A Wandering Ghost

I took a knapsack, a jar of sunflower seeds, and a jar of water. Then I left my life behind.

Where am I now?

I felt so lonely in my own home, even with my family there. It seemed like a good time to leave. A knapsack, a jar of seeds, and a jar of water. That and the clothes on my back would do, even if they were more like totems than supplies. I left as dusk fell on the old buildings that speckled the hills. Summer night was fast approaching, and the town would have been quiet if not for the crickets and katydids.

I wandered down the unlit alleys and narrow brick streets aimlessly, wondering if anybody would miss me. My brother- younger than me by a year- would turn seventeen soon. I won’t be able to give him the present I’ve been keeping since April. Maybe he’ll find it?

Where am I now?

I gasped, my feet finding the ground, I was bewildered by the return of my own weight. I thought I had only reached the surrounding neighborhoods before I saw the sun rising over the water, its red and orange light dappling the horizon, a distilled paleness clinging to the dark. Was this the end of an hour of night-wandering? Waves rolled fire lit, crashing grey into the shoreline.

I took a worn path leading back to an inoperative lighthouse. Weather stripped all cedar sidings of what was formerly white paint. Slowly the lumber rotted into the stone foundation. Whatever seawall there had been was long gone and the lake looked to devour its next prey. There was no door left in the frame. I would have gone that way inside if the watery sands below weren’t so uninviting.

There was crumbled stone foundation of what once was a room blocked off by saplings and vines. Using chunks of stone as wobbly steps up to a window that was almost too small to fit through, I crawled inside, landing in what might have been a living room. It was difficult to say when all had been reduced to a lumber skeleton. Where there weren’t spaces in the floor, it was littered with scrapwood.

A board creaked. A young woman about my age, with short dark hair and wearing a yellow kerchief dress, approached. “Hello?” She called in. I called back, “Hello. What’s your name?”

“I’m Maud Carpenter. You are?”
“Linda Han.”
“A pleasure meeting you.”
“Likewise. Why are you here?”
Maud laughed, “I live here.”
“Really? Sorry for intruding.”
“Don’t worry about it. People have always explored this place.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“People get called here all the time. That’s what brought you, right?”
I paused for a moment, and said, “I think that’s true.”
“Lovely. Want to see the lantern?”

We took the stairs to the second level. “Just this way past the dining room,” said Maud. I didn’t know how she could tell that’s what the room was by looking at it.

Entire steps were missing from the stairway to the lantern room. Maud led the way with careful footfalls. All of the windows were gone, though the dead Fresnel light remained at the center, its angled lenses once splendidly aglow, now dull as the grey waters.

Where am I now?

Maud invited me on the deck and we talked until I’d revealed all my secret thoughts. I told her how lucky it was she felt at home somewhere, because it didn’t seem like there was anywhere for me.

“You’re always welcome at the Northlake Light. Your brother will find the book you bought him, your father will keep making the mushroom soup the way you like it, your mother will continue to donate to the charity you love, and you will be here with me.” “How do you know all of this?” I asked. “We have been talking since last summer.” I stopped to think about it.

“Ah, I’ve figured it out!” I said and dove into the waters.

Night of the Living Cruciferous Vegetable 6 (End)

Lynda and Dr. Cress boarded the elevator and they descended together to the basement. They passed a white, sterile lab and entered a dull meeting space with a traditional clock on its beige wall, a long wooden table, and stackable chairs with burgundy fabric seats. Dr. Cress told Lynda to have a sit down and she would be back in just a moment. There was a funny-looking air freshener in a wall outlet, but its odor was unusual and more reminiscent of chemicals than the more common lavender and vanilla.

Many minutes passed, but Lynda had stopped watching the clock. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt something akin to homesickness. She crossed her arms on the table, rested her head between them, and fell asleep.

