Another What's This Book thread?

[SaladBarNanny]

I read it around the age of 10, late 80s. I'm really hoping I'm not conflating two stories here, but the plot as I remember it is a girl staying in a house in or near woods. Befriends the ghost of a girl who died long ago.

The living girl discovers the truth about the other girl's death by either witnessing it or reliving it "as" the dead girl. She was murdered by her (step)mother and buried secretly in the woods. There was a disturbing scene where the (step)mother burns the girl's wrists somehow.

I also think there was an element of the plot that took place in an old Victorian school, possibly with additional ghost(s), but that might be where I'm mixing up two stories.

It sounds really distressing and not suitable for kids, but I definitely read it as a child! I remember being very saddened by it and it's stuck with me all these years, but I have no idea what the book was.

Does anyone recognise it?

Hopeful bump!

Wait Till Helen Comes" by Mary Downing Hahn?

I thought it sounded like Mary Downing Hahn too, not sure which one though. The Time of the Witch was one of my favourites books when I was young.

Thanks! It's not Till Helen Comes but I'll have a look at her other books to see if one fits

Was it some sort of time travel book?

There was an old house in the woods and the modern day girl went into the house and found the other girl, who was living as she was alive in Victorian times?

So the modern girl could go in and out of the house and as far as the girl in the house was concerned, it was Victorian times, so wore Victorian clothes etc?

Sorry, no idea what it was called, it's just a book I think I can remember.

Moondial? Don't remember the burnt wrists but there was a birthmark element to it...

Although also sounds like several of the Point Horror short stories all merged into one.

This sounds very much like Come Back Lucy by Pamela Sykes, but that isn’t the book the OP is looking for, as no woods or Stepmother.
In Come Back Lucy the girl has to live with some cousins when the Great Aunt she has been living with dies, the cousins live in a huge old house and Lucy finds that she can slip between the present day and a hundred years earlier (1870s), where she meets another girl. It is a good book, very gripping !

is it when Marnie was there?

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. It's none of the books mentioned so far. It did have an element of time travel/time slips, in that the modern girl was able to witness or experience some scenes from the murdered girl's life.

I wonder if the short story suggestion might be right. I will look into that!

The Lovely Bones?