A Ghost in the Woods

[TW: implied violence]

After I died, after all the pain and fear, I remember I was floating over my body, but I crashed. When I woke up, it was still dark, black treeshapes against blacker night. No feeling in my body. Still fear.

I could see myself, but I was transparent like when I am flapping with my hands close to my face and I see through the outlines of my fingers. I wanted to squeeze myself between rocks or trees and feel the deep pressure, but I could feel nothing. I found a clump of trees on a hill and waited until the morning.

Black turning to gray. Paleorange edge on the sky.

Then, glowinggreen light, soft burning through the leaves. Bright and warm.

I could see things, now. I was in a forest. The man who took me, gone. Peace. Twisted and gnarled tall trunks, dullwhite birch and aspen and clear paths between the trunks. Pine trees sometimes, and firs, sprinkling their needles to the ground. I heard swishy watersounds from far away and followed them to a stream. Clear water and a heavy whoosh as it tumbled over the rocks. More pine needles fell into the rushing stream, sinking and resurfacing in pools between the rocks, whirling in circles. I wondered if spinning in circles made them calm and I spun until the leaves were a green spiral dancing above my head. I lay down on my back as the world shifted back into place.

I didn’t mind being alone. When the world is quiet I am calm. One day was over, then another. I got worried that my parents and my brother were wondering where I was. I wanted to go home. Mom always makes me mac and cheese when I am sad because it is my favorite. She treats me like a baby but she is very nice and takes care of me even when it is hard for her. My brother is my favorite person because he always knows what I am saying even though I don’t talk very much and when I do it is different from other people.

Sometimes I wonder if the man who took me, wanted to hurt me because I was different. Low-functioning Autistic, which is the words people say that describe me, but sometimes people think that means, “dumb and stupid.” Mom said sometimes you have to be careful because bad people want to hurt you if you are different, but I didn’t know things this bad were able to happen to anyone.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed. The glowinggreen leaves turned dry paperyellow. I found many other places in the forest: the blueglass lake and the mountains and clearings, and sometimes trails where there were people but they never saw me. I wanted Mom and her big warm smile, or my brother making up a story for me, or build me a pressure blanket fort like when I was a little kid.

One of the nights, the man in the black coat came back leading another girl. She screamed shrilly. It was the kind of sound that hurts my ears and makes my brain shut down. I wanted to curl up but nobody could take me away because my parents were gone and nobody could speak for me because my brother was gone and I wanted to cry more. I stumbled up the hill to the stream.

The next morning I saw another girl curled up at the base of a tree opposite me. She was also see-through and she looked like she was crying. She had light brown hair and wore a denim jacket over a short tight dress. I wanted to talk to her. What did normal people say?

“Are you okay?” I asked and I had said it out loud. I could speak.