THESE WOODS WHISPER.
The pines at your back? You can practically feel the needles bristling in the wind. Lean in and listen closely and you’ll hear their stories. Everything that’s ever happened underneath that vast canopy of conifers. Every last romantic tryst. The suicides. The lynchings. You name it. These trees will testify to them.
These woods have witnessed it all.
Whenever somebody from town wants to do something in secret, they come out here. Where they think they’re alone. Where nobody’s watching. They hide in the shadows, performing their little rituals beneath these branches, as if they believe these trees will keep their secrets for them. Their lovers’ liaisons, their midnight masses. They think nobody is listening in…but that’s simply not true. That’s not true at all. The trees are listening.
Always listening.
The woods know what the people of Pilot’s Creek have done.
What we’ve all done.
I’ve lived in this godforsaken town my whole goddamn life. I know just about everything there is to know about the people here. Every last dark secret.
Know how?
I listen. I listen to what the trees have to say.
I listen to the woods.
So. What story do you want to hear? You want to know what drove Halley Tompkins to hang herself back in ’46? Or which men it was who strung Russell Parr up? Or how about that baby they found half-buried back in ’38?
No. You’re not here for any of those stories.
You want to hear about Jessica, don’t you?
Course you do. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Tonight of all nights…
Twenty years ago on this very evening.
October 16, 1931.
We don’t have much time. Here it is, almost midnight, and I haven’t even begun telling you the tale of the Little Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek.
Poor, poor Jessica.
You brought me a bottle? Don’t be stingy on me, now. That’s my price of admission. You want to hear a story, you better goddamn well have brought me an offering.
Alms for the minstrel. Something to wet my whistle so that I’ll sing.
And Jessica’s story takes time.
Takes the life right out of me.
Her story takes its toll on the teller, you hear? The price is too high…unless you got something for me to drink. My throat’s so parched, I don’t think I can tell it without a drop of that Lightning Bolt. I’ll sound like a bullfrog before I’m finished.
Did you? Did you bring me a little something? Just to take the edge off? Warm my insides? It gets so cold out here at night.
Thank you. Thank you kindly. That’s much better. Feel that fire working its way down my throat. Settling into my belly, like a bonfire.
Now. Where was I?
Let’s start with Jessica’s mother.
Ella Louise Ford was born right here in Pilot’s Creek. She’d come from good stock. Her family owned their fair share of acreage, growing tobacco. But there was always something off about that girl. Her mother sensed it from the get-go. None of that sugar and spice and everything nice for Ella Louise. No—that girl was touched. Little Ella Louise talked to the possums. She made charms out of dried tobacco leaves. She kept bees in mason jars and hid them underneath her bed. She couldn’t be bothered with frilly dresses or dolls like all the other girls. Not the porcelain kind, with pigtails and rose-painted cheeks. She made her own dolls. If you could even call them dolls. Looked more like totems. Like effigies. Twined together from twigs and wheat. Moss and leaves. Insects in their chests. Beetle hearts.
Try as they might, Mr. and Mrs. Ford could never break little Ella Louise of her strangeness streak. She never mingled with other children her age. None of them trusted her. All the other boys and girls sensed something was off about her and kept their distance. Mother Ford took it all too personally, as if their rejection of Ella Louise were an affront to the family name.
You got to understand, a town as small as Pilot’s Creek was crippled with superstitions. Rumors spread like cancer. Words hold power around here—and once word got around about Ella Louise’s peculiar habits, it wasn’t long before business for the Fords took a turn. It only got worse as Ella Louise grew up and became a young woman. Nobody wanted to be associated with her family. Be seen fraternizing with the Fords in the streets or paying them a visit at their home. Anyone who did suffered just as much of a cold shoulder as they did.
Understand now—all anyone ever had ’round here was their reputation. Simply to be seen in the midst of the Fords was enough to bankrupt businesses. Ruin entire legacies. You couldn’t wash the stink of that family off once it clung to your skin. That family was cursed.