Unwilling to stray while Lynda was still inside, Clyde and Carol sat on the curb under a birch tree in the parking lot. Carol occasionally broke the silence with chatter about feral budgerigar while Clyde picked at and uncurled an immature ostrich fern’s leaf stalk. After fifteen minutes of this Clyde went back up to the building, but was alarmed to find the door locked. He knocked, but nobody heard. Carol went around back and tried going in through the bathroom window, but it couldn’t be opened more than a crack.

They heard the front door open and close and went to investigate. It was the secretary leaving for home. She noticed the two hadn’t left and approached them, a concerned expression on her face, “You’re still waiting out here?”
“Um, yeah,” said Clyde as he scratched the back of his head.
“Do you know what’s going on in there?” Carol asked while shuffling a foot over a small tuft of grass that was growing out of the cement.
“Penny took the young lady down to see the lab, I think. You two are her friends?”
“Yeah, Carol is. I’m her brother. Why is she showing her the lab?”
“I was told she had been writing to Dr. Cress expressing her interest in a similar field. She was so impressed with her enthusiasm that she permitted her a tour. If you would like, I’ll let you into the lobby so you don’t have to wait outside.”

Clyde and Carol thanked the woman for her help as she let them back inside. As she drove away they stood quietly together, looking to each other in utter confusion. “I don’t think everyone here is being told the same story,” Says Carol as she folds her arms.

Without wasting time the two of them got into the elevator and descended to the basement. No lights were on but the one in the room where Lynda was left. Clyde was first to go in and shook his sister awake. “What’s going on?” he asked in a worried tone.
“I dunno. She said she’d be back soon.”
“What? You were just abandoned?” Carol asked while helping Lynda up.
Lynda looked around the dark rooms, her mind clearing as she got up to look around. “She left?!”

Sure enough, no cars were left in the parking lot. Lynda groaned, “What did we even come here for?”

On the next day Dr. Penny Cress and her investors sat in the very meeting space where Lynda fell asleep. “Was the formula successful?” Asked a pasty, balding man in an expensive suit.
“I took a sample from the subject after treating her with the application. From that sample I can tell you the process has absolutely sped. She will return to a full vegetative state in days.”
“How are the first waves of our unique crops faring?” Asked a man with a fluffy brown beard, himself wearing a suit expensive as the balding man’s.
“They are growing exceptionally fast, large, and strong. Exactly like the specimens in the lab. Once the new formula is on the market as an “herbicide” we won’t be having any more advanced specimens.”
“Indeed. It wouldn’t exactly be good for business if word got out that the brussels sprouts on their tables were once thinking, sentient beings,” said the balding investor.
“Parents have enough trouble getting their children to eat their vegetables!” laughed the bearded investor.
“Of course, you only have to slap the phrase ‘farm fresh’ on a carton of milk or eggs for people to forget about veal and battery cages, but we will try not to let things come to that.”
“I’m uncertain if those tactics would work if consumers knew their cabbage could grow into a full human being, but that’s assuming anyone in their right mind would believe such a thing.”
“Well, let us have a toast to my late father,” Dr. Cress says while uncorking a bottle of champagne, “and his brilliant discovery!”

Night of the Living Cruciferous Vegetable 5

Lynda scratched where a new bud was growing, but stops herself before picking it off. She sat down on Clyde’s futon. “What if this Cress woman is my real mom or something?” Clyde took out his cellphone, offering it to her, “Want to use this?”
“You know what? I do have some questions.”

Maybe she could find something out about her condition. Carol cheered her friend on as she took the phone from her brother and began to dial. She was saying something Lynda was only partially able to hear about finches but she didn’t think was probably that important.

The phone rang just a few times before going to voicemail. Lynda put it on speaker anyway.

“Thank you for calling the Erysimum Corporation Laboratory of Plant Breeding and Genetics…”

“Oi. This is some company or something,” Carol says with a snort. Lynda and Clyde shush her and barely catch the main facility address at the end of the message.

