Ghostly Resolution

           Rebekah crawls between her friend’s legs to free her, the crunch of fresh snow drowning out the laughter around her. She clamors upright, looking for the next tagged kid waiting to be released. Tunnel tag is her favorite game, but she keeps getting in trouble for ripping holes in the knees of her snow pants.

           The scent of chicken pot pie from a neighboring home jolts the children from their play, the darkened sky coming into focus, the last tendrils of light slipping behind the Arizona mountains. The alarm for all the kids to return home for dinner. Everyone hollers a quick goodbye before racing home. It’s a school night, so tardiness will not be tolerated. Rebekah lives up the mountain, with Centennial Forest as her backyard. She takes a familiar shortcut up the ridge, where the snow is fresh.

           A movement to her left catches her attention. The faintest reminder of daylight lingers as her eyes grope for the source of the disturbance. Two yellow orbs glare at her, but she can’t make out the silhouette of their owner.

           Nancy, her third-grade classmate, heard from Susan that the Hartford’s barn was ransacked by coyotes during the game last night. The Dallas Cowboys finally won the Super Bowl against the Buffalo Bills. The last time they won was fifteen years ago in 1978 against the Denver Broncos. Amidst all the hooting and hollering, no one heard the clucking and crying from the henhouse as two chickens were mauled to death out back.

           Rebekah continues up the trail. Her mom warned her to be cautious around coyotes, especially while she is so small. While coyotes tend to be solitary creatures and live off smaller animals like mice and rabbits, they’ve been known to attack small deer and children. Rebekah puts on a mask of confidence. This is her land and nothing will touch her, she tells herself.

           Unmoving, the creature watches her as she goes, becoming familiar with Rebekah’s scent that is carried through the wind.

           Taking deep breaths to calm her breathing from the climb, Rebekah approaches her warm, wooden home. A two story, stained, cedar mansion with a dark green trussed roof, now covered in a light layer of snow, sits cozy between the soaring ponderosa pine trees that hide the house from the street.

           Rebekah feels something watching her. Near the threshold of her home, she turns, hoping to catch a glimpse of the animal by the lights coming from the windows, if it followed her. Nothing. She turns back to the house and freezes.

A tingle spreads through her body as her blood turns to ice. Her eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets as she stares at the aberration before her. Frowning at Rebekah through the glass that frames the front door, is a familiar ghost. Rebekah calls her Lulu. She first saw the woman four years ago, it was one of her earliest memories. One winter day, she was carrying a small bag in from the car, helping her mom with groceries, when she saw Lulu, lurking in the window. Rebekah screamed and cried to her mom, but it seemed only Rebekah could see the ghost. Her parents admonished her when she tried to warn them whenever she saw the ghost thereafter. Eventually she kept the fear to herself.

Now, Rebekah takes in the woman with fresh perspective. Dark circles ring her eyes like a racoon. Bangs cover her forehead, just like Rebekah, but where the ghost has straight black hair that falls in front of both shoulders to her navel, Rebekah’s hair has a dark, frizzy, curlyness that her mom cuts into a bob to keep off her neck.

Not daring to blink, Rebekah inches the door open and creeps over the threshold, terrified the ghost will reach out and grab her. She wonders what that would feel like. Cold? Empty? Agonizing?

Alas, Lulu’s gaze remains steadfast outside, focused or forgotten to something, Rebekah can’t tell.

The outfit the ghost wears is different than Rebekah remembers. When she was younger, she thought it was a nightgown, but now Rebekah sees it looks more like something from Jane Austin’s time, a dress cinched below her chest that drapes down to her ankles. Flat, pointed shoes peak out just below the hem. Rebekah would think she’s preparing to go out for a stroll if not for her hair let down and disheveled.

As she walks to the kitchen, she knows she can’t mention Lulu to her parents. But why, after all this time, is the ghost back?