Mother Ford took to punishing her only daughter. Bending Ella Louise over her knee and trying to spank that darkness right out of her. Taking a switch to her thigh, until the insides of her legs bled. Anything that might exorcise this witchery brewing within her.
There it was. That word, at long last.
Witch.
It was whispered among the other mothers. Their children. All through town. In church, even. It wasn’t long before all that gossip had grown into a downright din, the rumors spreading like wildfire, until everybody was talking about it. Until it was unavoidable.
Ella Louise Ford was a witch.
Her debutante ball was an absolute disaster. Her mother moved heaven and earth to make it a night to remember. And in a way it was. It truly was…just not how Mrs. Ford had hoped for.
Ella Louise had always been a sight to behold. She looked as if she had stepped right out of an oil painting. Something you might see in a museum. Her skin was pale, always pale, with the slightest hint of pink illuminating her cheeks. A grin always played across her face, but you’d never say she was smiling. Her lips just curled heavenward all on their own. Her eyes, if they ever locked onto yours, were a deep green, as green as the deep sea, I reckon, to the depths of which no man has ever ventured. Or ever will.
What mysteries lie behind those murky eyes, only the Devil knows.
Coming out to polite society had always been a part of the way of life for Pilot Creek’s upper crust. Mrs. Ford had done it, her mother had done it, her mother before had done it, and on and on—so you damn well better believe Ella Louise was going to have her turn, no matter how much she protested. Mother Ford simply wouldn’t hear it. She refused to let the ritual go. For a girl to become a woman, she needed to be presented. To be unveiled. That was their God-given rite of passage.
Ella Louise was meant to wear a beautiful ballroom gown, made just for her. Pink silk. Mother Ford could barely hide her high hopes for her daughter when she handed over that dress. Even then, she held on to the fantasy that her own Ella Louise had a fighting chance of being welcomed into polite society…But at the very moment of her coming out, when every debutante is presented to the upper echelon of Pilot’s Creek, Ella Louise entered the dance room covered in mud from head to toe. Her gown was in tatters, all that pink torn to shreds. Dried leaves in her hair.
You could see her body moving beneath the ripped fabric, her pale flesh exposed to everyone. Practically the whole town, staring at her.
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
Ella Louise simply stood before them, smiling in that devilish way of hers, as if nothing were off about this at all. She asked her father for her first dance as a woman. Just as she had been instructed by her mother to do.
Mrs. Ford nearly fainted.
Ella Louise was cut off from that night forward. She was excommunicated from her own family. Disinherited. Her mother never uttered her daughter’s name again. Her own flesh and blood. It was as if Ella Louise had never existed. Never lived another day in their house.
So Ella Louise moved into the woods.
She made this forest her home. It’s unclear if she built her house herself or if someone had a hand in helping her, but a cabin manifested itself, seemingly out of nowhere. These woods are primarily composed of Eastern white pines that can reach up to a hundred feet, easily. They were originally used for building ship masts, centuries back, cut down and sent off to the naval yards in Norfolk. So much lush coverage, perfect for building a simple, one-story cottage with a fireplace cobbled together from stone and mortar. You could see the glow of a fire through its windows at night if you happened to be out here. But nothing and no one else actually lived out here. Not another soul.
Just Ella Louise.
And Jessica.
If I were better at my own arithmetic, I might surmise that it was the night of Ella Louise’s coming out that served as the moment of her daughter’s conception. Whatever had happened to Ella out there in those woods to bring her back in such a muddied state, well, nine months later…
But then again, I’m no mathematician.
And I sure as hell ain’t no baby doctor.
Nobody knows who Jessica’s father was. Or, more to the point, nobody owned up to it. Would you? Back then, in a town as small as this, you might as well have laid down with a leper. Ella Louise had become a burden for our town to bear. Pilot Creek’s very own pariah. Weeks, months, would go by and nobody would see her rummaging about town. Hear her voice begging for pocket change. Even think about her out here, living alone, for all those years.
But then the sound of a baby crying lifted out from the woods. Jessica’s wailing filled this forest. It echoed all the way into town. Into the ears and dreams of every last townsperson.
