The Haunting of Steely Woods

by Bonnie Elizabeth

He shrugged and then sipped his drink. “I think a ghost is an easy way to make sense of what happened. I’m not sure I can really go for the whole supernatural thing. It felt that way when I was there, you know. So weird. No one around. I can’t believe I couldn’t have heard anything from a person and you would have had to see someone.” Anson held my gaze. “But there wasn’t anyone, except maybe the one truck driver, which I haven’t heard anything more about.”

  “Maybe we can call?” I had the card from one of the detectives, something in case I remembered anything.

  Anson shrugged. “I can’t say I believe in the supernatural. Not really. If there were ghosts wouldn’t more people know about them? Wouldn’t they be more prevalent? This doesn’t make sense.”

  Will sighed. “My mother believed in ghosts and I swear I saw my aunt the day she died, coming to give my mother a hug. My mom turned, like she knew she was there and then nothing. We got the call a few hours later but my mom already knew. She started crying the minute the phone rang.”

  “Maybe you remember it that way because you want to,” Anson said.

  I started to say something, to ask him about his apparent belief the other day.

  “I know,” he told me before I could get the words out. “I latched onto the supernatural thing. It’s what makes sense for my brain. But I know it’s just my brain trying to make sense of something that it doesn’t understand. It’s like the people who started worshipping gods. God was a way to make sense of things they didn’t understand. I think this stuff is like that too.”

  “Maybe what we don’t understand is the supernatural,” Will said. “I’ve had experiences. Traci has had at least one. Something happened to Deborah and a human doesn’t make sense.”

  “And why did that thing follow Traci?” Anson asked. “Because she got away? Then why didn’t it take her. It makes no sense.”

  “You acted like you believed,” I said. I had shared stuff, vulnerable stuff with him. He hadn’t laughed.

  “Our minds are amazing,” Anson said. “I think they fill in things when life is complicated. For all of us, the supernatural is the easiest way to fill in the blank. Even you with the skeletal figure. Was it really skeletal? Could it have been human, maybe in costume? The girls came in and the person fled. You think it just disappeared. Maybe they rushed out, pulling off the costume.”

  Anson hadn’t been there. He hadn’t felt the danger. I had. I wasn’t paranoid then. I didn’t jump every time a faucet dripped. No one who hadn’t been through what I had been through could understand. I knew I was going to die in that moment.

  Will shrugged, looking at Anson. “Then maybe you don’t need to be part of this.”

  “But you might come up with something that will help me explain why Deborah is dead,” Anson said. His voice was almost shaking. He needed something to let him understand what had happened but he couldn’t go whole heartedly into the supernatural thing.

  “I was thinking I need to go back there,” I said. My voice may have shaken a little too.

  “That’s probably true if she’s following you,” Will said.

  Anson said nothing.

  “I was there late, after midnight. There wasn’t anyone else there, at least not in any of the buildings. I think there might have been a couple of truckers outside, probably asleep. I remember traffic being light even on the freeway before I turned off.”

  Will nodded, encouraging.

  “I probably have to go there at night.”

  “And probably alone,” Will said, looking at my face, completely out of character.

  “Do you think?” I asked. I didn’t want to be alone. I had hoped he’d volunteer to come along.

  “What was the date you were at the rest stop? Was it exactly nineteen years before?”

  “I was there in spring. So it would have been just over nineteen years. I saw that Lucy Martin had a sister and she’d have been nineteen when Lucy disappeared,” I added. “I thought maybe the nineteen was the age of her sister. Maybe her sister had something to do with Lucy’s disappearance.”

  “So now we’re solving a cold case that’s nearly a hundred years old?” Anson asked. His voice was a bit louder. The woman Will had borrowed a chair from looked over at him. Even the barista looked up at what he said, although with the music and the other voices, I didn’t believe she’d actually heard the words, just the tone.

  “It’s all part of the puzzle,” I said. “We’re trying to make sense of this and the next piece is apparently in the past. What if Lucy’s death did have something to do with the deaths at the rest stop?”

  Will was nodding. “If her sister murdered her, I could see her being so pissed off that she’d want to murder people even after death. Maybe that anger gives enough power to actually do it, kind of like a demon.”

  “You’d think if they found her bones that she’d be more at rest.” Anson leaned back and crossed his arms as if that was the final say.

  “What if those bones weren’t hers?” I asked.

  Even Will looked a little surprised, but then he smiled grimly and nodded.

  20

  Traci: September Now

  We talked for perhaps an hour. Anson had less and less to say as Will and I bounced ideas off of each other. The two of them left, Anson going in one direction and Will in another. Although they had arrived together, they’d come from meeting each other at another Starbucks.

  I left not long after they did. The silence of my condo seemed to echo around me after having had a discussion in the coffee shop. I didn’t often listen to music at home any longer, lest I miss a sound, but I missed the background noise of Starbucks. Still, I didn’t move to turn on the television or a radio. I was too alone and not yet ready to test my ability to make out the sound of a single drip while music played.

  I settled at my table and enjoyed the brightness. The sun filtered through gray clouds that hovered low over the city. We were in for a storm. I had all my lights burning, including my lanterns. When the storm came, it wouldn’t be silent in the apartment any longer. I waited for thunder.

