LJ Idol, Season 9, Week 27: Open Topic
Samhain had passed, the circles had been lifted, the veil was closed, and all the ghosts had gone home. All the ghosts except for one, that is.
And that's why a fifteen-year-old Rafaela Torres shivered on a sandbar in the frigid air of the earliest hours of November, her flannel pajamas and salt-and-pepper pixie haircut soaked by the West Fork White River of Washington County, Arkansas.
When the wraith had swept past her tent, she could have let it go. Of course she couldn't. Follow it, she thought. I've never seen a wraith before, she thought. It'll be fun, she thought.
It was not fun.
Thus she'd had to dive into the river, where ghosts--particularly those made primarily of rage--can't cross. Her only options now were to find her way back under the safety of dawn to face her parents, or to die of hypothermia. She preferred the latter.
Also: "You can't see a wraith, dumbass," she scolded herself through chattering teeth. "Wraiths are invisible, dumbass."
She didn't have to see it, however, to know it was there, pacing back and forth along the banks, kicking up sand, pebbles, and leaves, and blocking her way to the warmth of her sleeping bag.
The inevitability of her death by exposure or filicide was interrupted by the nearby yapping of a small dog. She squinted at the sound, which had burst forth from a Yorkshire Terrier, a breed that was almost unrecognizable without a debutante attached to it.
The ghost stopped moving.
"Crap," she moaned.
Sure enough, it turned its attention to the dog.
Rafaela sighed and waved her hands over her body, paying special attention to her drenched clothes and hair. "I cleanse and consecrate thee in the name of the divine goddess, may you heal, cleanse, and purify all you touch. So mote it be." It wouldn't last long as holy water, but it would be enough for now. She tore out of the river and dove toward the area most disturbed by the wraith's charge.
She tackled something, for sure, which felt pretty strange, but in an awesome way. This gave her enough time to roll to her feet, grab the Yorkie, and sprint aimlessly as far as possible from the now-even-madder ghost.
"Are you fucking stupid?" she asked the squirming creature in her arms. "Of course you're stupid. You're a fucking dog." After a few minutes, she slowed her pace. "We're both going to die now. I hope you're happy," she panted. "Of course you're happy. You're a fucking dog."
It yipped joyfully and wagged its tail.
"Arnold!" a man yelled from not too far away. "Arnold! Where are ya?"
"I'm hoping you're Arnold," she told it and headed in that direction.
The destruction in the ghost's wake drew closer.
She soon spotted a glare followed by the source of that glare: the kind of very large pickup that sprouted up all over this region of the United States, parked by the stone bridge that spanned the river. A pair of plaid-parka-and-baseball-cap-wearing young men spun around and grinned in relief when Rafaela stumbled into the clearing.
She took a deep breath and frowned. "You named your girl dog Arnold?"
"Yep," replied the one in green, "she's named after--"
"Wow," she interrupted, "cool story. You need to leave."
"Whut?" asked the one in red.
"Go!" she snapped.
"Listen," the one in red drawled, "if you think we're gonna let some freaky goth chick in PJs--"
He stopped talking when their fire pit exploded as if had been stomped on by something invisible.
"Whut?" repeated the one in red.
Whatever had killed their fire lifted up their beer cooler.
"Roy," whispered the man in green, "they always said the bridge was haunted, but--"
The cooler slammed into his stomach.
"Joe!" cried the one in red whose name was Roy.
"I told you to take off!" Rafaela reminded them.
Now convinced of the urgency, Roy yanked Joe to his feet, collected Arnold, jumped into their pickup, and started the engine.
Rafaela sputtered for a moment as she watched them peel out onto the bridge. She found her words, along with her middle fingers, both of which she flung in their direction. "Thanks for the ride, assholes!" Closing her eyes and holding her breath, she resigned herself to being crushed to death by the vengeful spirit.
Surprisingly, it blew past her. A moment later, the truck began to rev desperately, as if it were stuck in the mud. This was because its back axle was currently hoisted up.
She ran toward it, concentrating on the language education she wished she'd paid better attention to. "Espíritoirritado!" she demanded. "Solte-os!"
It obeyed, and the men skidded off to safety.
" 'Thanks for saving our lives, freaky goth chick in PJs!' Oh, don't mention it, assh--"
An unseen hand slammed into her chest, knocking her over and into the river. After blacking out for a moment, she recovered and surfaced by virtue of sheer panic. She paddled to the closest bank and forced herself to her feet, which was a particular challenge, given that the bones in her left forearm appeared to be broken.
At this point, the best she could hope for was that she'd chosen the safe side of the river, where she could rest until the sun came up and hobble back to her family; at least this way she'd have a chance to think about her life before they ended it. The worst she could hope for was having chosen the wrong bank and getting killed right away.
Naturally it was the second one.
She held up her good arm in surrender. "Wait," she gasped. "We can talk about this!"
The air stirred violently.
"I said: espere!" she bellowed.
It paused as long as the spell would hold it.
"I know the legend of Tilly Willy Bridge," she told it, "which, you have to admit, is the goofiest name of a haunted place, ever. Anyway, a family died when the father was distracted by his kids in the backseat and drove the car into the river. Now a lady in white wanders the banks, and small handprints show up on windows, and a vengeful ghost stalks the woods sometimes."
The sand began to shake.
She talked faster. "So that begs the question, which one are you? The wife whose trust in her husband was violated by his carelessness? The children who never had a chance at life?" She shook her head. "No, you're the driver, aren't you? Am I right?"
The wind shifted.
"I knew it!" She grinned, and then cleared her throat solemnly. "Self-loathing is the only hatred powerful enough to create..." she waved her right hand to the space she hoped was still occupied by a frozen wraith. "... this. I get it. I spent four years in an insane asylum just wallowing in my failure. But seriously, all you're doing is taking it out on everything that isn't yourself. I get that too. But shit happens. You need to get over it before somebody gets hurt." She looked down at her arm. "Gets hurt worse, I mean."
A groan seeped out of the woods.
"There's a woman searching the river at night for something," she concluded. "Maybe it's you. Go find her
The air then went still.
She exhaled and dropped to her bruised knees. Sure, she had a lot of explaining to do, but she'd just banished her first supernatural creature, that was pretty cool.
From behind her, someone clapped slowly.
An exhausted turn of her head revealed that it was her father. "Crap," she sighed. To him, she asked, "How long have you been watching?"
"A while," he told her. "Since you brought the dog to the rednecks."
"Daddy!" she snapped.
"Don't use that tone with me!" he snapped back. "Not after you sneak off in the middle of the night and scare your mother and brother sick."
"My arm's broken!"
He winced. "Ouch, really? That never happens in the movies."
"Why didn't you help me?" she whined. "I could have drowned! Or squished to death!"
"You handled yourself just fine," he replied.
Now that the excitement had passed, the pain was setting in. "I was lucky," she whispered.
"You were clever," he said as he knelt down in front of her and wiped a tear from cheek. "And brave. And I'm very proud of you."
She sniffed and smiled.
"Let's get you to a hospital, angel."
"Thanks, Daddy."
"And you're grounded."