Girl Left In Maine

***Content warning. This story does reference violence and may not be suitable for all readers.***

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.” I could hear Aunt Alice as she slowly whispered these words to the eager ears of three eight-year-olds who already looked petrified around the campfire.

I was watching through the screen window in the kitchen of her old cabin while I drank a glass of wine and tried to wash dishes. I opened up the screen and banged on the wood frame facing the flames trying to get Alice’s attention.

“Alice, we agreed they are too young for this story!” Trying to impress upon her to knock it off.

She looked at me for all of two seconds and continued as though my words were just an inconvenience. “We saw the candle in the window that night as we used to rent another shack across the lake. My late husband and I took a hike in the woods out back the next day, when I found the for-sale sign on the ground. I knew the word around town was that this place was haunted, supposedly by a young woman named Eliza who lived here with her parents and sister in 1960’s!”

I took a sip of wine and patted my forehead with a paper napkin to wipe the sweat. The small fans were not cutting the heat on this hot summer night in the middle of the Maine woods. I had arrived here the day before to clean and open up the cabin. My husband, Mark brought the kids and his aunt on this day and then he boldly announced that he could not stay because of a project at work. Even as I watched him drive away, I knew that he was lying.

I pushed open the screen door and tried to distract the kids with a bag of marshmallows that they could roast.

“Alice, I’m asking you again to stop,” I whispered to my husband’s aunt. My daughter and her two friends scrambled to pick a stick in the yard to roast their sweet pillowy cubes on.

“Beth honestly you are being overly dramatic! The kids will be fine. It is fun story and besides the ghost of that girl cannot touch us as long as the hatch is locked on the bulkhead doors of the cellar along with those old candles. "

“Yes, but they are young and still learning about the world. I don’t want them to learn about the ghosts this way or that they are bad. Many ghosts are spirits to be one with nature.”

Alice looked at me strangely, “Beth what the hell are you talking about? You damn liberals are caught up in your everything is good crap. Ghosts are bad and from what I know about the one in my cabin, she is evil.”

I took a deep breath and then another sip of my wine. I did know more about the spirit in the cabin than Alice would ever know.

When the kids came back with their sticks, my daughter Samantha was the first to ask.

“Auntie Alice tell us more about the girl. Did her parents stay with her? Did she die here?”

Alice snidely looked me and continued with her story.

“Well, she was a troublemaker always getting into something and she was loose with the boys. Her parents caught her messing with a boy from town and banished her to the cellar. They believed she was possessed because she refused to attend services at the church. They beat her and encouraged her younger sister to beat her as well. Yet she continued to spew nonsense that she was her own person,” Alice laughed, “a free spirit.” They kept her locked up for many years. They would let her out one hour day to eat, bath and exercise.

“Like a prisoner?” Samantha questioned.

“Well, she was and rightfully so,” Alice continued, “She still carried on with hippie fest stuff and her parents grew weary of her baloney.” Alice looked around at the three sets of eyes staring at her. “They killed her in cellar and locked the doors when they left. They headed south to Massachusetts with their other daughter who was a good girl, never to return. When she was found the town did not care as there were many stories that she was a demon.”

I watched as the girls were transfixed on the story. I was already rehearsing in my mind what to say to Samantha’s friends’ parents when they asked why their child was having nightmares.

Alice was in her glory. “So, when your great uncle and I bought this place, it sold for practically nothing. Townspeople warned me about the ghost of this girl, Eliza was her name.”

“Eliza Stanworth. Her name was Eliza Stanworth,” I interrupted.

Alice looked at me funny, “Beth don’t you think you have had too much to drink? You know you really shouldn’t be drinking in front of the kids.”

I nodded my head, “Yes of course Alice, I know that what these kids will be talking about is that I had a glass of wine when they have heard a story about a fiend living down the cellar.”

I walked back into the kitchen slamming the screen door behind me. I checked my phone, nothing not a text or voicemail of “how’s it going?” from Mark.

I could still hear Alice carrying on, “Well this Eliza, she continued to hang around after we rebuilt this place. At first, I didn’t know what I was experiencing!" Alice paused with a look of remembrance. "We had built up the cabin to livable conditions and came up here every summer. Each year though, something would happen. There would be things moved around and doors opened. Then one day your uncle came running out of the woods and announced he had seen her. "

Alice looked over at me as I watched carefully through the screened window. The smell of the campfire was soothing and enticing.