The last time she remembers seeing the ghost was when she woke up in the middle of the night, four years ago, to find Lulu standing next to her bed, holding a knife. Lulu stifled her own scream. In her head she heard her parents complain about waking them up for nothing. Was this nothing? Instead, she threw the comforter over her head and willed it to protect her. After what felt like hours, she must have fallen asleep. The next morning, when she swung her legs off the bed, she felt something cold and hard under her left foot. The knife Lulu had in her hand lay on the floor next to Rebekah’s bed. It was real, she knew it. She never saw the ghost again, until now.

The next morning, while Rebekah ate breakfast and reviewed her daily vocabulary words, she caught Lulu flitting and floating from window to window, searching for something outside. Maybe it has something to do with how she died, Rebekah wondered.

At school that morning, Ray Young was pulled out of class. By recess, word spread that his little brother was attacked and killed by a pack of giant wolves. The kids speculate the wolves were the ones that nabbed the chickens over the weekend. Rebekah doesn’t understand why they’d attack a child. Isn’t there a code between mammals? Nancy says this kind of thing happened before, no one believes her but, it triggers a hazy memory in Rebekah.

Back home, there’s a deep black pelt in the den in front of the fireplace. And above that sits a trophy from generations ago, the head of a giant black wolf. Mom told Rebekah to stay out of the den, that it’s Dad’s domain. She’d asked about the fur and head before, but can’t remember the answer. Maybe it was from a grandfather or a great-great grandfather. Whatever stories they were attached to are long forgotten.

She loses focus in her classes the rest of the day. Calculating where the Hartford house is compared to Ray Young’s. Her home sits between the two. Could those eyes she saw last night have belonged to one of the wolves that killed Ray’s brother?

At home, her mother is bustling around the kitchen filling a large cooler. Lulu stands in the middle of the living room, hands clasped in front of her, watching Rebekah’s dad arrange his hunting gear by the garage.

Rebekah’s voice cracks asking her father what he’s doing.

Her mother answers, feigning strength, saying that he’s joining a group to hunt the pack.

Fear grips Rebekah. She idolizes her father. He’s the strongest and bravest man she knows, yet he looks scared, with sweat tracks shining along his sideburns, and a hard crease embedded between his brows. How big is this threat?

Her father senses her wariness, and crouches in front of the child grasping her hands and looking her hard in the eyes.

“Everything is going to be okay. I gotta keep you and Momma safe. I’ll be back soon.” His lips barely move when he talks, not that Rebekah could see as his mustache has grown over them.

His determination builds faith in Rebekah. Until she catches a ghostly gray hand landing on her father’s shoulder. She looks over her father’s head where Lulu stands stoic, staring at the back of the hunter’s head. A tremor in the ghost’s lip hints at underlying disgust.

Rebekah’s mind whirls. Is her father going to die? Will Lulu kill him? Will the wolves? Rebekah stifles a cry. She wants to scream at the ghost, but Lulu’s never answered her before, and it would only upset her father. He needs to keep his focus on the mission, on surviving.

Rebekah stands at the front porch waving until her dad drives out of sight. When she turns around, the ghost is standing in the doorway, face expressionless. A breeze pushes her hair back exposing dark shapes on her neck. Rebekah squints to make sense of what she’s looking at, her brain not processing what her eyes see, perhaps trying to shield her from the horror. Rebekah nearly vomits when she realizes what she’s looking at. Torn flesh, ripped away, exposing what must be tendons and muscle on either side of the ghost’s neck. What happened to her? Rebekah forgets how to breathe.

The ghost lifts a blood covered hand to stroke the filigree covered door frames. Blood cascades down the curled carved vines. Like the knife from years before, this is real. Something in her knows, death will find her family tonight, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

A howl wakes her in the middle of the night. Her bedroom is on the second floor, but the sound comes from below her window. She scrambles out of bed and runs down the hall to her parent’s room seeking the comfort of her mom. But her mom isn’t in bed. Rebekah calls out for her, but hears a rumbling of thunder in return.

