by Zoe Aarsen
I had a vague idea of the story they were talking about, but I couldn’t recall ever having heard it in detail either. Ghost stories were one of the many things that kids who had older siblings heard before everyone else. Important information about dating was another one of those things. I didn’t have older siblings, and my only older cousin, Krista, had moved away from Willow with Aunt JoAnne and Uncle Marty when I was in seventh grade.
“Okay, okay,” Candace relented. “But tell the abridged version. If you tell the whole thing, it’ll take all night.”
I wasn’t in the mood to hear a ghost story; I was still so excited about my exchange with Henry upstairs that I could barely sit still. It had already crossed my mind that despite what Henry had said, Olivia was going to be furious if he actually came to the dance as my date. Mischa might be upset too, if there was a possibility that her older sister might assume I was trying to push Henry’s ex-girlfriend further out of the picture. One trip upstairs to the bathroom had complicated my night infinitely, I was realizing as the initial rush of excitement passed.
Mischa dropped her voice mischievously to a low whisper as she began excitedly telling the story. “There’s a stretch of Route Thirty-Two that passes the St. Augustine Cemetery. It’s way out past the airport, and my family used to pass it every summer on our drive up to our summer home near Lake Superior—”
“What ever happened to that summer house? We should totally go up there over Christmas break,” Candace interrupted.
“My uncle Roger lives there now. Stop interrupting,” Mischa scolded. “Anyway. So a couple miles before the cemetery, there’s this little bar called Sven’s. It’s just a crappy little sports bar, you know the kind, with fluorescent beer signs in the windows. So, my mom’s boss goes in there one night after work last winter to watch the Packers game. Has a couple beers, probably shouldn’t drive home but figures it’s okay because he doesn’t feel drunk and everyone in the bar keeps saying a blizzard’s on the way. It’s December, and already dark out, and the roads are empty because of the weather forecast and also because it’s just farms in every direction up there.”
We were all listening carefully, leaning in to be able to hear Mischa better. The television was still on, but playing music videos on mute.
“So he’s driving along, and snow’s falling. At first, there are just a few tiny flakes that he sees in his headlights, then the flakes start getting fatter, heavier. He’s so busy watching the snow, he almost doesn’t even see this girl walking along the side of the highway. From the back, she looks young, you know, like our age. She’s carrying her shoes in one hand. He wonders if he’s seeing things. The snow’s getting heavier, and this girl isn’t wearing a coat, so he thinks maybe she’s in some kind of trouble and just needs a ride home. So he lowers his window and asks if she needs a lift.”
“The girl gets into the back seat of the car and pushes all his flyers over to the other side of the seat. My mom is a real estate broker,” Mischa explained for Violet’s information, not realizing that I’d also never heard her tell this story before and benefited from the explanation. “So, her boss’s car had all these open-house flyers in the back seat. He really wants to know why this girl is wandering outside in a snowstorm, so he checks her out in the rearview mirror. He said she was pretty, and she wasn’t shivering at all even though she was just wearing a sweater. There were snowflakes stuck to her eyelashes, and she didn’t even seem to notice.”
Mischa’s lips began to hint at a smile; I could tell she was enjoying how tense we were all becoming, hanging on her every word. She began slipping in between the present and past tenses in her haste to push the entire story through her mouth, telling the story as if it had just occurred days ago.
“He asked her where he could drop her off, and she gave him some street address and some directions on how to get there. He pulled up in front of the house that matched the address she gave him, then looked in the rearview mirror again and almost had a heart attack. Because this time her whole face is bloody. Like her nose is bleeding, her eyes are bleeding, there’s blood gushing out of her mouth—”
“Ew!” Olivia shrieked, even though she’d heard Mischa tell this story before.
Mischa continued. “He swerved his car and it went off the road into a ditch. And when he checked to see if the girl was okay, she was gone. He got out of the car to see if maybe somehow she’d jumped out of the back seat. But she was nowhere. It was like she’d never existed at all.” She paused for dramatic effect, her eyes sparkling. “Except all those flyers in the back seat of his car were drenched with blood.”
