Ghost of the Forest

The first time Ben visited the cemetery in the woods was by mistake. He wandered off the beaten paths and toiled his way through the brush until he stumbled upon a clearing. Gravestones crowded the landscape, crumbling sentinels guarding desolation. All the stones were so old that names and dates had been worn away, but some were still legible.

It must have been a family cemetery. Many of the names on the tombstones were identical. There were some that dated back to the 1800s. One grave was littered with corroded baby toys, and had only one year carved into the stone.

Ben moved to the area recently. He asked his neighbors about the cemetery. Some said there was a legend about it being haunted, but none of them were lifelong locals either, so they weren't clear on the details. One of them recommended he talk to the county historian, who also happened to be the local branch librarian.

Her name was Alice, an older lady who came off as a bit eccentric, but very pleasant. She was genuinely excited to speak to someone interested in county history. He asked about the cemetery.

"Why do you wanna know about that old place?" She asked.

"I was exploring the woods over there by my house and happened upon it."

"Definitely an interesting history. Family cemetery for a religious sect that used to have a sort of commune in the area, back in my granddad's day. The Crabbites. Reverend Crabb was a snake handler. That's how he drew people in. Rumor was that he used to let the snakes bite him sometimes and then show everyone the wounds, which would heal rapidly in front of their eyes.

The Crabbites professed Christianity, but many here in town had their doubts. Crabb talked about Jesus, but he also talked about other mystics and sages, and sometimes referenced old gods whose names are lost to history. He said he was the heir of an ancient lineage which shared ancestry with Jesus, and that Jesus shared ancestry with those prehistoric gods.

There were open air services at the cemetery. Those were for the public. But dedicated members attended other, secret services at Crabb's church. This was around the 1920s in rural Indiana so you can imagine the rumors. The townsfolk imagined orgies, human sacrifice, devil worship. The Crabbites were a large sect, too, and had some influence in county politics. They were in good with the mayor and the sheriff. They were all registered voters.

To assuage the town folks' fear, Crabb assured people in a local newspaper editorial that he was indeed "a good Christian and had only the intentions of a good Christian". But the townsfolk didn't believe it. They formed a posse and burned down the church. All of the Crabbites got out but one mother and her child. The child was a boy of not even a year. The mother ran from the building with him in her arms, her hair on fire, screaming for someone to save her baby. By the time someone did take the baby from her, her face was also burning. Someone else was able to put her out in time to save her, but the baby had likely died of asphyxiation before she even got out into the air.

She healed but was horribly disfigured, and wore a black veil for the remainder of her life to hide the fact. She would often be found at the child's grave, weeping and fondling his toys, which she always left, as if he would crawl forth and play with them when no one was there. As far as anyone knew, she had no husband, and many suspected that the Reverend had sired the boy, along with many of the other progeny related to the sect. It is not uncommon for the leaders of cults to take such liberties, even with the other members' wives.

To this day, people still say they hear the poor woman crying sometimes. But they never see her.

Crabb moved the sect to another county, and lived out his days begetting many children, but you don't hear much about the Crabbites after that. They must have decided discretion was the better part of valor and laid low."

"So it's supposed to be haunted by this lady, the mother of the baby? I saw the baby's gravestone with the toys, and the date was 1927, but I couldn't make out the name on it,” Ben said.

"Yes. And nobody remembers it. Worn away with time, like our memories. Consider it a blessing."

"A blessing? Why?"

Alice sighed. "Look, Ben, I'd stay away from that place. I told you people heard that lady crying. I was one of those people."

"Really? When did this happen?"

Alice sighed again, and tried a weak smile, but it faltered quickly.

Ben said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm not trying to upset you. I was just curious. If you can't talk about it, that's okay."

"You're such a sweet young man,” Alice said. “I admit, it was a bad experience and I don't like to remember it, but I want to tell you, if for no other reason than to warn you away."

"If you don't mind, Alice, I am quite curious."

Alice mustered another weak smile and touched Ben's hand. She looked into his eyes. "As a woman of letters, I can appreciate your curiosity. I was a young woman then, and in love like so many young people will tend to be. His name was Carl, and we were only just out of high school. We would meet in that forest and walk hand in hand, sharing hopes and dreams, hugs and kisses."