It took little effort on Lynda’s part to convince her brother and Carol to go with her to the plant genetics lab. They were curious why this mysterious Cress woman would include it’s phone number in the letter and, quite frankly, were bored and with nothing important to do.

The trio went in Clyde’s nineteen-eighties wood panel station wagon with the girls riding in back. At about the halfway point Carol brought up Lynda’s recent break up and the two friends stayed on that subject for what Clyde considered to be an uncomfortable amount of time.

In total it took them about forty-five minutes to reach the mystery location. It was situated close to where the city became the country, just a distance from a scattering of small businesses. They all got out of the car and went up to the unremarkable brown building with immaculate hedges.

Inside the building was a front desk stationed by a slightly grey haired middle-aged lady. Behind her a door was open to a room of filing cabinets. Lynda guessed the labs must be upstairs. When Lynda asked for Penny Cress the lady smiled and went off to get her personally rather than calling. That seemed a little unusual. They waited in silence for her to return and exchanged somewhat uncomfortable looks.

A minute passed before an elevator bell was heard in the distance. Shortly after a curvaceous woman with loosely curled, raven dyed hair, and a dark gaze sharpened with liquid eyeliner was seen walking down the hall, the sound of her heels striking the floor tile echoing off the walls. Her blazer and pencil skirt were carefully pressed and her lips are painted as vibrant a red as her stilettos. “I certainly hope she’s not my mother,” Lynda thought with the corner of her lips curling mischievously. She wiped the look from her face as the woman approached.

“Hello. I’m Dr. Penny Cress. Are you Lynda?” She addressed Carol.

“No, I’m the abominable snowman. I know you’re probably thinking it’s pretty warm around here for a monster like m-”

“Hi, I’m Lydia. This is my friend and my brother.”

Dr. Cress frowned a little, her expression thoughtful as she looked from Carol, to Clyde, and finally at Lydia. She brushed whatever she was thinking off and offered Lydia her hand, “It’s very nice to meet you,” she says with a bleached smile. Lydia shook the doctor’s hand, awkwardly returning her smile.

“Would you please come with me. I would like to talk a to you about something in private.”

“Um, sure?”

“What about us?” Clyde asked while gesturing to Carol and himself, “What’s so secret that her brother can’t know? What about our parents?”

Dr. Cress’s expression soured, but turned genial again in the blink of an eye. “Why don’t you two go somewhere else? You’re all obviously close, but you didn’t really need to tag along. Why don’t you come back in an hour or two?”

Clyde and Carol looked to Lynda, who shrugged, looked at each other, then finally gave Dr. Cress the stink eye in unison. They obviously weren’t fans. “We’ll be back,” says Clyde while Carol backs him up with a firm nod of the head.

Out the front door went Clyde and Carol, but together they were giving Lynda a look she knew meant they wouldn’t go far. Dr. Cress drew in a breath as the door shut behind them. “Shall we?” she asks, ready to lead the way.

The Rat Walked Away 4 (End)

For the past month Art had spent his time in a place that was not home. His worries fell away whenever the small shape flitted across the floor, beckoning him. Art would follow the dark blur out of his window and into the forest, his chest pounding.

Every time the rat came he led Art to a white house, older than any other in the village. Waiting in the unkempt garden was a boy just like him, and he would teach Art songs and stories he once knew. He told him stories about the house and how he lived inside of it, never desiring to go past the border.

He told him how his mother coddled him for all his peculiarities. He told him how a man Art did not know had one day visited and brought him his only friend- the rat from Europe.

As the autumn trees saw less and less leaves on their branches, the boy just like Art told him a final story. He told Art that rats can handle the pain of loss with great strength, that they must move on with their lives. However, a lonely rat that mourns is in danger, for the lonely rat will soon follow the deceased.

The Rat Walked Away 3

For over a week Ms. Hilden looked for answers about the previous owners of the house. She and Mr. Samson tried speaking to Art about his strange habits and whether or not he knew the people that used to live in the old building, but he would always look straight through them. They both felt helpless.

