moved with purposeful malice rather than random haunting. These dead boys had unfinished business with the living world, and they had chosen Travis and Corey as their agents of retribution. The siblings had awakened forces that would not be dismissed with rational explanations or morning light.

Chapter 3: The Truth Revealed: Fox Hill's Dark History as a Poor Farm

The leather-bound pamphlet fell from the library shelf as if guided by invisible hands, its pages revealing Fox Hill's forgotten horror. From 1821 to 1841, the elegant inn had served as a county poor farm, where families too destitute for survival were delivered like livestock to await death. Cornelius Jaggs and his sister Ada ruled this kingdom of despair with iron fists and hearts of stone, growing fat on funds meant for the destitute while their charges starved in unheated rooms. Through spectral television broadcasts that no living hand controlled, Travis and Corey witnessed the arrival of the Perkins family, Caleb's people, delivered to Fox Hill's door by wagon through winter mud. They watched as Miss Ada's pale eyes assessed the boy's rebellious spirit and marked him for special torment. The cruel woman separated families without mercy, consigning men to one building, women and infants to another, children to the basement cells where rats provided the only companionship. The images revealed systematic abuse disguised as moral instruction. Miss Ada wielded her cane with religious fervor, beating confession from children who had stolen scraps of cheese to survive another day. She left Caleb, Ira, and Seth outside in killing frost as punishment for their defiance, their small bodies found frozen at dawn while she sipped tea in her warm parlor. Their deaths were recorded as runaways in the false ledger shown to county inspectors. The numbered stones behind the barn marked sixty-seven graves, each soul reduced to digits carved in weathered granite. No names honored their memory, no dates marked their passage from this world. They had lived as forgotten paupers and died as statistics, their suffering erased from official records by the woman who profited from their misery. But death had not silenced their voices or satisfied their need for recognition. The bad ones had waited more than a century for someone to acknowledge their humanity, to speak their names aloud and remember their stolen lives. Travis and Corey held the power to grant what they sought, but first they would have to face the monster who had created them.

Chapter 4: The Three Tasks: Finding the Ledger, Marking the Graves, Confronting Miss Ada

The bad ones demanded three acts of redemption from their unwitting awakeners. First, the true account book must be retrieved from its hiding place, the secret ledger where Miss Ada recorded actual names and dates of death rather than the fabricated stories told to authorities. Second, proper headstones must mark the burial ground, replacing anonymous numbers with the dignity of remembered names. Third, and most perilous, Miss Ada herself must be confronted and banished from the grove where her malevolent spirit held court. Martha Brewster revealed her family's generational secret as she grabbed Seth by his ghostly shirt, her weathered hands somehow solid enough to restrain the incorporeal child. The Brewsters had guarded Fox Hill for decades, their bloodline bound to protect the restless dead from a promise made to Seth's dying mother. They knew the inn's every shadow and whisper, but even they feared to disturb Miss Ada's eternal vigil. The search for the ledger led to midnight grave-robbing, Travis and Corey armed with shovels and flickering lantern light as they descended into Miss Ada's final resting place. The metal box lay cradled in the bones of her skeletal hands, its contents preserved by her desperate need to maintain control even in death. The account book's pages revealed the full scope of her crimes, sixty-seven names carefully recorded alongside the wealth stolen from their meager county allowances. Each grave marker would cost more money than Grandmother possessed, forcing them to settle for a single memorial stone bearing all the names. But the bad ones accepted this compromise with grace, understanding that recognition mattered more than individual monuments. They had waited so long to be acknowledged as human beings rather than numbers or nuisances that any remembrance felt like resurrection. The most dangerous task remained. Miss Ada Jaggs had grown stronger in death, feeding on darkness and hatred until she became something far worse than any living tyrant. She commanded the grove with absolute authority, and approaching her domain meant risking not just death but something far more terrible, the complete destruction of hope itself.