The pain in the old woman's face made Ben want to stop her, but his curiosity got the better of him. His inquisitive mind was hungry, an appetite whetted for tragedy. A part of him felt shame, but not enough—not nearly as much shame as fascination.

"It was one of those evenings," she went on, "that we happened upon the clearing with all those faded stones. It immediately gave me pause, because even then there were stories about the place, but Carl teased me a bit and laughed. "You don't believe in ghosts, do you?" He asked me. Of course, I didn't, I replied, but it was dusk and the shadows were long, and if there were ghosts, this would be the time to see em! He laughed good and long at that and swept me into his arms. He'd protect me, he said. We kissed and held each other in the encroaching dark. We both decided it was time to turn back.

Then we heard her long, tortured sobs. We looked around but could see no one. Yet the sound had its distinct source from the spot at the foot of a certain grave. We went over and stood looking down as we listened. Even then the name was rubbed away, but the single year, 1927, along with the toys, made it clear that this had been a baby.

The sobbing, the sniffling, the screaming, was loudest right there. Right where we stood, it was as if she were there beside us. I told Carl I wanted to go several times, but it took him a minute to hear me. He turned to me with a blank stare and said, "Of course, of course." When we left I could still hear her. Even after we got back into the woods, I'd occasionally hear the faintest echo of a blood-curdling scream.

Carl wanted to talk about it. I didn't. I was mortified. "Could this mean there is life after death?" He said. I knew it was on his mind because his mother had only recently passed away. I told him I didn't know, but I wanted him to take me home. He did. He kissed me and held me at the door, but I could tell his mind was still on the incident. I made him promise me he wouldn't go back there. He promised. But he didn't keep his promise. He went back that night. The next day he wasn't home and I knew. I rushed up to the cemetery and there he was, next to that grave. He lay pale and cold and he had no pulse. I've never been able to love a man since."

"My God, Alice. I'm so sorry."

"Promise me you won't go, Ben. Stay clear. Don't be like Carl and let your curiosity get the best of you."

Ben looked her in the eye and lied. "Of course. After a story like that..."

"Damn you," she said, and frowned. "I can tell you don't mean it."

"I'm sorry, Alice. I, uh...”

She cut off his stammering, but her voice was soft and kind. "I hope for your sake, she no longer haunts the place.” They exchanged some pleasantries and parted ways.

Ben went back to the cemetery many times during the day, trying to muster the courage to go back at night. How many times do you get to witness paranormal phenomena? And probably Alice was just pulling his leg, right? What's an old spinster got to do other than spin? But she had been so nice, seemed so sincere. He still felt foreboding.

He moved to rural Indiana to get away from Indianapolis, the city where his marriage had disintegrated. Carol, his wife of five years, left him. She left him the house, but the phantoms of memory haunted him daily. He decided to sell it and move, because the phantoms followed him everywhere in the city, whispering her name into the hollow cavity where his heart used to be, so that all he knew were the echos of a past he desperately needed to escape.

He was an only child. His parents passed away within a few years of each other in his 20s and he didn't have enough of a relationship with his extended family to feel as if he was leaving anything else of value. Now he was 38, but already felt as if his life was over. He didn't know if time would heal the wound Carol left.

He had tried dating other women, but couldn't connect. The truth was that he was weird. He was a writer, and a philosopher. He was predisposed to deep thought which many people could not follow. Carol had been able to follow him into that abyss, but it was too much for her. She wanted to go out and dance, enjoy life, laugh, be happy. Too many times he simply wasn't capable of giving this to her as a return for her love and affection, and it wore her down. He understood, but it still hurt to know that it was so difficult for even someone as caring as her to love him for who he was, and not for who she needed him to be. He had come to the conclusion that love was a transaction like everything else in life, and he had nothing to offer in return for what a woman could give.

One day he talked to Carol on the phone. In his secret heart of hearts, he still entertained the notion she might come back to him. He genuinely wanted her to be happy, because he loved her, but he was so alone and distraught without her. At one point in the conversation he asked her if she thought about him.

“Of course, Ben,” she said. “I still care about you. That's why I called. I know this is hard for you, and I want to make sure you're okay. Are you okay?”

“No. I miss you. I'm glad you called because I want to know you're okay too, but I worry that I am a burden to you. You are a kind woman, but I don't want to bother you. You feel bad about hurting me, you care about me, but what will always hurt is knowing you don't love me.”

