Chapter 16 Collins #3
Sometimes, this route would also have the silvery wisps of animal ghosts—elk, deer, bears, wolves, even—running through the woods.
As a kid, I struggled with the circle of life and how that related to animals.
I didn’t like the concept of predators and prey, and I hated that animals didn’t live forever.
I hated that cars hit deer exploring their own home and the survival-of-the-fittest bullshit.
But my abilities helped once I started noticing animals continuing to roam after they’d died—like they completed one circle of life and now they got to live out another one without the danger and detriment of the first.
That was what I always came up to the river looking for. It gave me hope that everything—no matter how hard or terrible it felt—was as it was meant to be.
“You’ll want to slow down a little bit here,” I said to Brady. “About a hundred feet up, the road ends, but there’s a little alcove of trees off to the right, which is perfect parking.”
“Got it,” he said, and I felt the truck slow as he took his foot off the gas pedal. “Why does it feel so much darker up here?”
“The forest gets denser the farther up you go,” I said. “The trees get taller and block more of the light.” That was the logical answer, but I always felt like it was more than logic that gave the forest and the Sweetwater River its vibe.
Brady pulled into the alcove of trees. The trees here grew in a nearly perfect arch, so trucks almost always fit perfectly. Not that it would matter if it didn’t—we could park in the middle of the road. No one was coming up here.
When I opened the passenger door, the first thing I noticed was the chill in the air, and I was grateful I’d put on a few extra layers—a tank top and a long-sleeve—under my hoodie to keep my trunk nice and warm.
“Why does the road just…end?” Brady asked when we met up at the back of his truck.
I slung my daypack over my shoulder. “Whoever was doing the road construction saw some weird shit that scared them enough that they left the road abandoned and unfinished.”
“I feel like you’re yanking my chain again,” Brady said with a shake of his head.
“I’m not. I promise,” I said, putting my hand over my heart. “It’s not my fault you’ve lived here for a year and never realized how creepy it is. C’mon. We’re going to head up this trail for a while.”
Brady gestured for me to go first. “So what kind of ‘weird shit’ did they see?”
“So, in my experience,” I started. “Ghosts aren’t really malevolent or unkind. Mostly, they’re just neutral toward the living—we’re small potatoes compared to whatever parallel realm they’re existing in. But the ones that have anchored themselves up here are…different.”
“Anchored themselves?” Brady asked from behind me.
“Oh, um, that’s a term that Clarke and I coined. It just means where a spirit chooses to be—the place where their energy is the strongest.”
“Got it. So, different how?”
“They’re a little more…wary of visitors, I guess. Sometimes, a little sinister.”
Brady’s footsteps stopped behind me. “So first, you took me to a structurally unstable church, then a literal murder house, and now you’re telling me you brought me to a place with sinister ghosts?” Brady demanded. “Great.” The sarcasm in his voice was palpable but so was the amusement.
“They’re only sinister sometimes!”
“That’s really reassuring, Collins.”
I stopped and turned around to face him. “You said you don’t even believe in ghosts!”
He took a few steps closer to me before he stopped again. His blue eyes were on me, and I liked having him in my space. I wanted him closer. “I do if they’re sinister. I don’t want to get possessed or some shit.”
“I would not let you get possessed,” I said.
“I don’t think you can control that.”
“Okay, maybe not, but I can be very persuasive. I’d talk the ghost out of it—tell them you’re not worth possessing.”
Brady looked like he was fighting a smile. “I don’t know if I should be offended that you don’t think I’m worth possessing.”
“Oh my god. Do you want to get possessed or not?”
“I’m going to go with no.”
“Good answer,” I said, and turned back around. I probably wouldn’t even notice if I got possessed with everything I had going on.
“So,” Brady said. “Tell me what weird shit the road workers saw.”
“I don’t want to send you running back down the mountain,” I joked. “Are you sure you can handle it?”
“Only one way to find out.”
“Apparently, there’s a spirit that haunts this part of the woods,” I said as we walked.
“She’s kind of like Sweetwater Peak’s version of Bloody Mary, but the kids call her the Lady in White.
