The Ghost of Marnie

The first thing I heard was her calls, but even those echoes had faded when they reached my ears. Her voice drew me from my work, and I lingered by the edge of my doorstep, watching her. She bounced to a market stall, rushed speaking escaping until a vendor waved her off, stilling her for just a moment before she moved on to the next. Despite the energy pouring off her, nobody spared her a second thought. So, I left my chores behind, following the trail of the calls until I fell into step with her. “Hi, Marnie.”

She spared me one glance and then nothing else as we trudged through the snow, back to her cabin. “No one is listening to me.”

“I’ll listen.” I said. Her pale cheeks appeared more flushed than usual, a bright pink against her almost pure white braid. Part of it was due to snow, but our bodies had gotten used to the ceaseless cold. No, it wasn’t just that. It must have been frustration.

“You wouldn’t believe me, either.”

“Maybe I would.”

She fell frozen, her boot halting its crunch against the rocky snow. “I found something in the Deep Wood.”

“The Deep Wood? We aren’t supposed to go past the river–”

“I know, but I wanted to see what was back there.” She huffed a breath into her bare palms before shoving each into a pocket of her wool jacket. “The birds always fly over it when the blizzard season comes. They don't return for months. There’s supposed to be no animals in the Deep Wood, so they should have nothing to eat.” She gestured to a wild goose ahead, by the entrance of the trees. “And yet... they live.”

I shouldn’t have been so surprised by her revelation—her mind was ceaselessly focused on the unknown. I was envious of her curiosity, but I also feared it. All the emotions I felt were strong and had grown into a strange sense of protectiveness; in an attempt to null her ways, I’d become familiar with her endless seeking. Most of her outlandish plots led her to the edge of the Settlement, never much farther. Now she was treading uncharted lands, visited only by beasts seeking any prey they could find–and we were no exception.

My eyes lingered on the goose bobbing around. “That doesn’t mean anything. The hunters say they plant traps around there, for the bears and coyotes and wolves. There are animals, ones much stronger than the both of us.”

“Those animals eat in the regular woods and are seen by people throughout the year. But the birds disappear. It’s remarkable.” Marnie shook her head. “Yesterday, I decided to follow some of the hawks into the Deep Wood. And after some time, I came upon something.”

“Came upon what?”

“Warmth. Pure sun, and pure warmth.” She smiled, the sun she spoke of becoming a highlight in her blue eyes. “There was snow, but it didn’t melt. It looked rusted, almost. And, when I’d walked far enough, the snow became the biggest lake I’d ever seen. The water went so far, I could not see where it ended. Water that had animals within it, Bern.”

“Animals? Water does not have animals. Land does.”

“But this water did! They were scaled like snakes, but with featherless wings that flapped through the waves. Small ones. And they had big, big eyes.” She grabbed my hands. “You must believe me. I wouldn’t lie about this, and you’re the only one who knows that.”

I did. We’d grown up together; our parents' cabins were placed beside one another, and thus, so were we. She’d dance around danger for both of us, and I’d spin her back each time, trying to keep her in my arms until the beat passed. No matter how much I’d tug and beg her to stop her wild escapades, though, she’d still spin out again, undeterred. Every time, I’d end up trailing behind her, calling out my hesitations. And, like always, she’d brush my worries away with an excited laugh until I followed the same path as she and somehow laughed, too. It was captured chaos, rattling against its cage, and it was good.

But this? This was different. The Deep Wood was dangerous. An untouched, unlived area by both animals and man, one could get lost and drown amongst the bare branches and stinging snow. If anything found you, it’d be the wolves, and even that would be a luckier fate than succumbing to the cold, half buried in the snow miles away from the Settlements. Then, once you’d died, all that would be left was a story and a ghost. You’d be alone, forever wandering what entrapped you, never finding peace and never escaping the confines of your fate. Marnie couldn’t spin us out of that.

I tugged us closer to the trees near her cabin, a useless attempt at trying to dull our conversation from the ears of others—none of the adults had been paying us mind, anyways.

“What you’re saying is dangerous, Marnie. The woods lie. They trick. What if it wants to capture you and hurt you? You could be killed.”

“Nature doesn’t trick, it’s true. Like us.” She watched as snow landed on my black curls, staining them. “You cannot imagine it. I could barely believe it myself when I saw it. But there was warmth. Undeniable warmth, vibrant green grass, and snow that doesn’t bite. It hugs.”

I faltered, and my mouth opened to protest, but before I could, she spoke again. “What if I could bring it back to you? The rusted snow would stay intact. I could grab an old rag, wrap some up, and you’ll see that what I’m saying is real, that it doesn’t lead us astray.”

“No. That’s too dangerous.” I stepped closer to her.

“Would you try to stop me once I went into them?” Silence followed, and she nodded. “Well then. I’m going to follow the birds again tomorrow—they always leave at dawn—and then I’ll come back with the snow. You’ll understand that the woods can be trusted.”

“Please think about this.” My words fell against deaf ears. Rather than yield, she smiled and spun on her heels, her boots clicking into slush as she headed for her cabin. I watched as she left, passing strangers without begging for any to listen. She no longer had a need for them, because she had a goal, and she had a recipient of her plan: me. The only person she knew wouldn’t be able to follow her and pull her back for good.

