Letter from Zona Heaster Shue

My Dearest Mother,

You must forgive the coldness of my hand as I write this. The house in Greenbrier County keeps its secrets well, and I have learned that some silences are more terrible than any scream.

I know what they told you. That my death was natural, perhaps my heart. That Erasmus grieved so terribly he could barely let anyone near my body. Did you see how he dressed me, Mother? The high collar, the veil, the scarf wound so carefully around my throat. He was always particular about appearances.

But you know the truth now, don't you? I have come to you these four nights, and each night I have turned my head for you. All the way around, Mother, the way no living neck should turn. Do you understand what I am showing you?

His hands were so strong. I never knew how strong until that January evening when I said something he did not like. Something small, inconsequential, the kind of thing wives say without thinking. But Erasmus was not the man I thought I married. He had done this before, I think. The rage came so quickly, and then his hands were on my neck, twisting, and there was a sound like winter branches snapping.

He carried me to the stairs afterward and arranged me there, as if I had fallen. As if my neck had broken from a simple accident. The doctor believed him. Everyone believed him. Erasmus has always known how to make people believe.

You must tell them to look again, Mother. You must make them dig me up from the cold ground and examine what he has hidden beneath that scarf. They will think you mad at first. A grieving mother driven to hysteria, imagining her dead daughter's ghost. But you must insist. Tell them what I have shown you. Tell them about my neck, how it turns, how the bones are crushed and displaced.

The prosecutor will listen if you are persistent enough. The truth lives in my body still, written in broken vertebrae and finger-shaped bruises. Erasmus thought he could bury his crime with me, but some things will not stay buried.

I am so cold here, Mother, in this place between places. But I will keep coming to you until they understand. Until they see what he did. Until justice finds its way into the light.

Four nights I have visited you. Four nights I have turned my head. Do not let them dismiss you. Do not let them call it grief or madness. You know what you have seen.

Make them look.

Your daughter,

Zona

Author's note: The Greenbrier Ghost is a true story about Zona Heaster, a young woman who died mysteriously in 1897 in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. She was married to Erasmus Shue. It's an old Appalachian Folklore story.