Ghostcreek Hollow
Part 1 - A Ghost Story About the Living
“Hey Dad, can I go with Tristan to the gas station? We want to get Slurpees.”
His dad, Marvin Goodfellow, looks up, startled from a crooked, uncomfortable pose. He’s been staring at his phone for what feels like forever, his glasses reflecting cold blue light.
“Uh… yeah. Sure.”
Something’s off with Dad. Will can’t tell what.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Uh… mm… here’s ten bucks. Get a snack.”
“Ten bucks? Awesome! Want change?”
“Nah, go spend it. Enjoy your weekend.”
Dad peels a purple ten from his wallet, a faded family photo flopping where his ID might sit.
“Thanks, Dad!” Will says, running outside to his CCM 18-speed and bolting like a Zapdos breaking from a thundercloud. Will rubs his chest. That ache behind his breastbone has lingered for days and now feels suddenly sharp. He slips an earbud in his right ear, and voice dials Tristan.
Tristan’s house sits across the Ghostcreek Hollow Crescent. He flies past Pumpkinhead Lane, the road that splits the crescent into a trident. The elms claw at a cloudy sky; leaves whirl up like ghosts. Crisp mid-October air puffs out as if he were a steam-powered boy. Usually, Winnipeg has had snow by now, but it’s been holding back, threatening a real dump any day now.
But even when the mercury was zero or lower, it was always Slurpee time.
“Yeah, I’m good,” says Tristan in his ear. “Shall we meet there?”
The ache blossoms into shortness of breath, and a scent that takes him to…where? That ecovillage where he met Dad’s good friend’s kid, Elke. They made glass bottlebricks for their earthship, and the sour-soapy smell of bad bread and Blue Dawn. The wine bottles had smelled sweetish, and, curious, he had tried a sip once from Mom. He didn’t like it, and grossed out, swore he would never drink alcohol.
Elke’s goofy smirk was infectious, and he couldn’t help being drawn to her bright personality. Her online alias was Emberly, like a spark of light. She was smart, honest and quick. He didn’t have to pretend to be someone he wasn’t around her or Ansel or Miriam. He had felt welcomed and seen there. That was only a few months ago, in August.
And now, sitting as if she were playing in sand on the sidewalk of Ghostcreek Hollow, far from the ecovillage known as Larkwood Lane in the Interlake, is a girl that looks so much like Elke that Will skids his back wheel to a stop, mouth agape. There’s something wrong about her though. The back of her head looks…hazy, not there. She’s surprised, dazed. Her jaw twitches; her eyes roll back and close.
“Elke?” His forehead tingles inside, a ghost trying to get out.
The pallor that goes over her is death, and Will watches her lifeforce drift away, a steam that scatters into October air like his breath.
He tries to breathe, but his lungs feel wrapped in iron. His cheeks are suddenly much colder, and he doesn’t know why at first. It isn’t until later he realizes they’re covered in chilling tears.
He approaches the girl, but when he tries to touch her, there’s nothing to touch. Vertigo spins his head as his hands pass through. It’s an illusion, a horrible, heart-wrenching illusion he can’t look away from.
He doesn’t know what just happened. After a moment, he realizes Tristan’s voice is whispering in his ear.
“WILL! What’s going on? Who’s Elke? Are you crying?”
Will hasn’t yet come back into his body; everything feels swimmy. He hears the voice, but his mind is more like ‘Oh, I hear something.’
“I…I don’t know. Am I?”
“I’m coming to you, ‘kay?”
“Kay.”
Mesmerized, Will gets up close. Her dead, blue eyes look surprised. Little forest spirits from Princess Mononoke hang in her pierced ears. She has an undercut and a ponytail to keep her hair off her shoulders.
“What… is that?”
Will jumps out of his skin, but immediately comes back in.
“You can see her?!” he practically screams at Tristan.
Tristan’s eyes are wide, and he can’t figure out what he’s seeing.
“What… is that?” he repeats.
Will swallows, a fresh cascade of tears running down his cheeks that he rubs away quickly.
Tristan sees this and gently stills his upraised hand, pulling him into a sideways hug.
Finally, Will can turn away from the mesmerisation and, eyes wide, puts his face into Tristan’s arm.
He screams.
“I got you, I got you, you’re ok,” says Tristan. And quietly, after a moment, “You knew her?”
He squeezes his eyes shut so tight he sees stars, nodding his head.
A few minutes later, Tristan shifts, rubbing his forehead like something’s trying to escape.
“Man, my forehead feels all tingly and stuff. Check this. This is weird.”
“Mine too. What’s that?” Will turns, pushing tears back. Tristan is holding out his phone, the camera app on. On the sidewalk, the girl is starting to fade. On the screen, it’s just sidewalk.
Will’s eyes switch between the apparition and the screen, his head starting to hurt again.
“I don’t get it,” says Will.
* * *
“When can I see Elke again?” says Will, his voice an alarm bell in a house as quiet and heavy as a tomb. He calls into the kitchen, where his parents are standing and talking in hushed whispers.
