Story Spotlight: “River of Renewal” by Kari Kilgore

In “River of Renewal,” Kari Kilgore strands a woman overnight in the Oregon wilderness after she loses her keys in a freezing river. What begins as an inconvenience turns into a ghostly, healing encounter—with memories, spirits, and a horse that may not be of this world.

Elizabeth’s solo hike in the Cascades was supposed to bring closure after her divorce—but when she loses her keys in a frigid river, she finds something deeper instead. As night falls, she encounters a ghostly horse and the lingering presence of pioneer spirits. Lyrical and restorative, this story blends post-divorce healing with quiet magical realism.

She’d just closed her eyes when she heard the squeak of something rubbing against glass.

The window glass right beside her head.

Elizabeth froze, holding her breath. A thousand explanations that made no sense flashed through her mind in one beat of her pounding heart.

She wasn’t parked close enough to the trees, no. And a tree branch didn’t make that kind of noise anyway. Scratching or tapping, sure.

But not that damp kind of squeak, like a wet paper towel, or a dog looking out a window rubbing its nose along the glass.

She breathed in as slowly and quietly as she could, nostrils flared wide to try to catch any faint trace of scent. Bears didn’t have nearly as much of a stink as people thought, especially during the winter, she knew that much.

But wouldn’t a bear be asleep in January?

About the Author

Kari Kilgore finished her first published novel Until Death in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where a rather famous creepy tale about a hotel sparked into life. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction.

Kari writes fantasy, mystery, romance, contemporary fiction, science fiction, and everything in between, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives with her fabulous author husband Jason A. Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about.

Find Kari at: karikilgore.com

Behind the Story

“River of Renewal” began with a half-remembered book—an old tale of settlers trapped by a sudden freeze on a river in Oregon. Kari Kilgore doesn’t remember where the book came from, or where it went, but one image stuck: the sound of icicles bobbing along the river’s edge. That single, visceral detail became the seed for this quietly haunting story of solitude, survival, and the strange kind of peace that can follow loss.

Read the Story

“River of Renewal” appears in Haunted Places, available now from Blackbird Publishing.

📚 Buy the book from your favorite store

If you liked…

• The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss—for lyrical introspection and quiet beauty
  The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce—for its slow, personal journey through loss

…then you’ll enjoy “River of Renewal”—a quiet ghost story about grief, healing, and finding your way home.

📘 Also featured in Haunted Places: “To Everything There is a Season” by P. D. Cacek, another meditative, emotional ghost story—where time, memory, and presence blur in the stillness of night.