On a hill above the Cane River in Natchitoches, Louisiana, three white columns stand where a grand antebellum mansion once rose — the only trace of a building that’s been gone for more than a century. For the students of Northwestern State University, they’re more than a landmark. They’re the heart of one of Louisiana’s most enduring ghost stories.

They say a young woman once lived — and died — within those walls, her sorrow echoing long after the fire that destroyed them. Some call her Sister Isabella, and her spirit is said to wander the campus still, from the old dormitories to the columns on Normal Hill, forever bound to the place where her story began.

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