She continued without missing a beat. "I warned him to stop as I had found a way to keep the ghost locked in the basement. As long as I burned a candle she would be moved by the flames and drawn to it." Alice's eyes widened." Each time I would take the candle and bring her back to the basement."

Alice looked down and then up, "My husband fool that he was, could not help himself. He let her out one day and I could tell he was in a stupor." Alice moved her face into the campfire, so the flames glowed off her eyes. The girls were now pulling their blankets around their heads. "He was so mesmerized by her apparent beauty; he then went looking for her every day. Until he thought he saw her in the lake and swam out, I guess he lost his strength, my poor husband as that is where he drowned.”

The kids gasped around the campfire. Scared as I knew they would be. I came back out and told them it was getting late.

“Time for bed everyone! Don't forget we are going for a picnic and swimming tomorrow." I motioned my hands to move them along.

They all held tightly onto me, and I heard whispers, “I can’t believe we are staying with a ghost! Will she hurt us? Does she leave kids alone?”

I just answered as gently as I could to assure that they would be okay. Rolling my eyes at Alice who sat and did move an inch to help me get them to bed.

“What country does Sam’s friend come from? You know the Asian one.” Alice started when I came back outside to clean up and put out the fire.

“What Naomi? She comes from America!” I snapped back.

“Why so snippy, Beth? And while we are on it what is up with the other child, Harley is it? Boy or a girl?"

I closed my eyes as I have had to deal with years of intolerance from Alice and the rest of Mark’s family. I bowed my head as I knew I would once again excuse her attitude as she was from a different generation.

“Alice, Harley is transgender and identifies as a girl. She is Samantha’s best friend. How about helping me clean up?"

“Jesus Christ, this generation has gone whacky. I’m tired Beth so can’t help you tonight. Just one more question. How did you know Eliza’s last name? I have never mentioned that.”

“I must have heard from the grocery clerk in town yesterday when I said I was coming up to this place. Stories about Eliza have circulated for years whether they are true or not.” I answered calmly while picking up paper plates and soda bottles.

I left Alice sitting outside. I knew it was pointless to continue. Besides all my conversations would always venture back to how I did something wrong. Whether it was the way I cleaned, the food I ate, how I raised my daughter or what I believed, Alice’s comments were never ending.

I had only agreed to take her in when Mark said she had no other family as her parents were gone. She had a sister who died young. Alice and her husband did not have any children, so it was her husband’s nephew and his wife, being me, that had to take care of her. She was demanding and disrespectful whenever she chose. I had begged Mark to move her to an Assisted Living, but he, who was barely around, refused.

“I know she is a little difficult, but she is family,” was his only response.

Even when I told him that she was making my life, “a living hell.” He just rolled his eyes and walked away.

The next day at the cabin I woke to Alice’s eyes staring down at me.

“Jesus, Alice!” I screamed.

“Which grocery clerk gave you Eliza’s last name?” she looked boldly at me.

“What?”

“Which clerk? No one around here had her name!”

“I don’t know Alice, the old guy with no teeth, I guess.” I rubbed my eyes and tried to wake the rest of my head up. “If no one had her name, then how did you know her name, Alice?”

“The name was on the mortgage paperwork, you stupid bitch,” She retorted.

I held my cool as I watched her leave and head down the stairs of the cabin. She may be going to verify my story about the clerk or maybe she was going to check the bulkhead as she has every hour of daylight since we have been here.

I got dressed in my bathing suit and went to get the kids breakfast before heading to the lake for swimming as promised. I would deal with Alice later as she did not like the water and a cherished break from her was something I wanted.

The girls had pretty much forgotten the nightmare tale they were told the night before and I packed up a lunch and headed to the lake. I was determined to have one beautiful day with my daughter and her friends. The kids were in their glory at the lake. The crystal blue waters of the lakes in Maine were always my favorite places even as a child, even during my darkest hours. When we were done swimming, I made them promise to sit tight and rest on their towels until I called for them. I told then we would go for ice cream on the ride home.

