Simply a Ghost in the Woods
There is a ghost in the woods. In the woods between the road and the water. The road and the slough. Not a poltergeist or a ghoul. Not a demon threatening to drag you down to hell. Not even fairies daring you to tread upon their home that they might punish you properly. There is no magic in the woods. Not these woods. These woods simply have a ghost. Simply.
She lives under an archway. An old archway. An old collapsed archway laying atop the brush, soft from the mushrooms that eat their way through this wood in the woods. This collapsed wooden archway thick with decay shelters a ghost who whiles away her time here in the woods between the road and the slough.
Sometimes she sits along the water. Not an easy thing for you or me, this complicated place where the slough meets the woods, dense with angry brush, a thorny mess hiding a mushy, muddy floor that can hardly hold the feet of a bird. Hardly. For the ghost, such softness matters little. She simply sits where she chooses. Simply.
Today she is high in a tree. A hackberry. She looks down upon the remnants of the dance hall, the remains, and lets her mind waft through dreams. She didn’t love him. That much is for certain. She had no love for any boy. Yet, in her time, girls chose boys to love, and she chose him. That he did not choose her back was sad but not heartbreaking. Her heart was not broken. Not then. The loss was hard. The embarrassment. Daring to risk and failing. That was hard. Hard but not heartbreaking. Simply a little sad. Simply.
Two arches, decaying amidst the underbrush. A wall, barely standing, riddled with holes. The beams no more than lumber left to rot. Refuse. Nothing left of the drive buried beneath decades of growth. Of the entrance where townsfolk once fed into the hall. Of the back door where boys would gather and talk and smoke and share the beer no one was supposed to see but everyone knew was there. Of the spot further on where a dirty mattress once lay. Where she had watched it decay, day by day, eaten by insects and torn apart by field mice and birds, fodder for a new home. A better home. The curse dismantled bit by bit. By time. No. Nothing left of that. Today it is simply another part of the woods, indistinguishable from the rest.
Today, the leaves are thick. Today they block any hope of seeing the other remains. Hope. Even in the bitter sharp of winter, when one can hardly sit atop the trees without fear of being blown to another place. When even a ghost cannot find sure footing in the frozen chill, some remains cannot be seen. Of the bandstand. Of the room behind it where travelling musicians would smoke the cigarettes that smelled a little different from the others. Of the bench where she sat, embarrassed, wondering if she should simply go home.
Where her best friend in the whole world smiled at her. Took her hand. Told her it would be alright. Told her to stay. That they wouldn’t be much longer. That maybe she would meet someone else. That maybe a night of dancing and music was just what she needed. That she should simply forget the boy she never really cared for. Simply.
Across the slough, a turtle suns upon a log.
Skipper bugs dance upon the water.
In the treetop, a mosquito flits through her body. Her unsubstantial body. Her insubstantial body. Her lack of substance. So is she today. Insubstantial. Was she always?
Memories of smoke - of tobacco, cloves, and reefer - float up from the spot where a maple now grows. Where kids were not expected. Where grownups talked about grownup things. Where she wandered in her loneliness, one foot keeping her inside the pull of the dance hall, the other drawing her to the long walk home. Where the band talked about fast girls and other city things she didn’t quite understand. Not quite. Where the saxophone player smiled at her. Where she simply smiled back out of politeness. Where she simply walked with him out of politeness. Where she simply kissed him out of politeness. Where she simply allowed herself to...
Where whatever was inside her, whatever carried her through, carried her on, died. Not her body. Though she be a ghost, though she live beneath the decaying remains of arches that once held high the roof beams of the dance hall, her body did not die here. Her body lived on. Survived this building. Survived. Her body lived to see the dance hall abandoned. To decay in the woods. Left to the woodland creatures and the mushrooms and the insects to feed upon. Not her body, but she. She died, and her body lived.
Until it didn’t.
And she came back.
And she sits in the treetops, along the water, upon the cursed ground where joy and terror were always dancing together. Sleeps beneath the arches covered with thorny vines, with moss and lichen, soft with decay. And she will stay until there is nothing left. Until nothing remains. Until it is simply the woods between the road and water.
Simply.