Ella Louise had a daughter now.
Other theories of paternity abounded. Such as Jessica had no father. She was immaculately conceived by the Devil himself. Ella Louise had made her pact with the Lord of Flies and he begot him an only daughter. Her very existence was a morbid reminder of her mother’s unholy union with Beelzebub. Ella Louise and Jessica would come into town for their groceries, just like everybody else. Can’t live off root vegetables alone, now. But when folks laid eyes on that little girl in Ella Louise’s arms, all they ever saw was the princess of darkness.
We’d only see Jessica whenever she’d come into town. Watched her grow in these fits and spurts. Months would go by and there she’d be, traipsing down the road with her mama. Always holding her hand. Always keeping her eyes down low, on the ground. She didn’t attend school with the rest of us. Didn’t learn about life like the rest of us. Whatever lessons she got came from her mother back at their cabin. I can only imagine what she was taught out there in those woods. The Devil’s arithmetic.
When Jessica turned nine, she started coming into town on her own. Always had a list of goods to fetch from the store for her mother. She didn’t have Ella Louise at her side, holding her hand and braving the lane anymore, so some of us boys felt a bit more emboldened to share our inherited distaste for Jessica. Children took to throwing stones at the girl. Calling her all kinds of names. I’m not proud to admit that I myself fetched a pebble or two in my boyhood, tossing it at little Jessica’s back.
Once, I struck her right in the shoulder.
My aim was true.
She turned right to me. Even though I was among a dozen other kids, all of them holding their own rock, she knew I’d been the one to throw it. Knew the rock had come from my very hand. She pinched her eyes—and without ever saying a single word to me, I heard Jessica’s voice in my head, as if my own thoughts were boiling over in my skull. She whispered to me.
Cursed me.
What’d she say? I’ll never tell. Not unless you’ve got another bottle on you.
Suffice to say, her curse worked. I can’t stop thinking about her. Not back then, not even now. She left an imprint of herself, a shadow, on my mind.
Little Jessica has never left.
Nobody ever mentions how beautiful she was. Her mother may have been a picture of perfection, such a lovely face, but Jessica…
Jessica took my breath away.
She was an angel.
But for the life of me, I can’t remember what the color of her eyes was. I can’t remember the color of her hair. Or the features of her face. I can’t remember any of her.
I can’t describe her.
Words escape me.
She returns to me, night after night, for over twenty years now—and yet, the moment I wake, the vision of her dissipates. Gone. Just like that. I can only see her in my dreams.
As a boy, I was frightened of her. What she might do to me. But I couldn’t stop myself from welcoming her into my head. Into my sleep. Now I wait for her. Yearning for her to return.
Why won’t she let me go?
If Ella Louise had been touched with magic, then her daughter was downright blessed. Jessica had twice the talent her mother had.
Talent. What the hell else would you call it?
Ella Louise nurtured her daughter’s talents. Taught her all she knew. If Mother Ford had done her damnedest to stamp out the fire brewing within her child, then Ella Louise went ahead and fanned those flames within Jessica. Out here, in these woods, nobody was going to stop them.
It was said that Jessica could commune with wildlife. She could mend a bird’s broken wing with just the touch of her hands. Weeds would wilt from under her touch. Just a simple tap from her finger against the soil and out sprouted a toadstool. A dozen mushrooms.
This was what people believed, at least. What folks whispered among themselves in town. Nobody ever saw these things with their own eyes. Not that we needed to.
We believed.
Any boys brave enough—or dumb enough—to set foot into the forest and sneak a peek through the windows of their cottage would get pinkeye for their troubles. Anyone who came close to their home would break out in a rash, their skin scorched with poison ivy. Anyone who spoke ill of Ella Louise or Jessica within their earshot would suddenly discover an eruption of blisters covering their tongue.
None of this was simply a coincidence. None of this was chance. We all knew what Jessica was. What her mother was. What those two were up to out here in the woods.
