The Cypress Specter

The sky is thick with cotton thin clouds, a stirring grey wash overlay that hazes the sun so that only the brightest outline shows through. The wetlands below buzz with cicada and katydid. On spindly legs, spoonbill wad their way through murky pools of brown water and marsh wren weave between wind-stirred cattails and reeds. Every now and again one of the spoonbills lets out a squawk making a break in the otherwise incessant insect chorus. 

Under lily pads and nestled within overgrown grasses, toads add a low bass to the marsh music.

The day is muggy and humid, heightening a pungent odor of fish, decaying seaweed, and ancient muck. A frog slings itself out of the mud to catch a dragonfly by one of its glassy wings. Satisfied with its meal, it flings itself back into the murk. A cloud of mud comes to rise as ringletts spread over the water.

Typically of a Lucrim wetland, the humidity mixes with the cool of the pond so that a thick mist rises from the waters. It creeps and slinks around the cattails and slides over mossy rocks as it makes its way towards the nearby farmland. 

Here the wetland tapers off into a drier, lusher wheat field. Regardless, the gloom remains the clouds darken and droop, bloated with rain to be shed. Quick flashes accent their underbellies and a distant rumbling gives one final warning to rush to houses. 

This warning is not heeded by the party in their shadows. 

It is strange to be back on her family’s homestead. She hasn’t seen it in decades, but it is just as forlorn and haunted as Hype remembers. She wanders towards the dilapidated remains of her childhood home. The shutter of the window, white paint chipped away by weather and age, hangs loose and flaps in the breeze just waiting to join falling planks of wood on the ground below. Planks that have fallen so long ago that they have become host to fungi and mosses. 

Some chunks of the house have fallen at the feet of a ghostly white cypress tree. Its dead limbs twist and curl, reaching out to catch the rain. Its silhouette is a somber reminder that her childhood has long since passed. All that remains of her tire swing is a rope that sways like a noose from its lowest branch.

“You used to live here?” Horen remarks. 

Hype nods. 

Zakka shudders, “was it always so...creepy?”

Hype considers for a moment. She wants to say that it wasn’t. That it used to be sunny and bright when she and her siblings used to play make believe in the yard. She almost caves to the nostalgic filter and says no. But when she finally does speak she says, “perhaps not this creepy, but it was eerie.” She pauses briefly, “it was alive.”

Hamati props herself against the smooth bark of the cypress. “I’d live here.” She shrugs.

“Is it what you all were hoping for?” Hype asks.

“Depends, how many ghosts are here and how active are they?” Horen asks.

“There are plenty.” Hype replies. “They never left me alone.”

“I’m sure they’re thrilled to have you back.” Haimati notes with an amused sniff.

“What kind are they?” Zakka asks. “Like. are they the spooky ghost type, the sinister specters, or the mournful spirits?”

“This land has a rather respectable variety.” Hype answers. “The homestead and barn houses are at least a century or two old. The land itself is ancient.” Hype wanders over to the cypress and runs her fingers over the bark. She finds the place where she and her siblings had etched in depictions of dogs and cats and several flowers.

The back half of the cypress is a starkly contrasting black, a call to its victimization. More than once the tree had found its branches sparkling with lightning and its leaves glowing with firelight.

Still it had lived on.
Long enough that she was no longer around to know when it had come to pass.
Morbidly, she wonders if it had gone before or after her parents.

Zakka wanders towards the fence at the edge of the property, the mist nearly swallows her whole. It is so terribly quiet that Hype can hear the wood of the broken fence post knocking against the post next to it. “Where do you think we should set up our cameras?” She calls.

“Anywhere will suffice. There is activity all over, but the cypress is a good place to start.” Hype answers.

“I think that this will be a good place will be prefect for our comeback episode.” Horen comments more to herself. “From the sound of it we’ll be able to make an entire season from this farm alone.”

Haimati shrugs. “It has the right atmosphere. Creepy fog, eerie marsh, forlorn and forgotten property…” She pauses, “Bellazhanna would have hated this place.”

Hype furrows her brows. “What happened to Bella?”

“The last hunt we went on didn’t go...as planned.” Horen replies.

“That hunt is why we stopped our paranormal investigations.” Zakka appears out of the fog. She makes her way towards the car, “give me a hand with our equipment?”

“Sure.” Horen smiles.

A gust of wind sends the rope next to Haimati swinging. Hype shudders at the temperature drop that comes in its wake. She can taste rain on her tongue, smell petrichor in the air. “I would hurry if I were you.”

Haimati quirks a brow, “I’ll be inside. I’d rather not get drenched for the camera.”

Hype sighs, “four people can carry equipment faster than three.”

“You’ll do just fine without yours truly.” Haimati rolls her eyes.

Hype stuffs her hands into her pockets and approaches the car. She picks up an armful of cameras and tripods while Zakka pulls out the EVP equipment. She rolls her eyes when Horen pulls out the ouija board. “Really?” She mutters. “I don’t think that you’ll be needing that here. There are already plenty of spirits without you inviting them in.”

The sky offers one final warning rumble before hurling the first few fat drops of rain down upon them. Hype feels one splat on her shoulder. She quickes her pace. Zakka slams the trunk and hurries to catch up as Horen locks the car.

