ghost stories

mary

According to the rumor, the ghost woman would appear at the side of the road, just at the edge of the woods, before you passed the old barn. Her name was Mary. A flowing white gown, black hair down her back, hands outstretched. Wandering over the damp ground ripe from rain, worms crawling at her feet. Waiting for someone she had once lost. The story went that she would ask you for a ride, and you’d never be seen again. There was a kid who everyone swore had been taken by her, but I always thought he probably just got sick of our small town and drove off somewhere. A restless soul, someone said. She has unfinished business. Even though unfinished business only means that regret and shadows need to shift their weight on the heart for more breathing room. I’d speed up when I passed that stretch of road late at night. Just in case. Headlights shining over chilly black asphalt. Radio volume turned up for distraction, afraid to look and see her pale hands reaching for me, begging for a ride. I saw her one cold night in January. At least, I thought I did. Frost on the ground, snowflakes just starting to stick. When I rounded the curve, she was there. By the side of the road, just past the old barn, eyes sad and vacant, white gown fluttering like phantom moth wings. One hand reaching out to me, her transparent loss hanging in the air. She walked towards me, into the road, but I drove right into her instead. We passed through each other, car metal slipping through an apparition, spinning on the ice that slicked the road like glass. For a second, I felt a flash of her under my ribs. A sharpness where her invisible bones wrenched through mine. Her searching and longing jolting along my spine. When the car stopped moving, the headlights lit the black frozen forest, and she was gone. I was afraid to see her again, so I stopped driving on the old road after that night. People say she still roams the woods by the barn, looking for something. For someone. Hurt holding steadfast in her brittle bones. You can hold someone against you and never really know what they’ve lost. You can feel someone’s body in your hands and never fully understand the weight of their sadness.

Anna Doogan is a writer, dancer, and mother of three living in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, Mutha Magazine, and The Literary Kitchen. She was the winner of the 2015 Hip Mama Uncensored/Unchaste Readers Writing Contest.

For more work by Anna Doogan, visit her page on our Online Sundries site.