But even a witch has got to make a living, right? Everybody struggles. The demands to make ends meet forced Ella Louise to set up her own apothecary shop in her house. For those folks in town who preferred to forgo the traditional medicine route, Ella Louise offered something a little more…
Herbal? Of the earth, shall we say?
It’s all a bit hypocritical, I know, but sometimes modern medicine doesn’t offer the solution. And it doesn’t provide us with the destiny we believe we so richly deserve.
You want that fella to fall in love with you?
Ella Louise had something for that.
You want to get back at your boss for firing you?
Ella Louise had a little something for that, too.
You feeling sick in your soul?
Restless in the head?
Unhappy at your core?
Ella Louise had so many miracle cures. Medicines that had no names. Roots and leaves and fungi of all kinds. Flora and fauna, sealed within their own jars. The walls of her cottage were lined in glass. Hundreds if not thousands of mason jars, each one holding their own medicinal specimen. Herbs and insects and liquids of various viscosities. Each had a specific purpose, a particular healing property. Her medicines could do what the doctors in town couldn’t. You just had to be brave enough to come out here and knock on her door.
You had to ask.
Please, Ella Louise, please help me.
Save me.
Please.
Nobody would come out and admit they had ever paid Ella Louise a visit. No one would profess to taking one of her cure-alls. You might as well confess to consorting with the Devil.
But we did.
We all did.
Men and women, mothers and fathers, boys and girls alike.
How couldn’t we?
Ella Louise never judged. Never turned anyone away. She opened her doors to any soul in need who was willing to come knocking.
Shawna Reynolds had been suffering from severe cramps for the last few months of her pregnancy. She had only a few weeks before her due date, but the pain had become unbearable. Her family physician had failed her. Whatever prescriptions he provided did nothing. Shawna even crossed two county lines just to visit a prenatal specialist in the biggest hospital she could find, and even they couldn’t get to the bottom of what was wrong with her.
Shawna and her husband had been trying—and trying—to get pregnant for years. Years. They prayed and prayed, but nothing ever took root. Just when they were about to finally give up, just when there wasn’t any hope left of these two ever having their own child…It happened.
A miracle.
But the pregnancy took its toll on Shawna. Everyone could tell just by looking at her. That child was leeching the life right out of her. Rather than plumping up as most mothers do, she was only getting thinner. Skeletal. Shawna always had to rest after a few steps, sit down and catch her breath, but she never caught it. Always exhausted, and yet unable to sleep for more than a few minutes. The more her stomach bulged, the more the rest of her wizened away. You could see her rib cage rise up from her skin with every breath. Her cheekbones practically cut through her face. Her eyes sank into the depths of their sockets, all hollowed out.
Those cramps just kept getting worse.
Crippling her.
Killing her.
If you had no other choice, if modern medicine had failed you, I’d imagine you’d go visit Ella Louise, too. Shawna walked into these woods, alone, and knocked on her door.
And asked.
Please, Ella Louise, please help me.
Save me.
Please.
Ella Louise took a mortar and pestle and ground a few leaves and dried root into a powder. She scooped a spoonful and mixed it with water and told Shawna to drink.
Drink it all.
Whatever it was, it worked. Shawna’s cramps stopped. All the pain, washed away.
A miracle.
Shawna was walking again. Color returned to her cheeks. Her ribs drifted beneath a layer of flesh. Her smile, her happiness, returned, and nobody was the wiser. No one, not even her husband, knew how. Nobody cared. All that mattered was Shawna had turned a corner.
A miracle.
It wasn’t until Shawna was finally nine months pregnant that she woke to discover that her bedsheets were spotted. There was blood all over the bed.
Blood on her thighs.
Shawna’s husband—Wayne Reynolds—rushed her straight to the doctor’s house in the middle of the night. Carried her the whole way, until they were both covered in blood.
The baby didn’t make it.
Their doctor believed the miscarriage had been induced by some sort of chemical agent. The physician didn’t want to alarm Wayne, but they’d found traces of toxins that nobody in their right mind would ever ingest. Especially while they were pregnant.
