Character: Gethsemane Brown
Series: The Gethsemane Brown Mysteries
Author: Alexia Gordon
I’m Gethsemane Brown. I’m a native Virginian living in southwestern Ireland. How and why is a long story involving lying, cheating, and murder. And a ghost. Did I mention I’m living with a ghost? I am. The ghost of the famous, and murdered, composer, Eamon McCarthy, is my roommate. If you ask him, I’m his roommate since I live in what used to be his house.
I never believed in ghosts before I met one. I thought reported ghost sightings could be explained away as misinterpretations of natural phenomena or figments of overactive imaginations. I thought wrong. As soon as I accepted that ghosts existed, they began materializing out of the woodwork. Or ether. Or wherever they hang out when they’re not haunting. So. Many. Ghosts.
My grandmother believed in ghosts. She called them “haints.” We used to make fun of her for being “country” and superstitious. I owe her an apology.
My siblings and I would go to the country to visit Grandma every summer. Being summertime in the South, we’d have at least one thunderstorm during our stay. A big storm, with rain so hard you’d have to pull over if you were caught out driving. The kind of thunderstorm that took out the power for hours and left you with candles and flashlights that cast weird shadows in the corners. Grandma would tell us stories on the nights the power went out. Stories like this one:
Them woods out back of Toomey’s Pond is sp’osedly haunted. Bad things happened in those woods and folks say haints lurk in the trees waitin’ to get they revenge for the wrongs done to ‘em while they was alive. Er’rybody takes the long way ‘round Toomey’s Pond, even if it means they’ll be late for church or for an important appointment. Only a fool or a madman would cut through those woods at night.
One night, my daddy felt foolish—between you and me, he was prob’ly drunk. He’d stayed too late at the juke joint and wanted to get home ‘fore Mama went out after him. He decided to cut through them woods. He walked as fast as he dared in the dark, whistlin’ to keep himself company and to warn off any animals that might be prowling for a meal. He glanced over his shoulder from time to time to make sure nothin’ followed him. He’d gotten halfway through the woods when he heard something. He couldn’t tell what. He stopped whistling, but kept walking, and listened. There! He heard it again. What was it? Didn’t sound like no animal. Didn’t sound like no person. He heard it a third time and stopped walking. Where had it come from? In front of him? Behind him? He spun around slow. From his right? From his left? Again! A fourth time. Almost surely, it came from over there…
He peered deep into the darkness, knees bent into a crouch, neck craned, eyes narrowed as he squinted between tangled tree branches. There was something, way back there. Something white. Something fluttering. Something—
Daddy didn’t wait to see more. He forgot whistling, he forgot being careful moving through the woods in the dark, he forgot how mad Mama was going to be, and took off running. Tree branches scratched him, tree roots tripped him, he got turned around and nearly fell into Toomey’s Pond. He kept running. Finally, mercifully, he saw the farmhouse and the light Mama always kept on when he wasn’t home. He ran across the field like the devil, himself, was after him. He leaped up the front steps, flung open the door, kissed Mama and promised never to stay late at the juke ever again, rushed into their bedroom, and hid under the covers ‘til morning.
The next day, Uncle Lon stopped by to see if Daddy wanted to go hunting. Daddy said he was done with woods for awhile and told Uncle Lon what happened. Uncle Lon laughed at Daddy, accused him of being drunk and imagining things. He ragged on Daddy until Daddy finally said he prove he’d seen a ghost and dragged Uncle Lon out of the house—after he grabbed his shotgun.
“What you gonna do with that gun, Bubba? A shotgun ain’t no use against a haint.”
“Shut up, Lon.”
He led Uncle Lon back into the woods. They followed broken branches and turned up earth back to the spot where Daddy had seen the apparition. He pointed off into the distance, in the direction of the white thing, but kept his face turned away, afraid of what he’d see if he looked.
“There,” he said. “Over there’s where I saw the haint comin’ at me like a demon from hell.”
Uncle Lon looked where Daddy pointed. He stared for a long, silent while.
“Bubba,” he said to Daddy finally, “I believe I see your haint.”
Daddy stiffened but didn’t turn his head. “Y-you see it? It’s still there?”
“Something white?” Uncle Lon asked.
“Y-yes,” Daddy said. “Let’s go!” He’d run a good yard before he realized Uncle Lon hadn’t followed. He turned back. Uncle Lon was headed toward the haint.
“Lon!” Daddy yelled. “What are you doin’? Are you crazy? C’mon!”
Uncle Lon ignored Daddy and walked deeper into the woods, out of Daddy’s sight. Daddy looked back and forth between the direction of the farmhouse and the direction his elder brother had gone, torn between safety and familial duty.
Lon called him before he could choose. “Bubba, you got to come see this. I caught your haint.”
Caught the haint? Daddy frowned. How could you catch a haint? He gave up the farmhouse and headed toward his brother’s voice.
Uncle Lon’s words melted into laughter as Daddy picked his way through the trees. “Here’s your haint,” he said as Daddy came up to him. He stepped aside. Caught on a tree branch, about chest high, was a tattered, white men’s shirt. Lon swatted at it and it fluttered. “Boo!” He laughed again.
He kept laughing all the way back to the farmhouse.
Daddy didn’t laugh. And Daddy never cut through the woods, or stayed too late at the juke joint, ever again.
Okay, it’s not actually a ghost story. But Grandma told it in a way to make it as scary as possible, right up until the end. Even though the spook turned out to be a shirt, we kids lost serious sleep imagining what made those noises we were certain we heard outside, punctuating the rain patter and the thunderclaps.
Who are the storytellers in your family? What are some of their best stories? Share in the comments.
I’ll select one commenter to win an audio CD set of Fatality in F, the 4th Gethsemane Brown mystery. Entries close 11:59 pm EDT on Monday, July 27. I’ll announce the winner here and on the Killer Characters Facebook page on Tuesday, July 28.
