4 Minute Read

The Girl on the Wooded Path

There was an old wooded path not far from my childhood home that led to a small family cemetery.

Any descendants of the people buried there were long gone, but someone must have been paying a groundskeeper to maintain it. Everything from the path to the lawn and crumbling old grave stones were always in immaculate condition. We all knew it was there, but for the most part, everyone in town avoided it. I wouldn’t say it was downright spooky, the place just had an unearthly presence.

One Halloween night when I was about eight, I saw a girl turn down that path while I was out trick-or-treating with my friends. I remember she had unbelievably long hair that fluttered and glided behind her as she walked. I broke away from our group and ran after her to warn her there were no houses that way, but she ignored me when I called after her. I followed her down the wooded path a ways, still trying to get her attention. When I got closer, I realized she wasn’t all there, and I mean that quite literally. Parts of her faded in an out as if she was visible and invisible all at once. She stopped and suddenly turned toward me with large unseeing eyes, but said nothing. She was dreadfully young, and her sweet youthful face was marred by the shifting shadows of the empty bones beneath it. In one hand she held a candle stick that glowed strangely. I had initially mistaken it for a flashlight. In the other, she twirled a small locket that hung from her neck on a long chain. It seemed an absent minded gesture that made her appear a little lost.

Then, she turned back to the path, took several steps, and vanished into nothing. Almost as soon as she was gone I could barely remember the incident, as if my mind was trying to crush out all the bits that didn’t make sense.

I ran back to my friends but never said anything about the Ghost Girl because I knew they’d make fun of me. But I did tell my Gran about her the following day. Gran was always fond of ghost stories, and I knew she would believe me. Gran smiled and patted me on the hand. She knew of the girl, but no one had known her in life, and no one was left to remember her name. The Girl on the Wooded Path was a legend even when Gran was small, and she was known to appear at night in the light of the full moon, but especially on Halloween. Then Gran asked if the girl had acknowledged me in the moonlight. Her expression never shifted, but it was the way she clutched my hand that told me this wasn’t a playful question.

I told Gran, no, I’d called after her thinking she was another kid in costume, but she didn’t seem to hear me. Gran immediately relaxed her grip. “There is nothing to worry about, then. She is harmless, just an echo from another time.” We never spoke of her again.

Two nights ago I was at that little wooded path near my childhood home. The moon was so bright, and the night so pleasant, I had to take a walk. Plus, it was Halloween, and part of me hoped I’d see the Ghost Girl again. I wandered around for nearly an hour and saw nothing but dead leaves, grave stones, and a startled rabbit that nearly put me into my own grave.

A bit disappointed, I took a seat on a bench across from the wooded path. The festivities of the evening had long passed and I was alone to enjoy the this beautiful and peaceful night. The moon was at its biggest, and a deep harvest orange.

“That is a lovely moon,” I whispered to no one in particular.

“It is,” a voice whispered back with a barely audible breath.

I felt a chill run from the top of my skull down to the tips of my toes, and then back up. When I turned my head, I saw her, standing so close I could have touched her had I any inclination to put my palm through a ghost.

She looked just the same as she had when I was a child, but this time she clearly saw me too. Her large blank eyes didn’t so much look at me as they looked through me. I felt like she could read my very soul.

She didn’t say another word, but fidgeted with her locket for a moment before giving me the slightest smile, and then she vanished once more into nothing. In the lingering darkness that followed I thought I imagined someone whisper, “I’m Emma, nice to meet you.”

I really wish Gran was still here so I could ask her what it meant if The Girl on the Wooded Path spoke to you.

✦ FIN ✦