Chapter 5: The Exorcism: Setting Free Both the Living and the Dead

Miss Ada materialized in Travis's room like concentrated malice, her skeletal form wrapped in the tatters of a once-fine dress, her hollow eyes burning with fury over the theft of her precious ledger. She seized both children with supernatural strength, her touch numbing their limbs and filling their minds with visions of worthlessness and despair. Her power lay not in physical violence but in psychological torment, forcing them to relive every shame and failure until suicide seemed like mercy. She dragged them to the grove where a noose hung waiting from the very branch that had ended her own life. The rope's putrid smell filled Travis's nostrils as she commanded him to climb, her voice weaving spells of self-loathing that made obedience feel like salvation. He ascended through leaves that whispered "nothing, nothing, nothing" until his own existence seemed meaningless as morning mist. But the bad ones refused to abandon their chosen champions. Caleb, Ira, and Seth materialized in the tree's crown, pulling Travis higher while the shadow children swarmed Miss Ada with taunts and mockery. They had learned death's greatest lesson: she could only hurt those who gave her permission to do so. Their laughter shattered her authority as they danced around her fallen form, finally free from the terror she had wielded over them for more than a century. A darker figure emerged from the shadows beyond the grove, tall and menacing, wearing the face Miss Ada had hoped to see. She ran to embrace what she believed was her brother Cornelius, only to discover something far more sinister awaiting her. The entity that claimed her was neither sibling nor salvation but the final judge of those who show no mercy, carrying her screaming into darkness while her victims watched without pity. The exorcism was complete not through ritual or prayer but through the power of truth acknowledged and justice served. Miss Ada's reign of terror ended where it had begun, in the grove where her own guilt had driven her to self-destruction, now claimed by forces that recognized no excuses for cruelty to the innocent.

Chapter 6: A Bittersweet Farewell: When Stars Reclaim Their Children

The memorial stone arrived on a flatbed truck, its pink marble surface carved with sixty-seven names that transformed anonymous numbers into remembered souls. Samuel Greene, Edward Bellows, and dozens of other shadow children found their identities restored alongside Caleb, Ira, and Seth's family members. The workmen fled after experiencing supernatural pinches and floating daisies, leaving the living and dead to gather in solemn ceremony. As darkness fell, the bad ones prepared for their final journey beyond the veil. They had achieved what their earthbound spirits required: recognition, justice, and peace. Caleb spoke of following starlight to whatever realm awaited souls who had suffered enough, while Ira's perpetual sadness finally lifted into something approaching joy. Even Seth's mischievous energy began to fade as he embraced Mrs. Brewster one last time. They revealed their final gift before departing, a pot of gold coins that Cornelius Jaggs had intended to steal before abandoning his sister to face justice alone. The two hundred and twenty-five dollar pieces would fund Grandmother's charitable works, returning stolen wealth to serve the poor as originally intended. It was fitting that the bad ones' last act would be one of generosity rather than revenge. The farewell took place on the inn's front porch under a canopy of Vermont stars, each ghost child growing more translucent as dawn approached. They drifted across the lawn like dandelion seeds on summer wind, rising steadily toward the heavens until they became indistinguishable from the celestial lights that guided their passage. The shadow children followed in whispered waves of gratitude and laughter. A shooting star streaked across the pre-dawn sky just as the last spirits vanished, confirming what everyone already knew in their hearts. The lovely bad ones had finally found their way home, leaving Fox Hill Inn peaceful for the first time in over a century, its halls no longer echoing with the cries of children who died too young and too alone.

Summary

Travis and Corey's summer prank had awakened forces beyond their comprehension, transforming a simple ghost hoax into a supernatural reckoning that demanded justice for the forgotten dead. Their encounter with the bad ones taught them that some games carry consequences that echo across generations, and that the living bear responsibility for acknowledging the suffering of those who came before. The siblings learned to distinguish between harmful mischief and meaningful rebellion, finding courage to face genuine evil when their innocent friends needed champions. The story of Fox Hill Inn reminds us that history's darkest chapters leave scars on the landscape itself, and that some wounds can only heal when truth replaces comfortable ignorance. The bad ones found peace not through vengeance but through recognition, their names carved in stone serving as testament to lives that mattered despite ending in unmarked graves. In a world where cruelty often goes unpunished, sometimes it takes the innocent dead to teach the living what justice truly means, and children to show adults how to fight for those who can no longer fight for themselves.

About Author

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Mary Downing Hahn

Hahn interrogates the complexities of childhood and adolescence through narratives that weave realism with supernatural elements, thereby crafting a distinctive space within young adult literature. Her early experiences growing up in College Park, Maryland, and her career as a children's librarian profoundly inform her storytelling, enabling her to capture the essence of youthful curiosity and the search for identity. In books like "Wait Till Helen Comes," Hahn blends atmospheric ghost stories with themes of family and personal growth, a method that resonates strongly with middle-grade and young adult readers. \n\nHer approach often involves detailed character-driven plots where the ordinary collides with the extraordinary, creating a tapestry of human experience that reflects on loss, identity, and acceptance. Although she did not embrace writing seriously until her forties, Hahn’s dedication to revising and refining her work has resulted in a robust literary portfolio that includes more than 30 novels. Her debut, "The Sara Summer," showcases her commitment to nuanced storytelling despite initial setbacks in publishing. Hahn’s work has garnered numerous accolades, such as the Mark Twain Award and the Golden Sower Award, underscoring her impact on the genre and cementing her legacy as a celebrated author whose narratives provide readers with both entertainment and profound insights.

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