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| By Usher, John, Jr. -- Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
So, here we are just a week away from Halloween! I thought
it would be fun to share an excerpt from my novel, Sea Snow-- the gentle
haunting of a 19th century lighthouse, in which Rose Martin tells us of a
ghost story she heard at a village celebration on Halloween Night, 1899. The teller of the tale is her dear friend,
Jenny, the local mid-wife who lived in Rawlings, Massachusetts since her escape
from slavery in South Carolina many years before.
Jenny raised her gray head and opened
her eyes. She lifted her hand, pointing a long finger toward the people facing
her. Her black eyes reflected the pumpkin light as she silently turned a
complete circle, her pointing finger slowly passing over everyone in turn. I
felt an involuntary shiver as her finger pointed my way. Complete silence fell
upon us—even the stifled laughter and clearing of throats ceased.
“You,” she began, her voice
sounding a note of authority I’d never heard before, “must hear the tale I tell
tonight.”
We were all under her control—all
gladly relinquishing our own will to fall under the spell of this old woman,
this former slave.
“It happened a long time ago, back
when I was a young’n, hiding out in a South Carolina swamp. There came a moon
mist— one of those nights when the moon is full and bright and the mist rises
thick above the water. Everything glows milky-white and you can’t tell east
from west or south from north. It’s on a night of the moon mist that spirits,
lost in the swamp, return to look for their way home, or search for whatever it
was they couldn’t find when they were living. Something (I never knew what it
was,) woke me in the middle of the night and I got up from my cot and looked
outside. The camp was floating in moonlight. I pulled a shawl ‘round my
shoulders and stepped just outside my door. I knew I shouldn’t go out in the
moon mist, but it was so beautiful and strange, all at the same time. I had to
get a little closer to it. That’s when I heard a soft shuffling near by. I
stepped back into my doorway and peered through the swirling mist. It was
Jimmy! I wondered what Jimmy was up to. He was about nineteen, just a few years
older than me, and I kind of fancied him.
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| By Love Krittaya (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
“ ‘Jimmy!’ I whispered.
“He didn’t answer.
“ ‘Jimmy! What are you doin’ out
there?’
“I saw his dark shape swim by in
the whiteness.
“ ‘Jimmy!’ I whispered as loud as I
could.
“He paid me no mind. I looked back
inside my hut and then outside at the moon mist. Foolish child that I was, I
pulled my shawl tighter ‘round me and walked out.
“ ‘Jimmy!’ I called a little
louder. ‘Where’d you go?’
“A rustling in the bushes caught my
ear and I walked toward it. Just ahead, I could make out Jimmy’s shape moving
before me. I knew for sure it was him, ‘cause he walked with a limp—something
he’d got from the overseer who’d broke his ankle the first time he tried to run
away.
“ ‘Jimmy!’ I called out loud this
time, but my voice was buried in that moist cottony air.
“I followed his lop-sided gait,
until I came to the edge of a lagoon. He was nowhere to be seen. I walked
around the water’s edge, shivering every time a finger of Spanish moss draped
over my shoulder. Here and there, cypress knees tripped me as I wandered
about.
“ ‘Jimmy! Where are you?’ I cried
out.
“Then, out of the soup, I heard an
owl hooting.
“ ‘Who—who, who, who?’ it asked.
“I couldn’t make out where it was.
I turned in a circle and it sounded like it was coming from all sides of me at
once. I was getting pretty scared by that time! Then, I heard a soft lapping
sound out in the water and saw a greenish light glowing through the mist. The
sound and the light grew closer and I stood, planted like a tree, on the bank.
I tried to run but my legs wouldn’t move!
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| "Ramona" by F.L. Harper |
“As it grew near, I could see a
paddle dipping into the water just behind the light. The light was coming from
inside a canoe, though I couldn’t see any kind of lantern. I stood frozen as it
came within a few feet of me. Then, I could see what it was that held the
paddle. It was a beautiful woman—long, black braids hanging down, a necklace of
shells circling her neck, and colored beads sewn onto her tan leather dress. As
she came closer, I saw some white feathers stuck here and there in her braids.
The light from her canoe cleared a space in the mist and I could see her real
plain. There came a sloshing noise and I saw Jimmy, on the other side of the
lagoon, wading through the water toward her.
“ ‘Jimmy! What you doin?’ I called
to him.
“He didn’t look my way—just kept
his eyes on the Indian woman.
“ ‘Jimmy! Get yourself on back
here!’ I cried.
“Jimmy was knee-deep in the water,
and only a couple feet from the canoe.
“ ‘Jimmy! Don’t you know she’s a
swamp spirit? Get away!’ I screamed.
“The woman placed her paddles in
the canoe and reached her hand out to him.
“ ‘No!’ I hollered, but my voice
sounded puny even to my own ears.
“Jimmy took her hand and climbed
into the canoe. The light went out and I couldn’t see anything at all in the
moon mist. A flapping sound came from the direction of the canoe and a
snow-white owl swooped over me.
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By David Syzdek (Snowy Owls (4 of 22)) [CC-BY-SA-2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons (digital enhancement by KLWood) |
“I started running but I had no
idea where I was or where the camp was anymore. Every time I stopped to catch
my breath, that owl flew at me, pushing me ahead. Then I stumbled into camp.
That bird herded me all the way home! I ran into my hut and jumped into bed,
pulling the covers tight over my head.
“Next morning, when folks were up
and about, word spread Jimmy was gone. I was scared to tell anybody what I’d
seen and I’d have thought maybe I’d dreamed it up except when I went to make up
my bed, I saw something glowing white under my blanket. I pulled back the
covers and this is what I found.”
Jenny reached into her pocket and
withdrew a large, white feather and held it before her. Lantern light danced
across its snowy surface and the whole room gasped as one body.
“We never heard a word from Jimmy
again but, later on, folks said they’d seen two white owls flying around the
swamp when the mist was thick and the moon was bright.”
Have a good week, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...Y'all come back now!
Kate