“Wow,” Violet said solemnly, believing every word of it.
“He got his car out of the ditch, drove all the way back into town in the blizzard and went straight to the police station.”
“This is the best part,” Candace informed us.
“So he stumbled into the police station, heart pounding, sweat just, like, pouring off his forehead because he was terrified that he was going to look into his rearview mirror and see her back there, bleeding all over the place again. He ran up to the cop at the front desk and was like, The craziest thing just happened. I saw this girl walking along the side of the road. I asked her if she needed a ride, and the policeman just looked at him, and was like, And then you looked in your rearview mirror, and she was gone.”
I got a chill. It was a dumb story, but Mischa was doing an admirable job of making it scary.
“And my mom’s boss was like, Yeah! How did you know? And how freaky is this? The cop was like, We get people in here every winter, saying the exact same thing. It turns out, a real girl had been hit by a car while she was walking home from Sven’s during a snowstorm forty years ago. Whoever hit her just left her on the street to die in the snow. So, the legend of Bloody Heather is, the ghost of this girl only appears to people leaving Sven’s, driving home past the cemetery when it’s snowing. It’s only men who see her.”
“Good job,” Olivia commended Mischa. “What about the story of the six white horses?”
“God, no!” Candace protested. “That story is soooo long.”
Violet sat upright on the floor and folded her hands in her lap. Calmly, in a quiet voice with one eyebrow arched, she asked, “What about Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board? Have you guys ever played that?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Geez, not since middle school.”
“I don’t like that.” Candace shook her head. “I don’t like the idea of messing with spirits. Too scary.”
“It’s not spirits,” I interjected. “It’s group hypnosis. My dad has written papers on this. That’s why it works better for younger kids than for older people. The chanting hypnotizes everyone playing the game.” The game involved one participant making up an elaborate story about the future death of another participant, who would stretch out on the floor. All the other players would kneel around the girl lying down, sliding their fingertips underneath her body. At the end of the story, which was usually either remarkably gory or silly enough to inspire giggling, everyone but the girl lying down would chant, light as a feather, stiff as a board, while raising the reclining girl toward the ceiling using nothing but the slightest bit of pressure from their fingertips. I could never figure out exactly how it worked, because during my own childhood, the handful of times when I’d played the game and the hypnosis had been successful, the body had been raised effortlessly over everyone’s heads. Inevitably, the state of hypnosis would be interrupted by one of the players, ruining the effect for everyone, and the body of the unfortunate girl who had been lifted into the air would crash down to the floor.
“I don’t believe that at all,” Candace told me, making me feel kind of like an idiot for having spoken up. “Something weird happens during that game. It’s scary as hell when it works.”
Violet smiled and shrugged. “It was just a suggestion.”
“Let’s play!” Mischa insisted, pulling a pillow off the couch. “I want to be the stor
yteller first.”
Olivia’s phone buzzed with a new text message. “It’s Pete,” she announced. “It’s midnight. He wanted to be the first one to wish me a happy birthday. Isn’t that sweet?”
We all agreed that it was quite sweet, and Mischa decided that Olivia would be the first subject in our game. I had a queasy feeling about participating even though I knew in my head what my father had told me was true. There was nothing occult or mystical about this game. But for me, making up stories about death scenarios didn’t feel right. Death had already visited my home in my lifetime, and I didn’t like the idea of tempting it, even just for the sake of a game.
Olivia lay on her back with her head balanced on the pillow that rested upon Mischa’s knees. I knelt along Olivia’s right side, facing Violet, who positioned herself along her left side. Candace dropped to her knees at Olivia’s feet, tickling them lightly to make Olivia kick and squirm before Mischa got started. Olivia accidentally kicked a little too high and knocked Candace in the chin.
“Ow!” Candace wailed.