Had Shawna been exposed to any kind of rare plant lately, he asked? Like Jerusalem cherry? Water hemlock? Rosary pea? Had she eaten anything from the woods recently?
Shawna broke down and confessed she had been taking a spoonful of Ella Louise’s special remedy for weeks. Perhaps a little bit more than a spoonful, she sobbed. Wayne was beside himself with grief. Son or daughter, he was prepared to love the child with his whole heart.
They buried a boy.
It doesn’t take long before grief curdles into rage, now, does it? Wayne had always been a proud man. A pillar of society. A man of God. Every Sunday, he’d be first in line to receive the sacrament. So imagine how crestfallen, how crushed he was when he found out his own wife had been sneaking off into the woods, behind his back, for a remedy that balked at God’s own divine providence. A potion that killed his unborn child before he was able to take in his first breath. That consigned their unbaptized lamb, as Wayne himself fervently believed, to eternal hellfire.
What would you have done if you were in Wayne’s shoes?
What would any of us have done?
He wanted retribution. He wanted Ella Louise to pay for what she’d done. To his wife. To his child. To his family that would never be.
Who among us wouldn’t have demanded the exact same thing? Who could have blamed him? Certainly not anyone from our town. Certainly not the people of Pilot’s Creek.
No—they understood. They saw his pain, his grief, his rage…and they knew what had to be done.
This had been a long time coming. Imagine a bonfire just waiting for the match.
Yearning to burn.
Now it was lit.
It didn’t take much convincing on Wayne’s part to get his friends all fired up. There were five men, all told. All members of the church. All law-abiding citizens.
Harold Smith. My own mailman.
Jeremy Hawthorne. Owner of Hawthorne Hardware.
Tom Watkins. Dentist.
Bill Pendleton. Accountant.
On this night, twenty years ago to the day, those five men went beyond the law. On this night, Wayne demanded justice no court could ever offer him and his family.
Tonight, they were going to burn a witch.
They circled around Ella Louise’s cottage in the dark. Lord only knows how long they stood out there. Waiting. Staring through the windows. Watching Ella Louise and Jessica go about their business, none the wiser. Jessica reading to herself while Ella Louise sewed together a new dress for her daughter. Something pretty, no doubt. Humming the whole time.
Their plan was to smoke them out. Wayne tossed a bottle filled with diesel through the window. Then Harold Smith tossed in another. The flames spread over the pine floor. All those mason jars, all that glass lining the walls of the cottage—it all started to sparkle. The reflection of the conflagration lit up within each jar, hundreds of gleaming stars coming together in some unholy constellation.
The men waited.
And waited.
How long did those two hide inside? Longer than you might imagine. They must’ve known what was waiting for them. But the air grew thick. Dense with smoke. You could hear them coughing, gasping for air as glass started to shatter all around. All those jars, all their remedies, their life’s work, was melting. Bursting. Going up in flames.
Ella Louise eventually burst through the door with nine-year-old Jessica clutched in her arms, hoisting her as best she could. That poor little girl was pressed tight against her mother’s chest, coughing uncontrollably.
Jeremy Hawthorne and Bill Pendleton each grabbed Ella Louise by her arms. She struggled against their grip, trying desperately to pull herself free.
Jessica fell to the ground. Her mother yelled for her to run, run, so Jessica scrambled to her feet and raced for the trees.
She didn’t get far.
Wayne Reynolds grabbed Jessica by her hair and yanked, sending her back to the ground. Ella Louise let out a howl as the man scooped her daughter up into his arms. Jessica’s feet kicked through the air. But it was pointless. Hopeless. She couldn’t wrestle herself free.
Tom Watkins was good with an axe, so in a matter of a few swings to a sapling, they had themselves a ready-made stake to tie Ella Louise to. They heaped kindling made of the branches of that sapling at her feet. Wet wood burns slowly. Very slowly.
The men circled around Ella Louise as she begged for her daughter’s life. Pleaded with them to spare her. Do what they must to her, but let Jessica live.
