A Ghost Story - Part X
Image: Alex Dukhanov
Jennifer held her hand aloft, fingers curled tightly around the rock. If something was out there, ready to come after her, she herself was ready to strike and kill. She bared her teeth: she’d fight like a wild animal if she had to.
Perhaps a minute went by. Jennifer’s arm ached from holding the rock. She heard the cough again, but this time it was further away. As it retreated, she lowered her arm and sank as deeply as she could into a nest of brambles. She was going to die out here and she knew it. She jammed her eyes shut.
When she opened them, she saw what she could only describe as a hazy beam of light shining down into a patch of woods some yards away from her. What the hell? It wasn’t a flashlight -- the beam was too wide and steady. There was all that blackness and then, like a message, a revelation, the misty ray of light that seemed to emanate from the sky. And that was slowly progressing toward her, as if she, Jennifer Lieber, bleeding, scratched up, terrified, was its true destination. It moved to a position right above her head and suddenly everything was illuminated and she could see the rough bark of the trees, the fallen logs and branches, the small gullies of rocks in her immediate vicinity. She stood, without thinking, craning her neck to see the light, wondering what it was and whether she could trust it to lead her out of the forest.
Image: Florian Olivo
When the light brushed her face, the skin warmed almost as if she’d received a loving caress.
Jennifer realized this was crazy, but in her desperate state she’d have believed anything; she began to follow the light which reminded her of moonbeams drifting down through the trees to form a path across the forest floor. In a kind of trance, her body surprisingly relaxed and free, she walked for what seemed like hours, never seeing anyone or hearing anything other than bird calls and the occasional flapping of wings. And suddenly, without warning, she took a step and found herself ejected from the forest, the parking lot and cottages of the fish camp directly in front of her, silent beneath a pale, low, nighttime sky.
Jennifer wanted to go straight to her cottage, lie down beneath a ton of blankets and sleep forever, but she forced herself to run to the lodge where she banged on the door for a long time before anyone answered.
Cover photo: Rosie Fraser