“Are we going to that lady's house that works with dad, I forget how do you say it? Admina person?" Samantha asked. “He brought me there one time when he had to work late. “

I smiled as I knew my husband was having an affair with his administrative assistant, even before it was confirmed by my eight- year-old daughter. “Yes, honey maybe we will. Surprise daddy!”

“First, I have to take care of something.” I turned to each one for a look of trust.” Promise me you girls will all stay on these towels.” All of them nodded in unison as I turned and headed back to the cabin.

I could see Alice had already found the candles and was burning one in the window. I brought the wax sticks out when I arrived two days earlier to clean. I was curious about her story and when I came across the key located in an old teacup. I went down and opened the bulkhead doors.

At first, I screamed as a couple of mice jumped out, but I continued into the dark hole. I saw the candles piled in a heap in the corner and went to grab a couple. As I turned around, I saw her.

She was so beautiful even as a shadow crossed her face. Her auburn hair wisped around her chin and her eyes looked directly at me as if to speak. I felt a strong connection to Eliza almost immediately.

She wanted something from me, and I was willing to let her take it, to take me. She ran her fingers over my shoulder, and down over my back I melted with her touch. I felt her arms wrap around me in an embrace that took my breath. I felt her enter me as she wished, and I did not resist. When she was through, we had become one. I felt stronger as Eliza and then as Beth. I knew I was now empowered by both and would wait for the moment to erase the pain that had been inflicted on both of us.

When I arrived back at the cabin, Alice was waiting. “You went down the cellar, Beth after I asked you not to. You went down the cellar and you saw her, didn’t you?”

I looked at her calmly as I my eyes focused on the candles. “Yes Alice, I saw her and I’m sorry. Let’s see if we can call her back to the basement.”

“You let her out! Honestly Beth I don’t know what Mark sees in you. You are as dumb as a they come and really should not be wearing a bathing suit.” Alice made a face while holding the hand over her eyes.

“Let’s go look for her, maybe she came back to cellar after you burnt the candles.” I as Beth calmly stated.

“Well, I guess that is worth a shot. Eliza was not very bright either. I suppose she told you that I was the one who saw coming out of the woods, half naked with a boy in town,” She snorted.

“No, she didn’t mention anything.” I as Eliza smiled as we closed the screen door and headed out back. The smell of pine needles in the summer air was so refreshing. I was finally feeling at peace in the woods but knew I could not stay.

“Well,” Alice continued. “She was a whore, and my family did not need that kind of trouble. She thought she was all that with her long red hair.” Alice sneered as we reached the bulkhead.

“Alice, why don’t you go down to see if she is down there?” I as Beth encouraged as I swung open the heavy red door.

Alice looked at me and took a couple of steps down. “She doesn’t scare me; I have dealt with this bitch my whole life.

I as Eliza smiled as I watched Alice step down the stairs slowly. She had forgotten to take any kind of light with her, but that was okay as it was her turn to live in the darkness. When she reached the bottom and turned around, I still had a smile on my face.

“My dear sister how does it feel?”

“What?” Alice's voice did start to panic as my hair color blended to my auburn shade and Beth's features became mine. My eyes darted in her direction.

“I would watch you close these very same doors every time when you knew our parents were going to beat me. I would see your grin and the shadow of your face. Now you can see my smile little sister.”

I swung the first bulkhead door to close and then I blended back to Beth. "This door will shut to bury all of your negative abusive narrative." I as Beth could hear the Alice screams of “Stupid bitch!” several times over while I closed the second door and fastened the lock.

I went back in the cabin and packed all our belongings which I loaded in the trunk. I called for the girls to come up and helped them into to car. I went back into the old cabin as my new self, Elizabeth, and looked around as candle burned in the window. I tapped it and knocked it over as the prisoner downstairs pounded and screamed while the flames started to ignite the room.

“Aunt Alice is going to stay here a few more days!" I told the girls as I started the car, "Who is ready for ice cream?” I sang out. “Then we are going to make that surprise trip to see Daddy at his administrative assistant’s house!” Lots of cheers came from the back seat as we pulled out of the drive and headed down the dirt road. The orange glow of the past was in the rearview mirror.