SOLVED. Early chapter book ghost story about twins whose mother dies in a plane crash. [s]

[Michaela]

I'm looking for what I believe is an early chapter book that made a big impression on me when I was little. I read it as a paperback in either 1998 or 1999, and it was in a classroom library in Arizona, so it wouldn't surprise me if it had been published some time before then.

The book is about twins (a boy and a girl) whose mother dies in a plane crash. Before the mother got on the plane, the twins and their father gave the mother a locket to remember them by while she's traveling. After the crash, the girl wakes up in the middle of the night and sees her mother's ghost, who gives her the locket. When the father sees that his daughter has the locket, he doesn't believe her about the ghost and claims that it must have fallen into the girl's pocket before the mother got on the plane.

I believe there is also a time skip of some kind, and that the book continues when the twins are older (teenagers?). The mother's body also gets exhumed at some point (the coffin wasn't sealed right, so the body is damaged) and father puts the locket back inside, which makes the daughter start having nightmares. (Just now realizing how dark this book is, yikes...) I also remember the narrator of the book (the girl) frequently breaking the fourth wall to address the reader directly.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Rosa]

The Very Real Ghost Book of Christina Rose?

[Michaela]

That's it!!

Wow, thanks, this book has haunted me for years!

[Rosa]

Wonderful! Heh heh...“haunted.”