Helpful as ever, Hamait watches Hype struggle to turn the doorknob without dropping all of the camera equipment. She manages to push it just ajar enough to slip inside. She exhales and sets the camera equipment on the floor. The other two aren’t all that far behind.

Having freed her arms of electronics and her mind of distractions it settles in, how strange it is to be back here. It still smells the same, albeit, older...dustier. But that odor of old books and hot summertime straw still lingers in the house’s old wood.

Though the floral wallpaper is peeling around them, family photos and cuckoo clocks still hang on the wall in the same places they always have. Many of the images are yellowed by sun exposure. Hype resists the urge to run her fingers over the frames. Her stomach flutters with sadness having only thought about seeing the faces of her brother and sister again. She swallows; too many mistakes have driven them apart. Too many mistakes that she can’t reconcile.

She drops herself onto the sofa and kicks up a cloud of dust. Haimati coughs, “ugg, must you?”

Hype snickers. “Absolutely.”
Even the table in front of the couch is arranged exactly as she remembers it; a decorative, floral rococo tea set resting upon a white lace doilie. A dainty silver stirring spoon and an offwhite handkerchief, folded neatly into a triangle and topped by a glass crane.

Along the wall are tall, cherry wood shelves that are generously stocked with both children’s books and adult novellas. Hype can see cobwebs clinging to the corners of the shelf and drifting in the draft. Such webs are threaded delicately under the coffee table and in the corners of the room. They coat the stair rails alongside a spray of dust.

The tattered carpet is lined with toys; overturned trucks and cars, and a pull along crocodile. Hype bites her lip, that crocodile had been her brother’s favorite. Seeing it lonely and discarded brings her an absurd sense of sympathy. She can’t recall ever having been sympathetic towards something with no sentiance before.

She pulls her eyes away from the toys and watches Zakka fuss with the cameras.

“I’ll take some of them upstairs.” Horen volunteers.

“I’ll keep my ass on this sofa until something interesting happens.” Haimati stretches her arms and kicks her feet up onto the table.

“Haven’t your parents taught you any manners?” Hype crinkles her nose.

“My dad died before I was born and my mom was too busy tormenting the innocent.” She shrugs.

“A-and we’re rolling.” Zakka notes. “Hello everyone!” She says to the camera. “Welcome back to The Spooky Ghost Show!”

“Really?” Haimati mutters, “we’re keeping that name?”

“What’s wrong with it!?”

“You thought of it when you were ten?” She quirks a brow.

“Pssh…” Zakka gives a dismissive wave and turns back to the camera. “It’s been about ten years since our last episode, so let’s run through how this is gonna work! My team and I are going to try to make contact with the spirits that live in this house. And apparently there are plenty. And then we’re going to help them go into the light.” She pauses and turns the camera. “In case you all forgot, I’m Zakka, that’s Haimati, and that’s Horen.” She points at each. “Bellazhanna decided not to come back to the team so instead we have Hype!” She angles the camera at her and she gives a slight wave. She brings the camera back to herself. “This is Hype’s childhood home and she says that she’s experienced a lot of activity here.”

“And I’m still waiting to see it.” Haimati grumbles. “Fuck, usually there’s at least some activity by now. A face in the window, a slamming door...something. This place is so quiet.”

Somber, Hype thinks. It has the heavily silent stillness that a haunted place ought to carry.

.oOo.

It is melancholy and disorienting to be back in her childhood bedroom. Her stomach flutters seeing her collection of floppy stuffed dogs and cats with much of their fuzz matted or missing. Their beady eyes call to her, imploring with their eyes, why she had abandoned them. She chews the inside of her cheek and turns away from the forlorn toys. At least she had taken the care to tuck them in.

Over the carpet a fuzzy green run is laid. It matches the blankets and comforter on her bed. She recalls fondly that she used to love the color green, until she grew up and acquainted herself with reds and browns and other neutral tones. A few stray marbles shine on the floor in the moonlight. Not that there is much of that penetrating the storm clouds.

Her bookshelf is miniature, its wood decorated with red and yellow finger paint butterflies and hand prints.  Lightning reflects in her child’s vanity set mirror. Once upon a time, she had kept the thing covered after countless times of seeing specters on its surface. Thunder rumbles as she stoops down and presses her palm against the smaller version of it and then over the twins’. Again she bites her cheek, feeling tears well in her eyes.

She can’t sleep here there are too many memories dancing around like the dragon mobile above her old bed.
At any rate the bed is too small.

She rises to her full height and, for old times sake, peers into the glass. It is wholly dark, as dark as the room it captures on its face. Another flash of lightning has her heartbeat picking up at the thought of seeing a familiar face in its light. But the only familiar face she sees is her own as the flash dies away.

Hype glances at the closet, another source of terror. She liked to sleep with it open so that it couldn’t open itself. She shakes her head at that childhood logic. Keeping it open never stopped them from closing it. But at least it saved her the trouble of watching something crawl out of it, she’d see it first.

She opens the closet and finds her old dresses hung neatly in a row. Her favorite dress, a long green sundress with dragonfly print stands out, ratty and worn. Towards the back of the closet are new clothes, bigger clothing that she had only just begun to grow into when her family dropped everything and moved.

She closes the closet once more. Lightning flashes again and she peers at the mirror, just one more time before leaving.
She wonders if the old woman remembers her.