Age 7:
I wish I had known…

I wish I had saved her...


I wish…
I wish…


I watch as Rose slides off the table and I don’t have the heart to let her know her that it’s wrong. I can’t, her puppy just died and I have to tell her. I wrap my arms around her frail body and hoist her onto a chair. I look into her emerald eyes and am filled with love at the kindness I see hidden in them. I grab her shoulders tenderly and prepare myself to say the cutting words.

“Honey” I say gingerly, “Sophie has died”.

She wails at the top of her lungs and drops to the floor like a dead weight. She’s never been good at dealing with death, when her aunt died she stayed in bed for 3 days, and they had never even met. It’s like she’s connected to them, somehow… in her own special way…


Age 10:
I know it’s my fault...

I know I did this...


I know...



I know…


I sit looking at the coffin as it drops into the ground with a thud. I know that this must be a dream, no coffin can swoop into the ground like a diving feather with a sound that empty and loud. I feel my heart break and remember all of the memories, some icy, some warm. But now all of them feel as though a frost has come through my heart. It feels like a hole has opened, and no one can fill the void. I can’t go on. I’m alone.


Age 12:
I’m okay...

I’m not...


I’m alive...



I’m alone…


I stare at my reflection preparing to go to the cemetery. It numbs the sting of losing her. It makes it bearable to remember. It makes it impossible to forget.
I close my eyes and when I open them she is standing beside me, her black hair perfect and her green eyes full, I turn to face her and smile fully, genuinely, for the first time in two years.
“You’re alive” I say choking over the brief words.
“I’m not” she says flipping my smile.
“But… You’re here” I say confused.
She reaches out and touches my shoulder, I can’t feel it, she finishes “But I’m not”.
I begin to sob as I did everyday the year before, it is renewed sorrow. She disappears and I question my sanity. I feel alone, I need advice.
I need my mother.


Age 15:
I hear them at night…

I see them during the day…


I hear them….



I see them…


I walk into my bedroom hoping for a glance of my mother before I leave for the dance. None. I haven’t seen her since… well since she died. But I haven’t seen her since last year. I’m worried. Is she gone, and not dead gone, but forever gone.

I curl my last stand of my coal-black hair and pull some of it in front. I stare into the mirror hoping everything’s right. My hair is curled, my lips red, my dress matches my eyes and my shoes match my belt. I’m almost ready, I push on a golden headband to match my shoes and run down the stairs.

“Beautiful” my aunt Ivy says on cue.

“Beautiful” my uncle Larry says coming into the room.

“I already said that” Ivy says good-naturedly.

“Then perfect” he revises.

We all stop when a hollow knock sounds throughout the house.

“Don’t embarrass me,” I say making my way to the door and opening it, “Hi”, I say to the boy on our porch.

“Hello” Larry says in the scariest voice he can manage, which is not very scary.

“Goodbye!” I say practically pushing Chaim out the open door.

I let out a sigh and brush a loose curl to the side. I look over at Chaim and take his scarred hand in my petite one. He opens the door of his red Mustang with his free hand and offers me the seat. I thank him politely with a tip of the head. With a huge smile on his face he makes his way over to the drivers side. I feel the breeze stream through the window and listen to silence and the purring motor.

“So what does Chaim mean” I ask to start a conversation.

“Life” he says bluntly.

“Okay then… Well Rose means...” I begin.

“Rose?” he interrupts kindly.

“Yeah… Did you know my full name was Rosemary?” I say trying to keep it going.