One morning, as December approached ever nearer, the landlady found that Art was nowhere to be found inside the boarding house. Mr. Samson went into the woods once more after one final request. He returned to Ms. Hilden with an uncharacteristically somber expression on his face. “I’m sorry…” He began, but then went silent and slumped into a chair.

“Whatever has happened?”

“I’m sorry. Oh, it’s terrible. I waited outside for what felt like an hour, but there was nobody there. So, I thought I should check inside the building…”

“Did you find him?”

“Yes and no. He was in one of the rooms, looking as if he was resting peacefully. I think he succumbed to the cold in his sleep.”

“Oh, no. Oh, no… Samson, I should have done more.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“I should have talked some sense into him.”

“You know he didn’t listen to anyone. It isn’t your fault. There was something the matter with him.”

Some time passed and the two had put the troubling incident behind them. That is until a woman named Mrs. Green approached Ms. Hilden. Mrs. Green was a reclusive woman that ordinarily would not speak to anyone, but she heard that the landlady had been asking questions about the house in the woods and decided to come forth.

She told the landlady that the previous residents were a youthful mother and her son. Mrs. Green understood it that the house was given to the mother by the father, though he might as well had been a ghost as far as she was concerned. The woman died young from a serious infection, so the son then went to live with his grandparents in the city.

Mrs. Green adjusted the collar of her blouse while finishing her tale, “How do I know this? My late husband and I knew the boy’s grandparents when they lived in town. We stay in contact.

They’re good people. Out of their kindness they allowed their grandson to keep the old rat that he was so attached to, but after it died he stole money from their savings box and hopped a train away from home. They had written me to ask around for information about the child. I haven’t bothered until now, however, thinking my efforts wouldn’t do any good. Perhaps that was a mistake.”

The Rat Walked Away 2

When Mr. Samson did report what he had seen the last week, Ms. Hilden thought he looked perturbed, or perhaps dumbfounded. He took his coat off, gently shook his head, and then sat down at the kitchen table. “I really don’t understand it,” he said, removing his hat as the stove quickly warmed him, “but I will tell you what I saw.” Ms. Hilden poured Mr. Samson a cup of tea and joined him at the table to listen. “Yes, but let us keep our voices down, if you don’t mind. Mrs. Livingston has just gotten her little Abigail to bed.”

“I see. Ah, well then. I will start from the beginning.  As you asked, I tried my best to keep an eye out for the child, but for several days he just seemed to vanish. Then I was coming in from the backyard when I saw him jump down from his widow into the garden.”
“From a window? Whatever for?”
“I can’t say. Maybe he wanted to avoid those of us in the house? Regardless, that’s what he did every day. Another thing is he went off rather like he was in a trance. It bothered me how he followed the ground as if he was chasing some invisible thing. Every time he returned to this spot out in the woods.”
“It is no wonder he always comes back looking half frozen!”
“Yes.” Mr. Samson nodded, “He would end up at this old, dilapidated house. Did you know that there was a house out there?”
“Yes. I knew the young woman that lived there. It was the last of several buildings that were built in the woods, before Greenfield was even established. All but that one have been torn down. Ah, me. She used to come into town every now and then… I had wondered what happened to her.”
“The building seemed to have been abandoned for some time. Interestingly, the boy never went inside. He just stayed out back and weeded in the garden, talking to the shadows. I didn’t want to get close to him so that he would discover me, but I sometimes would catch bits and pieces. It was something about how ‘she’ was so much like ‘this one’, how ‘this one’ was eating leaves”.
“The poor thing sounds sick in the head. Do you think he had found some wild animal?”

“I was close enough to see there was nothing but a boy in that old yard. At first I thought he was speaking to me! I just about jumped from my boots.”

Ms. Hilden looked contemplative. “Unusual as this all has been, thank you for taking time out of your life on behalf of my concern. You are truly a kind man.”