Silence.
He comes around the corner, and Dad has a hand over his mouth in thought, his eyes wide at Mom. She looks like she’s seen a ghost, but Will thinks maybe he has, and their quiet only makes him mad.
He’s about to speak, but…
“I don’t know,” says Dad. “I…”
“Tell him,” says Mom, and his heart drops.
“Tell me what?” he says, louder than he usually is. “Tell me what?” he repeats.
Dad looks away, staring into the distance, not wanting to be here.
“What brings this up? You’ve only seen her a few times. Why would you bring her up?”
Mom’s hands slap the countertop, and Will recoils. She stalks out of the kitchen.
Will cannot tell his dad what he saw. Dad is a robotics engineer and he thinks in terms of bits, bytes, millimeters, and pounds. If anything, Dad may think Will is having a psychic break. Tristan saw it too, even if the camera couldn’t capture it.
“Were you looking at my phone?” asks Dad. “I mean, it’s fine if you were. Just own up to it and let’s move on.”
Suddenly suspicious, his head takes over.
Why would he ask if I was looking at his phone?
His heart—left alone without a driver—breaks, and again he’s crying. He can’t remember the last time he cried twice in one day. This time, Tristan isn’t here.
He’s not a little kid who cries over skinned knees. He’s ten and once pulled a fishing hook from his thumb.
Dad’s eyebrows raise, his eyes close. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply accusation.” He sighs, looking at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Let’s talk about this later.”
He wishes for a hug, but right now, he might recoil from Dad’s touch.
“Fine,” he chokes out.
Mom has pulled out Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. The worn book lies open on the couch, a Minecraft sock marking her place. Arms full of laundry, she bustles past him.
“How was the Slurpee run?” she asks.
Right. Slurpees. “It was fine,” he says. “What were you mad about in the kitchen?”
Her silence doesn’t give him much to go on. After a few minutes, “Dad’s got stuff he needs to talk about. He’ll get to it when he gets to it.”
“Right.” Dad is infamously avoidant.
She washes her hands in the laundry sink, briefly dries them, gives him a smile, touches his neck.
“AH! You’re all cold! Leave me alone!” He storms out of the laundry.
* * *
Later, when climbing into bed, Will sneaks the tablet under his pillow. Once Mom and Dad are asleep, he launches an aging AI app he and Tristan have played with and ages himself. He’s done this before, and knows he looks like Dad. Maybe it will it fool Dad’s face sign-in this time.
He steals out of his room. Dad’s phone is charging on the kitchen counter.
Dad thought I already looked at his phone. So there’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing. I didn’t say no. I’ll just have to fess up.
Holding his breath, it takes a couple tries, but the phone accepts the tablet as a face login. With a slow exhale, his heart thumps. He hasn’t done this before. What if Dad finds out? And what exactly is he looking for?
He checks texts, and there’s a long text chain from someone named Ansel Rademacher. Wasn’t Elke’s last name Rademacher?
Found it.
Breathing rapidly, he scrolls through the texts, and the way Ansel chats, it’s like he’s a scared little boy. Will’s heart thumps like footsteps of an approaching giant, and he wonders if it will wake anyone up.
He comes to a text received today, and there’s an attachment. Its filename indicates it’s a door-cam file.
Ansel’s door-cam? From the cottage?
Time stands still for what could be hours. He holds his breath. Closes his eyes. Swallows. His chest still aches.
Should I?
“Doin’ it,” he whispers.
The video shows Elke playing in a sandpit across the gravel driveway of the Rademacher’s cottage in Larkwood Lane.
She’s sitting the same way he saw her on the sidewalk.
His heart leaps.
She’s alive!
But wait…
Two dogs run by, playful, being chased by another boy about Elke’s age. He hasn’t thought about that boy in a long time. What was his name? It was Icelandic, Maylin? Vaelin.
A few minutes later, the dogs run by in the opposite direction, behind Elke, close to a trailer. They wrestle, bounce against the trailer, and a wheel chock knocks loose. The dogs get up and keep running. Vaelin doesn’t appear again.
The trailer, its hitch held up by a wheel, begins a slow roll downhill, picking up speed. Elke is focused on decorating her sandcastle with what look to be nuts, twigs and other gathered materials.
The hitch hits her where her ghost was fuzzy. The two tires on the one side roll over her, over the sandcastle, coming to a stop in the sandpit.
His legs collapse. Holding the phone, he slouches down on the floor, his back against a cupboard door. The glow from the cell phone lights his glistening face, tears turning into a flood that won’t stop, and he can’t look away.
He watches it again.
His forehead pulses, something inside spinning, like a disc.
Still awake, Will doesn’t move when Mom turns the kitchen light on in the morning, the timed coffee pot already brewing.
Ghostcreek Hollow is part of the living world of A Garden of Galaxies.
If it moved you, share it with someone who still believes the veil gets thin this time of year.