“No, but that’s beautiful” he says smiling over at me.
“Thanks” I say smiling down at my feet.
“Just like you” I look over at him and smile wide, no one, except my aunt and uncle, had ever called me beautiful.
We pull up to the school and he jumps out of the car and runs around to my side. He pulls the door open and takes my hand. We walk into the gym and I abruptly stop as we go in. They’re everywhere. My heart speeds, my breathing shallows and I back away from the room. Fear spiking up my spine I turn away from the gym. I feel Chaim’s arm draped over my shoulder and soon he is gripping both of my shoulders. I look into his calm face and feel instantly relaxed.
“They can’t hurt you” he says and when the look of fear stays plastered on my face he adds, “come with me,” and I come.
We walk down the abandon halls, silent except for the sharp click of my slim heels. We stop and I slide down the wall until I’m sitting alone on the cold, tile floor. Chaim sits down next to me and places a hand on my knee, to comfort me.
“You said they couldn’t hurt me,” I say hesitantly.
“Yes, and they can’t” he says in a deep, calm voice.
“You can see them.” I say like it’s a fact.
“I can” he says, it was a fact.
“How?” is all I reply with.
“If a loved one dies, they leave a hole,” he begins as I listen carefully, “for some, other things fill the hole, but were special. We can see The Gone. For us they fill the hole. For us they paved over the break” he stops and looks down at his hands.
“Who did you lose” I ask hesitant again.
“No one, I never had anyone, my parents died before I was born” he says without explaining.
“But how were you born then” I ask.
“Love,” he says distantly, then jokingly adds, “ and some really good doctors”.
“Are The Gone all nice”.
“No actually very few are so if you see one, run.” he explains.
I feel like I’m about to cry and hold back a few salty tears, threatening to spill out.
“My mom used to visit me” I begin unaware of what I’m saying, “She stopped this year”.
“She was probably taken by The Wanderer” Chaim explains.
“Who”
“It doesn’t matter you can’t get her anyways” he finishes.
We go back to the dance and even trying my hardest to ignore the spirits I still can’t.
I go home and forget about Chaim, The Wanderer, everything. Except my mother.


Age 16:
I forgot my mother…

I forgot Chaim…


I forgot…



I forgot…


I go down to the cemetery, the same as every week, but just like every other week I have forgotten another thing about my mother. Soon all I will remember is…
Nothing.
Last week as hard as I tried I couldn’t recall her laugh. I remember it was a full, radiant laugh that made you begin to chuckle as well. A sound happier that chiming bells. A sound more joyful that a diving cardinal. But when I think of it, I can’t hear it ringing in my ears. This week her smile is fading. I remember she had a brilliant smile. I can see it in the pictures, but her real smile, her smile because of joy, not a click, is gone. From me? Forever. From her? Longer.
Her hole is getting deeper every day. And everyday I help her dig it.
I put a single Rose on the top of her grave and kneel on the sliding mud. I feel the cold moisture sink into my thin leggings, soaking my knees, but I remain unaware.
I stand, eyes red, and begin the trudge home through the dark woods. While pulling my shoes from a particularly greedy patch of mud I think of Chaim for the first time in a year. He disappeared that night and never showed up again. Not at school, not at my house, nowhere. I think of my mother, and The Wanderer and where they might be. I look at the surrounding trees trying to free my thoughts of such somber ideas. Suddenly I stop and look closer at a huge, dying oak and stare at the fine words carved into it’s rough surface.

‘I have found The Wanderer, he has Iris, and I only had time to write this. Now he will have me’




-Chaim-

My stomach drops as dread fills my veins. The Wanderer has not only my mother, but the one person that could help me find her. It’s dark out and just looking around in the darkness scares me. I leave and vow to come back tomorrow. I run home and when I open the door and see Ivy smiling at me.

“Excited for tomorrow” she asks me making me question if she can read my mind.

“To-to-tomorrow?” I stutter.

“Your birthday! Don’t tell me you forgot.”

Forgetting seems all I do now.


Age 17:
I must find my mother…

I must find Chaim...


I must find…



I must save…


“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” I wake to a chorus of cheery voices and smiling faces. I wish for anything else right now.

“Thanks!” I say in only a slightly sarcastic tone with a huge fake smile.
“I see you want to be alone don’t you” Ivy says.
“Ding ding ding… we have a winner” I say dripping with sarcasm.
The group shuffles backwards until only one figure remains. It’s Chaim.
I sit up pulling my blankets with me to hide my thin pajamas. He walks over and grabs my hand like he did the night of the dance and I feel another hole slowly being filled again. I stand up next to him, trying to cover my short-shorts and my lacy bra poking out from under my skin tight cami. He hands me his jacket and I draw him into a hug.
“I thought you were gone, I thought you were dead, I thought I would never find either of you, I thought… I thought..” I ramble.
“I’m fine, I escaped, we must go now though” he points to the window and I know instantly.
“But what about Ivy and Larry” I ask.
“They would rather you snuck out rather than faced danger, right?” he says making sense.
I nod with a slim smile and slip out the window, still just in pajamas and his jacket. My closets downstairs, and I have no idea how to explain changing just to stay at home, my friends already saw me. We run down the street my hair streaming out behind me. We stop and I’m heaving for breath and Chaim is talking nonstop.
“He can sense us when were close and he sends out minions to get those who threaten him, even if they can’t see him and and and um well if you feel a chill at night… get a knife, and run… fast.” he says all in one breath.
I nod still unable to breathe and he motions me forward. We peer around the corner and standing in a shadow only across the street is… something. It’s repulsive, eyes bugging out, skin a moldy green, and shorter than the mailbox it’s standing by.
“Is that a minion” I whisper.
“One kind, the others are scarier, I hope you don’t see one” I hope I don’t either.
I bares its huge yellowing fangs and lets out a low, sinister groan. Followed by a high spine-chilling whistle. I let out a gasp and it turn to face us. I look to Chaim for advice and apparently his advice is run. Because he’s gone.
I turn to run away and stop short when a creepy whimpering sound fills the silent air. I look back the the putrid thing and cannot believe what I see. Chaim is poised above it a short staff in his hands. I pushes it into the things head and with a short spark it vanishes, leaving only a green stain in it’s place.
“How” I ask.
“Training” he interrupts.
More bewildered than ever at the boy I thought I knew. I obviously was wrong. He beckons to me and takes off running. We run through town and approach the forest, we run past the wall of trees and delve deeper into the midday darkness, past the place he left his plea. I run keeping sight of his black jacket flicking in and out of view. He stops and I run into him throwing us down to the leaf covered forest floor. I stand first brushing myself off as he sits and stares up at me hand up. I reach down, rolling my eyes with a smile on my face, and pull him up.
A whisper fills the forest, eerie and muffled, and I try to make out it’s words. Coming. Coming. Coming, is the only one I can distinguish. I look at Chaim and his face is a mask of fear. I look around and suddenly a light chill floats over my body, even though it is June. Soon the light chill is making the hair on the back of my neck and my arms stand on end. I open my eyes wider, becoming more alert as the makers of the sound push through the settling fog. The chill subsides and is replaced with more than that a cutting ice wind comes through leaving me shivering in my slippers. The fog that came with them swirls around them daring you to come closer.
They themselves are horrifying. They are tall and narrow, huge and nonexistent. They look slightly like fog themselves, graceful and flowing. However they have eyes full of otherworldly darkness and mouths full of death. Their long almost translucent arms end in talons that and constantly dripping a crimson blood that I suspect isn’t theirs. Long wings extend high above their heads glowing like embers in the remains of the once strong fire. They do not touch the ground, but hover above it for they have no legs, nor any end. I stare at them and feel myself weakening, losing will to move, or react.
“We have to leave” Chaim says with droopy eyes and a gravelly voice, it’s affecting him too.
We turn slowly and begin walking away, for we have no energy left to run. They are on us before we can take two steps, their soul-sucking eyes looking deep into our own. Their gaping mouths threatening to envelop us in their darkness. I look away from them and at the now ice covered forest and try to forget. And try to remember. Remember why I’m here, in the forest.
“Run Chaim, run! Now!” I command taking off.
He follows, at first our footsteps our sluggish, but soon we are flying through the warm summer air. We stop out of breath and I let out a chuckle, it feels inappropriate, but I need something to clear my mind and I just can’t not laugh. Chaim looks over at me like I’ve lost my mind and soon begins laughing with me. By the end we are both on the forest floor smiles, brighter than the sun, fill our faces.
“We have to go” Chaim says seriously.
“Where to Chaim” I say still lighthearted.
“It’s Captain Chaim to you, missy” he says in the deepest voice he can manage, sending us both into hysterics.
We stop again and this time it’s because of a short shriek. We look to each other and take off in the direction of the sound, ducking branches that are trying to get in our way. I stop when I see the sight in front of me. Chaim does to, much more gracefully than my run into him.
“It’s him” Chaim says in awe.
“And my mother” I whisper back.
“Come out” he bellows and I know he means us.
I step out from the brush and look him right in the eye. I hear my mother call my name in a hushed voice, but I continue staring defiantly at him. His eyes are blood red, uniform with his stained fingers. He is wearing a tattered jacket laced over his grotesque body. He, like his minions, has no legs and hovers inches above the surface. He covers more room than a bus and is taller than an oak. He shrinks down to my level and is more frightening close up. His teeth are red and innumerable. I flinch away from him as he comes closer, for he carries the smell of a mix between a old fish and roadkill. I dare to look at my mother who stares helplessly back at me. Her hands are locked together.
Chaim stayed in the forest and has made his way over to my mother. I watch as he unlocks her and ushers her, unwilling, into the murky forest. I turn my attention back to The Wanderer and dare to speak to him.
“Wanderer, who are you” I definitely ask, unable to think of anything else.
“The last thing you will see” he says in a voice that sends shivers up my spine.
I turn and run as he swings at me and make my way to the edge of the forest. He didn’t follow. I realize that The Wanderer isn’t the one to be scared of, unless you're with him, but his minions are. I look as they show, as if summoned by my thoughts, between the trees at the edge of the forest and whisper and call things at me with their blood-curdling voices. I turn and walk away knowing that I can never enter the forest again.
“Rose?” my mothers wary voice asks.
“Mother!” I say throwing myself in her arms, remembering too late that she is a ghost.
I stand ungracefully off ground and let her hug me. I imagine her arms around me. I pull away when I remember Chaim behind me. I pull him into a joyful embrace and smile into his shoulder.

“Were the only ones” Chaim says solemnly.

“To see The Wanderer?” I ask.

“To escape him” my mother answers.

“Alive” Chaim finishes.

I shiver in awe and think of all of the others and remember the tale of The Wanderer. I wonder if all of it is true, instantly knowing it is. I shiver as I approach our house and brush the dried blood off of my destroyed knees deciding what to tell Ivy and Larry. Nothing, this can be our secret, I decide, me, Chaims, and my mothers. I smile at that thought and walk into the house, finally not alone, finally filled.





The Wanderers Tale

I’m here to tell you the tale of THe Wanderer.
This tale is not pleasant, but I am the only one who can tell you.


Once, years ago, a man who had no name wandered the streets and stole from all. The towns people grew angry at the wanderer and eventually decided something must be done.
They decided to kill him, but no one could decide how.
A woman by the name of Delilah got tired of his thievery and decided to do it herself. She grabbed her sharpest knife and walked out to the street to wait. Luck stuck and he sauntered by soon. In her anger she wanted to cause him pain. First she cut off his legs, then his tongue and his eyes. Soon she had had enough of his pitiful whimpering and stabbed him through his heart, he let out a eerie shriek.
When done she buried him in the square leaving a white rose dipped in his blood. From it grew a bush with the most beautiful red roses, however those who tried to dare cut a rose off of the bush would be eaten by his hundreds of tiny knives for teeth. Each uniform to the one that killed him.
Eventually the bush was cut down and he was free. He killed the woman, but still was protective of his blood bush. And his red roses.
Soon people found a way to plant their own rose bushes and grew flowers that kept their color from the blood they drew with their thorns.
The Wanderer was angry.

He vowed to kill those who killed his beloved bush and fueled it with their blood.

He was weak and could not get those who did so. So he called upon his minions. Some who could draw you out of bed and have you walk to his spot of murder, and some who would drag you. As he killed you he would start at your legs, like the woman who killed him, and make the pain last.
Some say that he on the anniversary of the day he was killed he himself will come to get those who fueled his flowers. Some know that day as Valentines day.
When his minions collect you will feel frozen in time, whispering and squeals the only sound and soon all you feel is unexplainable pain.

When he is coming a freezing feeling will come over you and all will grow silent except for the rhythmic tap of his chattering teeth.
If you feel them coming or hear their chatter don’t run.

You won’t get away.

This tale is true.
He got me once.

And told me that

I am his son.

I am Life...
I am forgotten...
I am found…
I am loving…

I am...



I am…








I am Chaim.