The Drowned Woman

Nightmares are not lived only while dreaming. Sometimes the living nightmares are far worse.

Midnight approaches stealthily...the graveyard breathes in relief... awakening - poised between moments - expectantly awaiting the unknown and the unseen. The moon is a thin scythe-like arch, hung high above the silence, it slices through a sky of indigo and ash. Shadows pool around the crooked headstones...dark in some places, light spilling like ink splotches in others, stretching long and trembling with the stories of the dead...long cold.

Dislodged gravestones lean in strange directions---listening, whispering to each other in the mist unfurling across the ground. It moves slowly... and languidly curls around broken headstones, statues and eerily shaped iron-wrought fences. The air reverberates in stillness, listening to the breath of sleeping spirits.

Trees---barren and brittle...stand like mourners, their gnarled branches frozen between death's lament.

Somewhere, a lone crow rustles on a branch but does not caw, as if too frightened to utter a sound. Even the wind tiptoes here, threading through the grass with reverence, stirring faint echoes of lost prayers. There is the stench of earth, wet...with something cold and rotting beneath it...for in this place, memory turns to dust.

At the far end, a mausoleum door yawns slightly open...Just enough for curious wonder and to instill the fear of God into the timid and faint of heart.

...

Nearby, the dirt around a newly laid grave stirs...then rips asunder with the might of a thousand fiends escaping Hell, leaving a gaping hole in the center of the carnage. Then just as quickly as it started, all became deathly still. Miraculously, the headstone was still intact.

The young woman felt her body rising, rising...as if it had a mind of its own. Slowly, she floated upright. Looking around in a daze. She felt emotionless, empty - as if her insides had gone hollow somehow as she viewed herself outside of her own body.

Josetha, dressed in white, now stands peering down at her grave in confusion, her mind unable to comprehend why her name was carved into the newly sculpted marble stone. There... beneath an angelic cherub, poised, as if emerging fully grown, she experienced her first surreal moment. The beautiful young woman...becoming unaware that she is dead, closes her eyes, stands still as a statue, unmoving for an achingly long time. Her still immaculate clothing drips clear haunting waters...she hears the poignant moments between each drop, as her memory slowly begins to return.

Had she awakened from a dream of horror.

Josetha remembers, but her recollections seemed to be shifting into different time frames...as if she were suspended in fog.

How it all began...

It had been just approaching sunset, they had all agreed on a boat ride to watch the starlit sights. Although romance was not in her plans, still, it would be lovely to watch the colorful heavens while having a great time away from the books.

She remembers being with her friends Kyla, Roseth, Jhak and Dylon on the pier. It was always a treat on weekends to go yachting, they all came from money and could afford to go out on any one of their parent's boat. A few other friends had been invited along, and all had been going well until...

Her mind was still a bit blurred---

Yes! She had overheard a conversation just after the sunset watch when everyone was having a last beer on the deck before they decided to return home.

Jhak and Kyla had been whispering, unaware that she was lying down on the sofa.

"Did you pay the guy enough, do you think it's done by now, it's been hours"? Kyla's voice was barely audible.

"Stop worrying, I just talked to him, it's been taken care of". Jhak replied in a low voice.

"Good, I want that bitch gone long before we get back".

The young woman's voice dripped with hatred as Josetha listened. Who was she talking about. Everyone knew that Kyla was not a very nice person when crossed, she had a mean streak and was kind of a bully. Josetha kept as still as she could, waiting for them to leave.

That was when Dylon chose to come looking for her. He barged into the luxuriously decorated living room, unceremoniously whisking past the two who were deep in conspiratorial conversation.

"Ah, there you are Josetha, I missed you out there".

Dylon had always had a crush on her, ever since they were younger. He was a great guy, but Josetha was not really interested in relationships and childhood crushes. She had lofty plans for her future, and romance did not play a part in her busy schedule.

Josetha pretended to be just coming awake...she yawned dramatically, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, she had no wish for the couple to think that she had overheard whatever they had been speaking of.

Kyla spun around, a look of sheer horror on her face. Jhak quickly took her arm and steered her up the steps to the deck above.

"What was that about". Dylon asked puzzled.

"I'm not quite sure, let's go find something to eat, I'm starving". Josetha completely forgot the conversation of earlier and went with her friend to enjoy the rest of the trip.