“Truthfully, it is both a sense of responsibility I have to see that he doesn’t freeze to death, and also my own curiosity that keeps bringing me out there.”

With that he stretched his arms outwards, sighing, and proclaimed that it had gotten late. Ms. Hilden nodded in assent, thanked him, and they both turned in for the night. Ms. Hilden wondered what she should do. This was all strange to her.

The Rat Walked Away 1

Ms. Hilden was an elderly, unmarried woman with no children. She was, however, very maternal. She ran a boarding house in a small town called Greenfield. It was a gratifying role for the landlady, as Ms. Hilden loved cooking dinner for the boarders, looking after the garden out back, and being there for anybody that just needed to talk. Ms. Hilden’s guests could never think badly of her.

As the house and its residents were settling into early November, an unusual boy arrived at the Hilden House. His behavior troubled our kind landlady because he refused to eat or socialize with the others. Ms. Hilden would occasionally attempt to engage him in friendly conversation but all she could get from him was his name, which was Art.

She was troubled further by the fact that every day, for hours at a time, Art would disappear, only to return to his room in a state so cold that he was shaking.

Ms. Hilden had for a time wanted to find out what the child was doing, but that autumn was so deathly frozen, it was dangerous for her to stay out too long. So she asked a friend and boarder, a barber named Mr. Samson, to keep an eye on Art and perhaps discover what he was up to.

Night of the Living Cruciferous Vegetable 4

Lynda and Carol bussed to meet Clyde back at the house. Neither had a clue what the news could be. Carol happened to be staying over that night and tagged along.

Clyde didn’t at first respond when the girls barged into his room. He handed Lynda a letter in a torn envelope. “I opened it by mistake,” he says unconvincingly. Lynda read her letter silently and Carol fidgeted impatiently. Clyde also seemed fidgety, which was uncharacteristic of him.

The letter was written on simple office paper and read,

Hello. You don’t know me. I’m writing to give you an opportunity to know more about yourself and your past.

It was signed by a Ms. Penny Cress and had some contact information, but that was all. Lynda scratched her head. “What?”
“What?” Repeated Carol.
“So, what are you going to do about it?” Asked Clyde.
“I don’t know… right now.”
“Whaaaat?” Carol repeated herself more profusely and Lynda handed her the letter, “Oh. So, let’s go see her! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right?”

Night of the Living Cruciferous Vegetable 3

October that Same Year

In the past day Lynda had reluctantly split up with her on-again, off-again girlfriend. She spent the following Saturday looking for distractions and went to the ice cream parlor with her best friend, Carol Mendez A.K.A. Carol the Brain. Carol’s “advice” mostly was her comparing Lynda’s relationship to the exploits of a wild turkey flock that she had been observing on bird watches.

With only four bites of hot fudge sundae left Lynda gets a strange call from Clyde telling her to come home. He had something to tell her in person.

Night of the Living Cruciferous Vegetable 2

Seventeen Years Later

Today as Lynda Jones hopped down the steps of her home on Spring Beauty Lane she notices a looper caterpillar was inching up her ankle with a slightest tickling sensation. Although people chalk it up to the fact animals simply like her, Lynda had a condition where she was like a magnet to insects. She did not consider this to be a bad thing thanks to the influence of her brother and naturally tomboyish nature.

Lynda was adopted into a lower middle class African-American family as an infant. Her family are father Sam, a medical attendant, mother Audrey, a high school teacher, and older brother Clyde, a student at the local community college. Lynda loved everything about her adopted family, but had some secrets kept from them. One thing she didn’t feel ready to share was that she was “definitely bisexual”.

The bigger issue in Lynda’s mind, though, was that she has been suffering from some unusual physical anomaly since age eleven that she has been too shy to ask a medical professional about. Every time the year gets cold strange growths would pop up along Lynda’s torso. These small protuberances that reminded her of flower buds could easily be broken off. (When this first began she would secretly collect them into an envelope before ultimately deciding that might be a bad idea.)