She runs to the bathroom. By the dim white glow of a nightlight, she finds her mom sitting on the toilet bent completely over, her torso laying on her thighs with her knuckles draped on the white tile. Rebekah dives to the floor in front of her mom shaking her, pleading with her to wake up. Her lifeless body remains unresponsive. Rebekah tries to lift her mom’s head, but she can’t get a solid grip, the dead-weight of her mom’s torso too much for Rebekah to handle.

Rebekah tucks herself down and between her mom’s legs pushing hair away to look into her mom’s face. Rebekah’s screaming turns to wails of despair as she begs her mother to wake up. The crack of lightning strikes less than a mile away. Rebekah has never needed the comfort and safety of her mother more.

A crash sounds from downstairs.

Her mom jolts awake, and snaps up straight as if from a nightmare. Her head tilts back and gasps for air as if sucking in one last breath before drowning.

Rebekah throws her arms around her mom’s neck; sobbing convulses her body as she falls into her mother’s arms. But when she pulls back to look into her mother’s face, there’s a ghostly glow emanating from her skin.

“Mom?” Rebekah asks, voice cracking.

“No,” the voice, coming from Rebekah’s mom, says and shakes her head once left and once right.

Rebekah throws herself backward, hitting the wall hard.

She scrambles to her knees and pushes herself off the cold tile floor desperate to get away from the ghost that has haunted her for so long. A ghost that stole her mother.

Rebekah sprints out of her parents’ bedroom and starts down the stairs, but when she reaches the middle landing, she hears a deep growl beneath her. She pivots back up the stairs, back to the safety of her own room, slamming the door behind her as she leaps across the floor, onto her bed and under the covers.

Violent clawing at her door precedes a pounding. Something is trying to get in. She forgot to lock the door. Her parents told her she’s not allowed, so it didn’t even cross her mind.

Before she can hide under her bed or in her closet, the door crashes open.

Rebekah screams and hides her face under the comforter, but she can’t help it. She has to look.

Lightning strikes, illuminating the room. In that instant, a giant wolf, half the size of the door, twin eyes glowing amber, fur black as tar, stalks toward her. Its teeth are sharpened and dripping with salivated longing.

Rebekah can’t move. Her limbs are stuck. She doesn’t know what to do.

She wishes her dad was here to save her.

The wolf inches close enough that its breath hits Rebekah's face and she can smell the rotting flesh from its last meal. Its growl vibrates the inside of her chest making her shiver.

The wolf lunges for her throat. A claw slices into Rebekah’s chest. Hot spittle hits her face when the jaws snap shut in front of her, barely missing her flesh. A whine turns into a snarl as the wolf pitches itself around.

Her mother. The ghost. Two in one.

Using the mother’s body, Lulu has a hand on the scruff of the wolf’s neck, while her other hand plunges a knife into the it’s abdomen over and over. The wolf kicks Lulu back, sending her flying, but Lulu rebounds and throws herself at the beast. The two are locked in a battle of wills, shredding each other apart, neither willing to give way.

Rebekah can’t watch. That’s her mother. She hides back under the covers, terrified of the outcome. Please let her win, Rebekah pleads.

The only gauge Rebekah has on the fight is based on the sounds from the wolf. The two continue to crash into furniture and into the walls around the room. Yet somehow, Lulu keeps the wolf away from Rebekah’s corner.

Finally, a quiet hush folds over the room. Rebekah holds her breath, but her heart pounds inside her ears, too loud to hear anything else.

Her name. She hears her name. Someone is coaxing her out from under the cover. She knows that voice.

She pulls the cover down to find her mother sitting weightless on the side of her bed. The night hides most of the damage the wolf did to her face and body, a face darkened with blood. Rebekah eyes her neck. There are scratches but they aren’t the same as Lulu’s.

Tears fill her eyes as her face contorts into grief. She can’t feel her mother’s body next to her on the bed.

Her mom reaches to wipe away the tears, but they remain. Rebekah feels nothing.

Her mother tells Rebekah to turn over, and although Rebekah cannot feel the warm protection of her mother, she knows she’s there, curling up behind her. Her new protector.