  After talking to Will, I decided I’d ask Nils for the latter half of the week off and all of the next one. I’d be taking ten vacation days. I could stay in Portland. I sent emails to a couple of old friends, including Ronette, who I’d been up visiting when I’d stopped at that rest stop.

  We’d drifted apart when I’d moved, but we’d been roommates in college. It was her April birthday that we’d been celebrating when I’d stopped at Steely Woods at two in the morning and nearly died. I wondered how she’d have felt if I had died.

  Ronette had been as supportive as anyone, but given that I wouldn’t drive up to see her after the incident made it harder to keep in touch. Sure, she drove down, but it’s a fairly long drive and when I wouldn’t reciprocate or fully explain why, I think she thought I didn’t care about our friendship. Facebook had helped draw us back together but we’d never be as close as we’d once been.

  I made a few other plans and sent Nils a note about what I hoped to do. I wanted confirmation from him that it would be fine before I actually booked plane tickets, though I had researched those along with hotels.

  There wasn’t any place to stay close to Steely Woods, so I needed to decide where to stay. I poured over the map until I got a note from Nils saying that I could take the time off. I wasted no time in booking tickets to Portland.

  I got a hotel in Portland. I could drive north past Steely Woods and then turn around and come south to reach the rest stop where it had happened. Hopefully, I’d live to see the hotel another night.

  I sent Will a message. Even if I had to do this alone, I wanted someone to know the timing of my plans. Assuming I made it through confronting the ghost, I’d head up to Tacoma to see Ronette after that.

  I searched around on the internet trying to figure out what might have happened to Lucy, but found nothing. I did find one of those cold case forums and I input her name. Even there, I found no men
tion.

  The forum seemed like a likely place for answers. I set up a new email under a false name. I wasn’t ready to out myself completely. Then I set up an account and posted my question. I’d wait and see if I got any information or answers. Maybe I’d get a lead.

  Too bad they didn’t have forums like that for ghost hunting and getting rid of ghosts. I hadn’t thought to look but as soon as I found the crime forum, I did a search for ghost hunting forums. There were places people talked about ghosts but nothing on how to get rid of one. From the conversations, I doubted I’d be taken seriously at those.

  At some point, the rain started. I turned when it started tapping on the window, surprised. The light had dimmed, but with all the overheads on and my lanterns on, it still wasn’t shadowed. Time had flown with all my searching and planning.

  I paused, listening.

  There was only the tap tap of the rain on the window.

  I got up and made some macaroni for dinner. It wasn’t fancy but I’m not a fancy eater. I made a salad to eat while the water boiled. In television shows people who lived alone often made scrumptious meals for themselves and sat down at a table with a bowl of salad and a main meal all ready to go. I wasn’t one of those people. I was lucky to think about making salad and then only because I heard my mother’s voice in my head making me feel guilty for not having it.

  So I ate my salad while the pasta heated and then I melted some cheese for the sauce.

  I turned on the television and actually watched something for a change. It had been over a week since I had turned it on. I’d been too busy listening for the telltale drip of a faucet.

  Maybe Lucy was pleased that I was going to go search her out. Or maybe she was just eager to get me in her own place, to take my soul to her wherever she rested.

  Will texted me back as I was finishing dinner. I had forgotten that I’d let him know my plans. He wanted to call and chat.

  I told him now was a good time.

  I lowered the television volume and waited to see if he would be prompt. He was.

  “I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you. After talking to you and Anson, who I’m sort of pissed at, but never mind, I went to a friend’s house. His wife is an energy healer and they’re into all this woo woo stuff and we started talking about things and trolling the net trying to find answers,” Will said. He was nearly breathless.

  “And you found something?” It was clear from his tone that whatever it was, he thought it was important.

  “We found the same general information you found about Lucy and Alma, I think. I also found out that before the rest stop was there, drivers used to think they saw a girl in ripped clothing running out onto the freeway trying to flag someone down. It sounds like an urban legend but there was an interview on a ghost site from some older man who said he’d actually seen it.”

  Which was interesting, if it were true. It was hard to say after all this time.

  “Why do you suppose she stopped running out there?” I played with my hair a little, frowning, though he couldn’t see me. The story didn’t seem all that relevant.

  “The thing is, I guess a girl was picked up there after running out onto the highway in her nightgown. She claimed a man nearly killed her. Unfortunately, she was too incoherent for the police to get much out of her. Given the time period, I don’t know how hard they tried. She ended up at Western State, which I guess was a mental hospital.”

  As far as I knew it still was. Which meant our girl wasn’t Lucy.

  “It couldn’t have been Lucy, then, could it? Because she’s dead, if she’s the girl I’m seeing.”

  “This woman died after a couple of years at Western State. I couldn’t find anything out. And no one had her name.”

  Great. I could be fighting with a ghost who wasn’t even there.

  “So let me get this straight. We have at least one set of bones buried where they built the rest stop, a ghost of a woman running out onto the freeway, a woman who was nearly killed who actually did run out into the freeway and died while she was at Western State miles to the north. We also have Lucy, who might or might not have been the bones buried in the rest stop or the girl who was picked up by the driver.”