“No tickling!” Olivia bellowed.
“Quiet, everyone!” Mischa commanded with authority. “Everyone must be very serious for this to work! I mean it.”
Without exchanging any words, we all agreed to settle down. Mischa waited until the only noise in the basement was the crackling of the fire. We could distantly hear the talk show being watched upstairs by Olivia’s parents two floors above us, the fuzzy applause of its audience. Mischa placed her fingertips on Olivia’s temples and began concentrating on a wholly original description of Olivia’s future death, which was how the game went.
“It was the night before the Fall Fling,” Mischa began in her scariest storyteller voice.
“Not the night before the dance,” Olivia complained. “Can’t I at least die the night after the dance so I have a chance to fool around with Pete one last time before I die?”
Candace smirked. “You’ve already fooled around with Pete plenty.”
Violet and I blushed. The full details of how much Olivia and Pete had fooled around so far hadn’t really been disclosed to either of us yet. We were juniors in high school; naturally we were curious about who among us had gone all the way. I had barely gone any part of the way, except for a few chaste kisses I’d exchanged over the summer with a guy named Rob who lived in the same condominium community as my dad and Rhonda. I didn’t know anything about Violet’s history with boys, but she looked as uncomfortable as I felt.
“Quiet!” Mischa ordered. “I’m the storyteller, and I decide! Okay, fine. It was the night after the Fall Fling. Olivia Richmond had been grounded by her parents for staying out way past her extended curfew the night of the dance, having innocently fallen asleep in the big field behind the high school track beneath the stars with Pete. No matter how many times Olivia insisted to her parents that she was only guilty of being sleepy, they wouldn’t believe her, because they knew their daughter and her boyfriend were total horndogs who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.”
“You’re gross,” Olivia said without opening her eyes.
“The problem with being grounded,” Mischa continued, “was that Pete had told Olivia he wanted to show her something very special that night, the night after the dance. So Olivia waited until her parents fell asleep, and decided to sneak out of the house to meet him down by Shawano Lake.”
Candace made an insinuating ooooh noise, earning herself a frown from Mischa.
“She got out of bed and changed out of her blue satin pajamas and into her skinny jeans and the totally amazing cashmere sweater that her best friend Mischa had given to her for her sixteenth birthday.”
“Nice touch,” Candace whispered off to my left.
“She raised the window of her second-floor bedroom and climbed through. But the fabric of her skinny jeans caught on a rusty nail in her window frame. She forcefully jerked her leg to try to break free, and in doing so lost her grip on the drainpipe and fell forward. Her pants tore, and she tumbled to the ground, breaking her neck in the fall. However, she did not die instantly. She writhed in pain, struggling to breathe, paralyzed, until dawn. She drew her last excruciating breath as sunlight broke over the horizon.
“Two days later at the funeral home, to the horror of her friends and loved ones, Olivia’s body rested in her coffin, light as a feather, stiff as a board.”
“Light as a feather, stiff as a board,” we all chanted in unison, our expectant fingertips beneath Olivia’s limbs gently pushing her heavy body upward.
“This isn’t working,” Candace said after about five iterations of the chant.
“I don’t feel anything happening,” Olivia announced. She opened her eyes and sat straight up.
“Can I try?” Violet asked, looking directly at Mischa.
“Sure,” Mischa said, handing her the pillow that she’d been balancing on her knees.
Something about Violet’s demeanor changed when she switched places with Mischa. For the first time since I’d met her, she seemed fully present instead of distracted by a daydream. And for the first time that night, she seemed genuinely thrilled to have been invited to the party.
CHAPTER 2
OLIVIA RICHMOND HAD EVERYTHING ANY girl could ever want. A beautiful house, perfectly straight blonde hair, a handsome boyfriend, and a close circle of friends. She began her junior year of high school with everything in the world going for her. She had even just received a brand-new red Prius for her Sweet Sixteen, and everyone at Willow High School knew she’d be named homecoming queen that fall.”