She was silent for a long time. He could hear her crying softly.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Please take care of yourself. Thanks for checking in.”

“You're welcome,” she replied, though the tone of her voice told him she regretted the call. “You do the same.”

He hung up first. She was never coming back, he knew. Never.

That night, just before dusk, he entered the cemetery. The sun was receding and glimmers of its rays trickled through tree branches stripped bare by autumn, illuminating a baby's rusty metal rattle. He bent to pick it up, but couldn't quite make himself touch it. It was as if a force emanated from it, pushing his hand away. The sun slipped a bit further and the beam of light went with it.

"NO-O-O-O!!" a woman sobbed and he jumped back. Suddenly there was a woman crying so hard she could barely catch her breath, right beside him. But no one was there. His instincts told him to run. Run and never look back. But his morbid curiosity told him to reach out to the voice, to put his hand into the source of the noise, to try and bridge the gap between worlds, to uncover the mystery. He stood there for minutes listening to the woman sob and looking into the empty air where he was sure she must be.

As he stared intently he made out the faintest outline, a shimmer of disruption like summer heat in the distance, but it was opaque, the barest silhouette in the gathering dusk. She was kneeling at the foot of the grave, shaking with her grief, quaking with the thought of her horrible experience. He could hear those thoughts, a faint murmur that rose and fell in his own mind like a radio signal peaking and diving through static.

Why did you kill my boy? Dear God, why did you take the only thing I love and leave me to suffer here, a wretch, a monster? I can't even look in the mirror, let alone expect others to see this terrible melted and scarred face! Would Benjamin have even loved me with this face? How could he love a mother with this face?

The boy's name was Benjamin!

How could he not be terrified of what lies beneath the veil, as I am myself terrified by what lies beyond the veil of this life? Lord, will you have mercy like the reverend says? Will you reunite me with my boy? His boy, for that matter! As if he cares, the pig! As if he cares! I am too weak to take my own life, I am afraid of Hell. But could Hell be any worse than this?

But it must be a coincidence, it must be! Benjamin is a pretty common name, after all. Now he could see her in her entirety. She had taken form as he heard her thoughts. She was in a long black dress, with a black hat and veil, the perpetual widow. Her weeping stopped abruptly and she turned her head to look up at him.

Benjamin? Benjamin, is that you? My boy?

His mouth kept forming the word no, but he couldn't make the sound escape him. He was paralyzed. He wanted to turn and run, his curiosity sated, but like the fabled cat he was destined for death on account of it. He watched as her hand went up to her face.

Slowly, she lifted the veil.

***** * *****

Alice didn't know where Ben lived, but she knew she wouldn't find him at home anyway. It had been weeks since he came to talk to her about the cemetery, and she got caught up in her duties and forgot; but last night she awoke drenched in sweat with the faintest memory of a terrible nightmare. It was the woman's disfigured face she had seen, she knew, but upon waking she only remembered the lifting of the veil.

So this morning in the safety of daylight she made the trek out to the accursed grave for the first time since she had found Carl.

There was Ben, in the same place, just as dead, just as lost to time as the names which faded from these desolate gravestones.

She wondered if there was anyone to grieve him, or if it was loneliness, much like that which must have bound the poor woman's ghost to this forest, that also drove Ben to such despair that he would seek out his own death.

Before she went for the local authorities, Alice knelt down beside Ben's inert body. She allowed herself to weep. She wept for Ben, Carl, the long-lost child and the ghost of the forest.

***** * *****

Afterword:

This story—and my song of the same name from the album Misty Regions, which can be found on any streaming service—is loosely based on the myth of the woman in black who is supposed to haunt Stepp Cemetery in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest near Martinsville, Indiana. There was a religious sect known as the Crabbites, and they did have extensive political influence in that area in the early twentieth century, but I have taken a lot of artistic license in describing the circumstances surrounding them. For instance, I could find no relation between the woman in black and the sect.

However, the gravestone with the year 1927 carved into it, and the old rusted baby toys scattered about, is something I saw with my own eyes. Most of the toys could not have been a century old, though, so previous visitors must have left them, as token gifts to the poor mother and her lost baby.

The song, quiet, almost as transparent as a ghost: