Two months after my thirteenth birthday, I decided that things could not get any worse. Like the ancient civilizations, my life was an endless pattern of successes and failures. People say I joke. Honestly, life is not a good joke; it’s simply a bad metaphor.

I stood in the very back of the Kentucky Downs Racing stands, waiting for the starter pistol to trigger so I could leave sooner. My parents had the box stand. They just dropped me off in the sea of spectators like I was some kind of dangerous grenade. Bang. Down in the stands I saw seventeen purebred horses and their jockeys accelerating as fast as the familiar New York subways.

A few days ago, my parents and I had moved from Times Square views to the “unbridled spirit” of Kentucky. I smirked. It seems more like “fried chicken spirit”. Nothing ever happens in Kentucky but tornadoes and boring horse races. Mom wanted to escape her unfortunate career as an actress and start a new life as a teacher. Dad agreed to move for her sake. I hated it. I wanted to be with my old friends, joking about Hollywood’s twists and having five hour conversations about the latest novels we read. I wanted to have a normal teenage life, go to an IVY league college, start a journalist career for the TIMES, and eventually become a famous author like J.K. Rowling. The future I believed in was already long buried in the green hills of old Kentucky.

I sighed. Underneath my black leather jacket, I unzipped the inner pocket to pull out my white earbuds and feel Linkin Park music vibrate through my brain. Then I opened my favorite book, The Sea Wolf by Jack London, to page two-hundred four and started to read the part where Captain Larsen shoots the cook for the hundredth time. Suddenly, I was very aware that somebody was watching me.


“So you like that band too, huh?” I heard a muffled voice behind from behind.

I spun around and saw a guy about my age in an actual black Linkin Park 2010 Tour shirt and torn-up Levi’s. He had a farmer’s tan and a light but noticeable accent. So people in Kentucky actually do know some things. I took off my earbuds and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Sorry, I could hear your music playing,” he responded.
Realizing that music was literally exploding from my earbuds, I shut off my iPod and hid an embarrassed expression. “It’s alright.” I replied.“Yeah, Linkin Park is my favorite.”

“You’re not from Kentucky I’m assuming.”

“Yeah. I moved from New York because of some absurd reason that only my parents understand,” I replied, guessing he noticed my Converse tops and black leather jacket.


“I’m Jesse. What’s your name?” he asked


“Mary.” My full name was Mary Selena Crimson.


“So which part of Kentucky are you going to be staying around?”


“West side, it’s called Paradise,” I said, feeling uncomfortable talking to a stranger.
Suddenly, he lost his smile. I saw a dark glint in his eye. “That place was abandoned a while ago from the cinder falls due to coal mining. There is some kind of wraith that arose from the ashes. Mary, you have to leave. I don’t believe the only reason that people left were because of ashes,” he said to me.


I laughed. “Chris, I don’t believe in ghost stories. Plus, I think I’ve had enough of Hollywood.”


He responded with a smile. “Well, nice meeting you. I’ll see you around.”

I went back to my book as soon as he turned his head back to the race. Kentuckians seemed pretty cool, but they seriously believe in some weird voodoo magic.

After the horse race, my parents and I dropped me off to our new house – an ancient cottage with five small bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. They left to go check out the new school that Mom would teach at. I scanned the deteriorating wooden planks and cracked bricks that constructed the house’s facade. An aura of darkness shined from the small windows. As I walked on path leading up to its front door, the trees crouched closer to the dirt. I took a deep breath and entered the unlocked entrance. Slowly, I began to smile. Each wall was covered in a elegant designs and the smooth wooden floor was finely furnished. I explored the house inside and out. Each bedroom had a different style of flawless elegance. I finally decided on the room with dark purple curtains and vintage style furniture and began to unpack. There was something mystical about this place. Perhaps I could stay here forever; this would be by home. Suddenly, everything that once seemed beautiful faded into shades of gray. I couldn’t let go of my dreams and the life that defined me. I sighed and stared out the single window in my room.
Instead of the beautiful view from the flashes of billboards and street lights, all I could see were green hills and cows for miles across the horizon. Like this house, I would remain myself but rot away. The tears that began to collect at the corner of my eye obscured my vision. I felt so small and vulnerable in this new world. All I wanted was left in New York. “The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now,” Bill Cosby had said.
While sitting on the bed, I took out a small mirror from my pocket that my friend had given me before I left New York. If I ever got lost myself in this world, she said that I could just look at the mirror and remember. I stared at the mirror and saw the pale olive skin, hazel eyes, and scattered freckles across my cheeks that I hated. The scar on my jaw was still visible from when the time I got beat up in preschool. I couldn’t find myself anymore.
I snapped out of my gloomy trance and decided to explore my new town. I combed my dark brown hair, slipped on my shoes, and bounded towards the clustered building. The scent of freshly mown grass and airborne serenity diffused through the air. Small shops and restaurants dotted the endless blue sky. I saw one house after another like I was in a live carousel. Walking and hearing only the soft pitter patter of my converse against the sidewalk. Almost immediately, I realized that this place was as silent as death. The rays of gold sunlight were beginning to flicker behind the trees and I was hit by sudden nausea. In a split second, I was sprinting back home.
I scampered up the stairs to my room, slammed the door shut, and laid on my bed. I replayed the event that had occurred on that street. There was something abnormal about it. After staring at the ceiling for hours, I finally closed my eyes and was lost in a dream.
Rain drops splattered on the sidewalk as I walked down the same road of Paradise. Everything I saw was in black and white. Men and women were all dressed in the darkest 1800 black and grasping their dark umbrellas tightly. Tears slowly crawled down their faces and became lost in the rain. It was a funeral. Marked upon the stone was a single name: Christine Franklin. An elderly woman kneeled against the stone and was sobbing. Her sobs sounded full of anger and hatred instead of misery.
The scene shifted. With the sky painted in colors of orange and red, Apollo was already pulling his chariot back down to earth. They were racing to their home – my home. The same elderly women and a young teenage girl entered the house and walked upstairs. I was latent in their presence. The woman and the teenager were sitting in my same bedroom. I heard her echoed voice speak.
“Christine, I believe it’s time that I stopped hiding things from you. I know you don’t want to leave Kentucky and our home but we have no choice. Long ago, in Kentucky there was a woman in Paradise who lived in small town. She was a single and independent mother who raised her beloved daughter in this very house. Her daughter loved to write. She was in her room, finishing the very last page of her story. Later, her mother found her dead and evidently killed by a knife blade. She never got to finish her last sentence. Her mother enraged and full of grief, never understood the death of her child. It’s 1877. This story has repeated itself every three years. Today is New Year’s Eve, and we have already lived been two years at this house. We must leave.”
The scene shifted again. It was late at night. Christine lay face down on her bed crying. From where I stood, I saw a young woman creep past me as silents as the night. She was strikingly beautiful. In her left hand, she held a knife dripping with blood. My vision became no longer black and white. Before I could stop her she was already above the crying girl. I saw the color red, more vivid than anything I have ever seen.
I awoke with a start, trying to retrain a scream. Small sweat droplets formed on the tip of my nose. Exhausted, I tried to fall back asleep. My childhood insomnia kicked in again. Suddenly, I heard the creaking of my bedroom door open and close, slowly and steadily. A snake slithered up my spine. Every part of me was still. There were no such things as ghost stories, ... right?
Like black dye dripping into water, I saw a black clouded silhouette drifting closer and closer. The shadow slowly morphed into the same alluring women in my dreams. She was holding a knife dripping with fresh and sparkling blood. Her terrifying white teeth glowed in the moonlight and curved into a beautiful smile like she was America’s top toothpaste model; the one I saw in Colgate commercials back at New York. I felt electrocuted at her sight. My lungs failed me. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. Would I die? Everything became black.
I awoke once more, a headache splintering my brain. Everything was silent. Jesse had warned me back at the horse race. I should have believed him. Now paralyzed head down, I was praying for my life. The terror only became worse and worse. Underneath the hours of pain, I decided that if this was my last day in this world, I would make it worth it. It would be worth more than the dreams I had left behind and all the small mishaps of my life. I had to start moving on. However, I could never conjure enough strength to let go of my past.
That was back in 2013. It had been three years since the last time I saw Her.
The night of my sixteenth birthday, the woman reappeared for the very last time. The creaking of my door began to start again and eventually blended between my heartbeats. Once more, a dark outline of a shadow crossed my mind and I closed my eyes to hear an earsplitting shriek emitting from my pain. Thud. Thud. The creaking stopped. It was 2016.