I dared not look up to try to catch Violet’s eye, but her mention of a new red Prius had caught my attention. How had she known that there was a red Toyota parked in the Richmonds’ driveway at that very moment? Had she guessed?
Violet was a noticeably different kind of storyteller from Mischa. She didn’t attempt to make her voice sound spooky or scary. Her voice was steady, confident, and she told her story solemnly, as if it was factual. Time seemed to slow down as she assembled the tale. I could hear the Richmonds’ grandfather clock ticking at the top of the stairs, hear Candace swallow quietly, two feet away. Olivia’s breathing was rhythmic but shallow, and her eyelashes fluttered as if she was dreaming. Violet’s locket threw little glimmers of light around the basement as the flames in the fireplace reflected off of it.
“The night before the Fall Fling, when the Willow High School football team was clear across the state claiming a victory over the team in Kenosha, Olivia was pulling together the final details for her big date with Pete. She had already found her perfect buttercream-colored dress, and a pair of earrings that would look fantastic dangling from her ears, just barely brushing her tan shoulders. But she was still missing the perfect pair of shoes to match her dress, and time was running out. She announced to her friends after school on Friday that she was going to drive to the mall in Green Bay in search of the perfect pair. After combing the mall and settling on a pair of shoes that weren’t ideal, she found that the brand-new car she had received for her birthday wouldn’t start in the lot. She tried and tried to start its engine, but it just stalled.
“As heavy storm clouds filled the sky, Olivia accepted a ride back to Willow with a classmate from her high school who happened to recognize her car in the mall parking lot. They began the long drive back to their small town down the wooded rural highway as Olivia’s mind filled with thoughts about the upcoming dance, as well as the new complication of having to get her car towed out of the mall parking lot in the morning. The raindrops falling from the sky turned to hail, and before Olivia and the student behind the wheel even realized what was happening, they were hit head-on by a speeding truck whose driver didn’t see them swerve into his lane. Olivia’s ribs were shattered, her internal organs splayed out across the front seat of the wrecked car. Her right arm was severed and discovered twenty feet away from the automotive wreckage after the hailstorm. Both of her legs were crushed beneath the crumpled dashboard,
pinning her into the front seat, preventing her escape even if she had remained conscious long enough to try to crawl away from the wreck. When the truck driver was able to bring his truck to a skidding halt and rushed to the car to see if either passenger had survived, he had to turn away, because Olivia had also been nearly completely decapitated. Her head dangled from her shoulders by a few cords of muscle and chunks of skin, having been knocked clean off her spine.
“Three days later, as her shocked family and the grieving town of Willow assembled for Olivia’s wake, her body lay in a closed coffin, light as a feather, stiff as a board.”
I was in such a state of awe from the gruesome detail and calmness with which Violet had brought an end to Olivia’s life with words that my mind wasn’t even focused on whether or not the game would work. An odd feeling of static had fallen across the room, and out of the corner of my eye I could see that the fire in the fireplace was blazing higher and brighter than it had all night, even though an hour ago when I had gotten up to use the bathroom, the logs were already glowing red, lit from within. This unsettled me so much that I remained silent as my friends repeated after Violet, light as a feather, stiff as a board. As I joined them in chanting and Olivia’s straight body, her mouth frozen in a frown, lifted as if it were weightless, I was genuinely frightened. An uneasiness had slipped up against me, a sensation that someone—or something—was patiently observing us.
“Light as a feather, stiff as a board,” we chanted together slowly, ever so slowly, lifting Olivia’s body with our fingertips inch by inch. I became increasingly aware of my desire for the trick to fail. It’s only a game, I reminded myself.
We nimbly climbed from our knees and onto our feet when we had raised Olivia to the level of our eyes. From there we continued to lift her, from the height of our hips until she was level with our shoulders, her arms crossed over her chest, her silvery blonde hair dangling toward the ground.
“Holy . . .”