The little girl yelled and screamed for her mama. Wayne Reynolds merely passed her off to Bill Pendleton. He fished out a box of wooden matches from his pocket and shook them next to Ella Louise’s ear, those matches rattling.
Our town will not suffer a witch to live, Wayne said.
Then he struck a match.
Lighting her feet most certainly assured a slow burn. Took those flames a while to level with her head. Every mounting inch, every licking flicker was an invitation for her to shriek.
To plead for mercy.
To beg.
They made Jessica watch. Watch the fire rise. Watch the flames engulf her mother. Watch her body disappear beneath a sheet of orange and yellow. Jessica’s screams had subsided into a keening. Just wet sounds. No shape or contours to it at all. Nothing but grief.
Suddenly little Jessica pulled herself free from Bill Pendleton’s grip and ran right to her mother. Embraced her in flames. Wayne rushed to grab her and drag her back, but the girl wouldn’t let go. The two ended up burning together.
Imagine, if you can, what it must have been like. Think about the flames at your feet.
Think about them climbing up your legs.
Your knees.
Your thighs.
Think about the smoke filling your lungs.
Think about the smell of your hair. That incendiary hiss filling the air, reeking of flame. Your hair, now burning, punctuated with an intermittent sizzle and pop. The smell of it is unavoidable now. Sulfur, scorched and organic. The odor of calcinated tissue wafting along. The smoke rising up from the smoldering web on your scalp, roasting for just a moment before combusting all together. Those chestnut tresses go up so quickly, as fragile as a bird’s nest on fire.
Ever smell flesh on fire?
I have.
We all did. Everyone living within ten miles of Pilot’s Creek smelled it that night.
I heard their screams. From miles away, in the safety of my own bedroom, under the roof of my parents’ house, I swear I heard Ella Louise and Jessica Ford screaming together.
Mother and daughter.
October 16, 1931. Four minutes past midnight.
At dawn, the sun rose up to ash. All that was left were their blackened bones. The ribs of one skeleton were much smaller than the other, both charred chest cavities gripping onto each other in one last attempt to hold on. Stay together.
Those men buried Ella Louise in these woods. No gravestone. No marker of any kind. Wherever her body lies out here, those five men took that location to their own graves.
Nobody knows now.
Jessica was different. These men knew she was more powerful than her mother. They were afraid of her. She might rise from the grave and avenge her mother for what they’d done.
So what did they do?
You know this part of the story. Everyone in town knows. Those foolish men protected themselves the only way they knew how. With God. With consecrated ground.
Wayne and his co-conspirators buried poor little Jessica in a steel-reinforced coffin. They laid her body to rest right there, in our very own Pilot’s Creek Cemetery, along with the rest of the dead from our town. After they lowered her coffin into the ground, they filled it with concrete. Three whole bags’ worth. And they poured gravel over the top of her hardened sepulcher.
But those boys didn’t stop there, did they? No—they went ahead and erected a metal fence out of interconnected crosses. Over a hundred crucifixes, arm-in-arm with one another, surrounding her resting place.
To keep Jessica in the ground.
To contain the ghost of the Little Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek.
Her grave is all that’s left of this story. Their cottage is gone. Nobody knows for sure where it stood.
See this patch of soil where we’re sitting? The grass won’t grow. Trees won’t grow. Nothing will grow here now. Not in this tainted soil. I reckon this is where Jessica and Ella Louise last held on to each other. Where their bodies burned. Nothing but scorched earth.
You ever hear of that fungus that killed upwards of sixteen thousand trees back in 1935? Whole forest was nothing but gnarled skeletons in every direction. Dead chestnut trees as far as the eyes could see. The wood wasn’t even good enough for lumber. Rotten all the way through.
What do you think did that?
Wasn’t some fungus.
That was Ella Louise. Her body’s buried in these woods still, somewhere. Out here. Her blood soured the earth. Made the trees sick. What was left of her body broke down, seeping into the soil, until those roots sucked her up and choked. Took ten whole years to replenish these woods. Another five for anything to grow. The chestnuts and Eastern pines have finally come back—but still nothing grows on this very spot where we’re sitting now.