She’s in the forest because that’s where she was supposed to rendezvous with her lover, but her husband got to him first. They say she died here of a broken heart. ”
“That feels like a classic,” Brady said.
I nodded. “Her schtick is that if you turn off your headlights or flashlight or whatever, so you’re in complete darkness, put a white sheet over your head, and whisper a secret, she’ll appear when you take the sheet off your head.”
“Did you ever try?” Brady asked.
“Duh,” I said. “But I’ve never seen her. I think she might actually just be a ghost story.” Of course, I believed that there had to be some truth to it. In my opinion, she had probably just faded away with time.
“But all the workers saw something, right? If they stopped construction on the road?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but they could’ve seen a lot of things. The Lady in White was just the most well-known possibility.”
“Is she still waiting for the guy to show up?” Brady asked.
“That’s the story,” I said. “She was the reason I started exploring up here on my own—thought she could benefit from a little girl talk.”
Wind blew through the trees as we walked, and they creaked loudly as they swayed back and forth.
The trail had started to slope upward, so our conversation dwindled a little bit, but not completely.
We talked about deliveries for next week, the weather, Brady’s general dislike of zucchini and almonds.
I would’ve let the conversation stop, but the farther along we got on the trail, the more my internal ghost radar went off.
I felt like Brady and I were being watched in a way that made me uneasy.
I didn’t want him to feel that way, too.
I felt weirdly protective over this upholsterer.
A branch snapped ahead of us, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. “What was that?” Brady asked.
“Probably just an animal,” I said—for both of our benefits. This was a new feeling for me. I didn’t scare easily, but that was mostly because I had a decent understanding of the paranormal. I’d interacted with it my whole life. It was second nature—like breathing.
But now my breath was labored. I was stuck between understanding the world as I knew it existed while being forced to experience it like everyone else. I was out of touch with myself and my surroundings, and being up here—secluded and away from familiar spirits—I felt it deeply.
And it freaked me the fuck out.
The next time the wind blew through the trees, it sounded like a groan.
“I gotta tell you, trouble,” Brady said behind me. “I am not a fan of these noises. They all sound too…human.” I only had two nicknames, but I think the one Brady had taken to calling me every once in a while was my favorite.
“We only have a little while left,” I said. There was a streak of silver out of the corner of my eye, and I whipped my head toward it, quickly realizing that I’d never had to defend myself against the spirits before—at least, not when I didn’t know if they could hear me.
I audibly sighed in relief when I saw it was just a deer.
“Are you good?” Brady asked. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this creepy forest was getting to you, too.”
“Good thing you know better,” I said.
“What did you see over there?” he asked, pushing.
“Nothing to worry about,” I said. “You know, you would last like two seconds in a horror movie.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Brady argued. “Because I wouldn’t ignore the signs. As soon as shit starts getting weird, I’m out of there.” Little did he know, shit was already weird on this mountain. I couldn’t shake the goosebumps.
“Whatever you say,” I responded. A branch snapped ahead of us again.
“God, I hate that noise,” Brady said behind me. “I didn’t know how much I hated that noise until I stepped on all those branches on the way into the church. It sounded like a graveyard.”
“It’s disturbing to me that’s where your mind went,” I tried to joke, but the air around us was weighing on me.
“I think I can blame that one on you,” Brady said.
The trail was more uneven than it was the last time I was up here, and some parts were overgrown, but every time I stumbled, I knew Brady was behind me and wouldn’t let me fall. When we had to climb over fallen trees, he would take the lead and give me his hand to keep me steady.
The trees were starting to get even more dense, and I could hear the river rushing ahead of us. We were getting closer. It was getting darker and darker the farther we headed into the trees, but right when it felt like it was about to go black, an opening appeared ahead of us.
The uneasiness that wrapped itself around my bones on the trail started to loosen and unwind itself when I saw the rushing water. My mouth stretched into a grin. The excitement felt like electricity coursing through my veins. I didn’t quite know why—I’d seen this a million times before.
Maybe because I was about to share it with someone else for the first time.
When I turned back to Brady, I saw the eyes that had been watching us the whole time. She was standing behind him. Her form was gauzy and gray but clear. She had hair that hit at her waist, and it looked like she was wearing a nightgown—very on brand.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.