  “Exactly,” Will said. It was like he was a teacher pleased that the student had gotten the answer right, although what was the right answer here? “Think about it. Today if a woman tried to flag down a trucker after another woman had gone missing in the area, the police would start connecting the dots. Maybe a serial killer.”

  “Did anyone else go missing around there?” I asked.

  “Can’t find anything.” Will didn’t sound very unhappy about it. “But it was 1942 and Lucy was considered a prostitute. So was her sister. The woman at Western States was never reported missing and they only have a first name, Jenny. No one identified her. In fact, from the stories I read, Jenny might not even have been her name. It was just the name she kept repeating over and over again. For all we know, Jenny might be the bones that were found. Maybe she saw Lucy or Lucy saw her.”

  “Do we know when Jenny ran out onto the freeway?” I asked.

  “The stories say in the fifties,” Will said. “So maybe she saw Lucy.”

  I bit my lip. “I signed up for one those cold case investigator websites under a false name. In case someone came up with anything.”

  “Have they?” Now there was more excitement from Will.

  “I haven’t checked back. It was only a couple of hours ago. I figure it will take some time. It’s not like she’s a famous missing person. I’ll check in tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like a great plan. My friends think it’s a good idea you’re going back there. You need to finish this.”

  “Did they have any advice for finishing it?” That was what I needed.

  “Take any silver jewelry you have. Also, if you have a favorite religion that brings comfort, take any symbols of that. They like salt for protection. Doesn’t matter which kind, although Ani, the wife, tends to prefer a Celtic or Himalayan Sea Salt because she thinks it’s more natural than iodized. She admits any type will do, though.”

  I could purchase salt in Portland. I wasn’t going to take a huge package of it in my suitcase. I had some silver earrings and a bracelet, but other than that I had no silver jewelry. Mentally I wondered if taking a cross necklace would help. I’d been raised in the Lutheran church, rather haphazardly, going now and again, but mostly not. When I left home, I’d gone to church a few times. After the incident, I went for about six months regularly but got no comfort or answers from it. In fact, the minister was one of the first to suggest therapy.

  “But how do I confront the ghost?”

  “You’ll need to go back to the place it happened and hope she shows up. If this was related to Deborah’s death, then she’ll probably come if you’re in her space. Just be prepared.”

  “So I have things to protect me, what do I do next?”

  “Ani suggested chanting be gone. I guess it’s not so much the words as much as your intent. Also a knife to cut the binding between you two, maybe make a rope or something symbolic to disentangle yourselves. Ani says you’re in a unique position to possibly help people later on. I mean if you just cut that cord, so to speak, then this ghost goes back to what she was doing. Maybe she doesn’t bother you but in another nineteen years, she could kill again. Tied to you, you have the ability to destroy her.”

  Except I didn’t know how.

  “Any advice on that? Besides telling her to leave, which is kind of like telling the wolf that’s standing on my chest drooling to be a nice doggy, don’t you think?” I hated to be snide and sarcastic, but Will seemed to take it okay. He laughed a little before answering.

  “Unfortunately, no, they didn’t have any advice. You could try a silver knife or if you find something sharp in iron that might work. If you have access to holy water, you could dip the knife in that before you go. Or have a priest or someone bless the object.”

 
I didn’t know anyone I could call on to bless a sharp object. I suppose I could walk into a random Catholic Church, but I had concerns about being able to walk out again on my own. “Why silver or iron?”

  “Ani said that iron has historically been used against supernatural creatures. Silver came into a fad in the 1930s in the movies. She’s not certain how protective it is, but she always advises using it, just in case. Iron has a longer history of being anathema to faeries and other creatures that could harm someone. It doesn’t actually work against ghosts but we’re not completely sure that this creature is really a ghost or if it’s something else. Ghosts can’t normally hurt someone, which Ani says means it might have turned into some other sort of supernatural creature and iron typically works against them.”

  Not that silver or iron knives were easy to find. I didn’t even know where to start searching for such a thing, something I mentioned to Will.

  He thought about it. “I think you could probably find a place setting for a silver set in an antique store and maybe use a knife sharpener to sharpen a silver knife. I’m not sure about iron.”

  I got up and went to my computer and started searching while Will talked about the ways in which I might find silver that wasn’t too expensive and some that were, like buying real silver and melting it down. Like I had the time and money for that.

  Google let me know that steel is iron so if I got steel nails they might work. And they were naturally sharp. I could probably use a lot of different gardening tools too. Easier than I thought. Stainless steel would probably be iron of a type, too, which was what my flatware was made of.

  “Ani also said you could do a banishing ritual. The “be gone” chant would be part of it, or whatever speaks to you,” Will said. “She suggested getting something that belonged to Lucy or at least something that represents the ghost to you. Burn it near the rest stop, if you can. Then take the iron knife and do a symbolic cut on the cord that ties you to it. Put your energy into making sure that you think of the spirit being gone. If she is buried around the rest stop and wasn’t found, finding her bones and giving her a consecrated burial would be best. If not, cut a symbolic cord between her and the rest stop.”