If you ask me, those two aren’t done.
Not with this town.
You can chalk it up to fate, if you feel like it, but everybody knows about Harold Smith’s car wreck. How Jeremy Hawthorne died in a freak accident while restocking his shop late one night. How Tom Watkins asphyxiated after inhaling too much of his own laughing gas, his pants puddled around his ankles. How Bill Pendleton’s body was riddled with all kinds of cancer, every last cell blackened to a crisp.
And Wayne? Well, everybody knows Wayne Reynolds took his own life not long after what he and his friends had done. Brought a double-barreled shotgun up to his mouth, wrapping his lips around the muzzle. There’s no way of saying for sure, but folks believe the last word he uttered before pulling the trigger wasn’t a word at all, but a name…
Jessica.
I hear her in my dreams. Hear her calling for me. Pleading with me. Begging for us all to save them, spare her mother, make it stop, make the flames stop.
But none of us did. None of us did a damn thing. We let them burn out there that night.
We all let it happen.
The whole town.
I visited Jessica’s grave. Once. Years back, when I was just a kid. Dumbest goddamn thing I’d ever done in my whole life. But you got to understand—you’ve got to believe me when I tell you—all that time, sixteen years up to that point, Jessica had been calling for me.
Whispering to me. Come to me, she’d say. Come to me.
I had to see her.
Just once. Just to know if I was really hearing her voice or if I was going out of my mind.
I snuck out of my parents’ house in the middle of the night and slipped off to the cemetery. I hadn’t considered the time, but when it reached four minutes after midnight…
I saw her.
Jessica. Waltzing along her grave in circles. She wandered as far as her crucifix-fence would allow. Never stepped outside it. The hem of her handstitched dress was still scorched in a ring of ash, while the rest of her dress was blinding white. Fresh cotton.
When she saw me—and she most certainly did see me—she smiled. That grin filled my chest with cold. My lungs locked up. I felt like I was drowning.
She reached out to me. Held out her hand.
Help me, she said.
I took a step closer. Lifted my arm.
Help me…
I stopped. There couldn’t be more than a few inches between our fingers.
Help…
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t take another step, no matter how loud her voice grew in my skull.
Help…
I stepped back. Away from her. Her smile withered. That was when I saw Jessica for what she really was. What she’d become, out there, under the ground, after all that time.
Her blackened bones.
Her charred lips.
Those mossy teeth.
They say little Jessica is still searching for her mother. Until they’re reunited, her soul won’t be at peace. She wanders about her grave, just waiting for someone to take her hand.
To let her out.
There it is. Four minutes past midnight. You can set your watch to it. Jessica and Ella Louise Ford breathed their last at this very moment, twenty years ago to the day.
Can you hear them? The trees? All those pines at your back, bristling in the breeze. You can nearly feel the pine needles against your neck, can’t you? Piercing your skin. The branches will reach out. Grab you. Pull you away from the campfire and drag you back into the shadows.
You’ll become a story, too. We all become ghost stories one day.
A good ghost story gets told…and retold. It’s in the telling where the tale takes on a life of its own. A ghost story grows. It exists on the breath of those who tell it.
This one will live beyond me.
And you.
It’ll live beyond all of us. This whole town. As long as there’s someone around to tell it.
And tell it.
You hear that, Jessica? I did my part. Just like I was supposed to. Like I’ve always done.
I told your story. Again.
And again.
I’m so old now, Jessica. So tired. I can’t keep doing this. Year after year. Let me go. Please. I’m begging you.
Let me go, you goddamn bitch. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please. Forgive me. Forgive me.
Free me.
Please.
Please.
Jessica, can you hear me? I know you’re listening, damn it. Please. Please forgive me. Forgive our town. Forgive the people of Pilot’s Creek.
We were wrong. We were wrong to do what we did to you and your mother.
Please. Please forgive us. Forgive us all.
Lift this curse. Release us.
Release me.