Epilogue
Years from now children gather in these woods. In fives or sixes they emerge from the trees like fairy-tale phantoms. They burn their fingers and throats with their first illicit cigarettes, roughly rolled with pinches of tobacco pocketed from their fathers’ pouches. These tiny smokers gather in the woods and delight in scaring each other with macabre tales. A ghost story here, a murder there. Blood-thirsty beasts of all kinds.
Once, a bear crept down from the mountains and fed on all the children in the neighbouring village. The bear, however, did not savour heads and left these as ghastly souvenirs in various prominent places. Once, a boy fell through the ice and when they found him a year later his eyes were still open inside his coffin of ice.
The children shiver and hunch their shoulders into their coats.
“That’s nothing”, says one. “Did you ever see the pale girl?” says he, “The one that never speaks.”
The children nod as one and huddle closer. One coughs and hugs himself.
“The girl”, continues the storyteller “can be seen in these woods on clear nights.” “Sometimes she walks the water’s edge…she never says a single word, only walks over the rocks leaving footprints of blood.”
“I touched one once…it was still sticky in the morning.”
“Show us then”, says another.
“I can’t…its gone now.”
Eyes roll and eyebrows rise and fall in the dark.
“Oh no”, another says, “The ghost-girl definitely speaks, for once my uncle heard her…he was collecting water by the creek one night and he saw her through the trees.”
“What did she look like?”
“She was dressed all in white.”
“Did he see her scar?”
“No it was too dark…and anyway you can only see it on a full moon.”
“What did she say?” The audience plead.
“She was screaming ‘Revenge! Revenge!’, but she was laughing…and she wouldn’t stop”
“What did your uncle do?”
“When he came back he went to bed and just quit talking. My aunt said he didn’t talk for three days. She even gave him a slap, but he still didn’t talk”
A few giggle and then stop. No-one is sure where to look.
Now they are hurrying home, back through trees and over rocks. They rub sage on their sleeves to mask the smell of smoke. Once their friends are out of sight, their pace quickens to a run.
That night they will dream. They will dream of witches and bears, boys frozen in ice. But mostly they will dream of the girl. Of the pitter-patter of feet as she flits along the water’s edge leaving footprints of blood. Of her banshee-wail that sends birds from the trees and grown men hurrying back to porches. They will wake in the night, but it is just the wind they hear.