An hour or so later, someone's phone rang, then another and another. Everyone turned to look at Kyla. She was now staring at her phone, a look of utter horror on her face, tears mixed with dark mascara streaming down her cheeks.

Her step-mother seemed to have disappeared - no one knew why. Her car keys, phone and beloved Chihuahua had been left alone in the house. She would never go anywhere without them.

Something clicked in Josetha's brain. That was when she made the biggest mistake of her life. She turned to look at Kyla. Kyla turned to look at her.

They both realized the truth written on each other's faces.

Had Kyla done something to her step-mom...and did Josetha know that she had done it. Money was no obstacle to whatever Kyla wanted...and she was spoilt enough to use it to her advantage. Minerva had stood in the way of her manipulating her father and everyone knew how much Kyla hated her step-mother.

Her father would make sure that she got away with murder, and she used his influence like a second skin to have her own way in everything.

Everyone else had adjourned below to comfort Kyla. Josetha stood on the deck brooding, her mind a jumble of confusion. What was she to do. She had no proof. It would be her word against Kyla and Jhak's. Both with powerful connections. Who would believe her, there was no love lost between the two young women, Josetha had tired of Kyla's bullying and made no secret of it.

She was so lost in thought that she failed to hear the footsteps softly approaching behind her. Jhak took the last few long strides just as she turned her head.

He placed his hand over her mouth as she tried to scream, she struggled, but was taken so much off guard that he had pushed her overboard before she realized what his intentions were.

"What was that splash". Dylon asked, looking enquiringly at everyone.

"Has anyone seen Josetha".

"I think she went to her room. You know how she can be". Jhak replied from the doorway.

In the belly of the yacht, Kyla begged everyone to stay with her for a while, she did not want to go back as yet to face the press and everyone who would be converging on her home and privacy. But that was not at all the reason. She wanted to distract from the fact that Josetha was no longer on the boat.

It was maybe 10 o'clock before Dylon realized that he had not seen Josetha for a while. They had all been on the phone with relatives and friends. He searched everywhere...they all did.

Their friend was nowhere on the boat.

...Josetha's plight.

Josetha sank deep into the swirling waters, she coughed and sputtered, flailing her arms, then she steadied herself...kicking her legs with great effort, trying to get her head above the surface of the water...She was choking, drowning...her head bobbed up, she caught a breath as the last dim light of the yacht passed beyond her sight.

For a long while she hovered there...then, exhausted...she began to lose the feelings in her arms and legs...everything went numb. She closed her eyes as she slowly began to sink beneath the now freezingly cold thrashing sea.

With her last breath she vowed her revenge.

.......

They were all asleep when a young ghostly woman - clad in tattered white, standing tall, proud and seething with anger- arose from the small inlet where her body had washed up.

Was this a dream from which she was just now awaking. She felt so strange...so out of place.

And in that moment - she realized that she had not been sleeping at all, at least not the sleep from which one awakened refreshed... nor was she dreaming. She had awakened to actual death.

In life Josetha had always wondered if ghosts had the power to wreak vengeance on the living. But now, she felt a strength power surge through her body that compared to nothing in her former life.

Now, as she stood in the freezing water, the only thing she knew for sure was that ghosts had feelings - now she hoped that she could act on it.

....

She didn’t pay attention to the anger at first - only the way the air thickened around her, trembling like a curtain caught between worlds.

She was in Kyla's house. She had thought it...and her thought had projected her where she wanted, needed to be.

The lantern on the table shuddered. Its metal frame groaned. Her fury, sharp and bright, reached out before she did. And the lantern moved.

Not by accident....But by her sheer will.

In that instant she understood: emotion was her body now, and rage was the closest thing she had to a malleable hand...with it she could bend, shape...mold and destroy.

A pulse of heat rolled off her, though she had no living skin to warm. The chair beside her scraped an inch across the floor. She froze. The chair froze.

Then---another inch.

Her anger surged again, and the room answered.

She realized she wasn’t just haunting the world. She could touch it.

The Quiet, the Haunting, the Psychological

The world had ignored her for so long that she’d forgotten what it felt like to matter. But when the grief sharpened into anger, the dust on the dresser lifted--just a breath, just enough to catch the light.

She stared at it, stunned.

Her emotions had weight now.

Her sorrow could stir the air.

Her rage could shape it.

Emotion is her new physics

Anger is a force, not a flaw

Haunting is not passive --

It’s agency rediscovered...

And she had learned how to harness it.