a ghost story

When the ghost cried, waves crashed on beaches around the world. Wolves roared, and pagans danced in circles. The ghost cried every night.

Cecilia heard the ghost crying outside her bedroom window. She would sneak downstairs in their summer cabin, spread out a sleeping bag on the floor, and snuggle into it. She could hear the ghost better from downstairs. Her parents didn’t believe her. They told her it was just the wind in the trees, fish splashing in the lake, or birds. Their explanation changed each time she reported the sound of crying.

When the ghost cried, stars shivered in the sky. Atoms split, and hearts broke. When she cried, lives altered.

When Cecilia was dating Robert, she took him out to the cabin for a romantic getaway. They paddled a canoe on the lake and held hands on longs walks in the woods. The ghost kept crying, but Robert never mentioned hearing her.  When Cecilia and Robert broke up, she went out to the cabin and sat on the back porch all night listening to the ghost.

When the ghost cried, ogres stirred beneath sleeping volcanoes. Storms gathered strength out in the Atlantic Ocean.

After Cecilia married Ted, she had a caretaker keep an eye on the cabin for several years. They spent their time working, traveling, arguing, and eventually, having two girls. Although Cecilia could not hear the ghost, when seagulls shrieked in her suburban street late at night she knew the ghost cried. When the girls were old enough, the family began visiting the cabin again. Ted hung a swing from the closest, strongest tree and the girls spent hours on it. They splashed each other in the lake, and piled into the car to drive to the closest small town and eat greasy burgers at the diner. Only Cecilia stayed up at night to listen to the ghost crying.

When the ghost cried, icecaps cracked. Fairies sang dirty ditties to each other. Rivers changed course, and fish started walking on land.

The girls eventually became teenagers who complained about spending time in the country, with spotty, slow cell phone coverage and away from an internet connection.  So after Cecilia divorced Ted, she dropped the girls off at his place for visits on the weekends and drove to the cabin. She was dismayed to see the gigantic “summer cottage” newly built nearby, clearly visible from the cabin through the now severely depleted trees. She wondered where the ghost wandered now, yet the ghost still cried every night.

When the ghost cried, planets were demoted. Trees fell, and thunder boomed. Knights kneeled in supplication before their Queen.

Cecilia became aware that the end was near, that the sickness was destroying her body.  She willed the property to a preservation society because she knew her daughters did not love it as she did, and managed to make it back out to the cabin one last time. She rocked peacefully on the back porch swing, wrapped in a shawl.

“I’ll be with you soon,” she said into the night. “We’ll cry together.”


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