#

Sleep evaded me, and, despite the thick blankets I clung to, the snow proved cruel as it bit against me. It all must have been a curse that summoned because of my failing to hold Marnie back once again. Any semblance of hunger was nulled by a growing sense of dread, so I moved past my small kitchen and perched outside on a bare tree stump, idly scraping wood with a knife while I waited for her.

I saw her hair first. It wasn’t tied up anymore, and instead fell past her shoulders, wild against the windy day. I’d been waiting for her return for several hours, so I quickly met her halfway, dropping the wood as we paused in the middle of the street.

“You’re safe.” A deep sense of relief flooded my body. “It's nearly midday. You’ve been out since before dawn, gone for hours—”

“And I have what you want to see.” Excitement flooded her expression as she revealed a small pouch, held together with a piece of twine. She poured it into my hand. Thousands of golden-brown specks fell. As I cupped them, nothing nipped at my hands or turned them pink, and no traces of water dripped down my fingers. It was undeterred by my body heat, or by the relentless cool against us.

“Rusted snow.” I whispered.

She nodded. “Doesn’t it appear rusty? I don’t know what else I could call it. Look. I grabbed more.” The bag she’d wrapped around her waist came undone, and she knelt, pouring the contents onto the ground. Small, hard rocky bits fell all over, shaped with bumps and ridges, pink and yellow stripes. I’d seen them before—the adults called them fossils, residing along the riverbank. But those were few and far between, and it was rare to come across one unless a family kept them as an heirloom.

I crouched beside her. “How did you gather so many fossils?”

“That’s the thing. They’re not fossils at all. They’re homes for the animals that live in the water and the rusted snow.” She lifted one up, bigger than the rest. “Look at the designs. Aren’t they beautiful up close?”

My eyes met hers, and I froze. "Marnie, your temples.”

She tilted her head, a few specks of the rusted snow falling from her hair. “What are you talking about?”

“The skin at your temples, it’s peeling. And your cheeks, too—they're bright red. Redder than what the cold brings.” I pressed a hand against it and pulled back. It was hot against my fingertips. “The sun’s burning you.”

“I’m okay. It’s just a flush.”

“It isn’t. You’re hurt.” I started to scoop the fossils back into the bag, glancing around to make sure no one had seen. “I told you this was a bad idea. You can’t go back there.”

A laugh escaped her. “After witnessing what I could be a part of, I would never choose to stay here.”

“You’re planning on living there? Alone? Somewhere no one has heard of?”

She stood and grabbed her bag, taking my hand and shaking the sand back into the pouch. “I saw some people. There are others, and they know about this—”

“There are others? Did they see you?” I pulled at my hair. “You will get yourself killed!”

“No one saw me. But they wouldn’t hurt me even if they did. They are just people.” Her eyes scanned me with an unfamiliar despondency. “What are you so afraid of?”

I stiffened. “There are reasons we warn against going into those woods. People die, and without any sympathy.”

Her eyes didn’t break from mine; determination set in her gaze. “I would rather be dead, then. No one wants to live life constantly seeking a moment of warmth.”

“And the searing heat won’t melt you?”

“It won’t. And even if I did burn up, I’d have the endless lake to cool me off.”

“You’re being foolish.” I moved past her and back to my cabin, shaking my head.

But Marnie caught my wrist. “Bern, please.” Her eyes finally fell towards the street. “You’re my closest friend, and I know you’re worried about me. But how many times have I shown you that your fears are not reality? How many times have you witnessed the beauty of the world when you close your eyes and embrace it? I want you to trust that I know what I’m doing. You could even join me. Then, we could–”

“No.” I broke my wrist from her grip and faced away from her. I couldn’t allow myself to be led in by her lulling words or the care in her tone. Her voice was my weakness, yet I dug in my heels, unrelenting. “If you go, you’ll die.”

Her expression shifted, and for a moment, hope fell heavy upon my chest. If she could just change her mind, it would be okay. We would be okay. But in the next moment, she stiffened with an unfamiliar coldness. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll come back this time.” She didn’t wait for me to respond before she walked away.

I hesitated, then kicked some of the slush against my feet. Even if she told someone else, no one would believe her. I was the only one who knew that she wouldn’t return by tomorrow's sunset.

And I was the only one who could be there at sunrise to try and stop her.

#

I flipped the knife in my hands as I waited. The sun had not risen, and I felt frozen against my thin jacket. But every second I spent shifting and uncomfortable was worth it as I saw her approach.

For Marnie, the reaction was the opposite. Her steps were light, and when she veered closer, the sun finally beginning to creep above the horizon, I noticed her jacket had been discarded. She paused when she noticed me. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to bring you home.” My voice was tense, and it revealed the unease I felt against the trees so early in the morning.

“I’m not going back.” She frowned. “If you just came with me, you’d see-”

“I can’t.”

Our eyes met, and hers provided only a glimpse of care and a heap of hurt. “I’m sorry, then. I wish you’d changed your mind. But you cannot change mine.” She stepped past me, turning back for one last look. “I’ll see you on the other side.” In the distance, birds started to sound, flying off towards the Deep Wood. I lunged forward to grasp her wrist, but she evaded me and bolted.

With one quick breath to prepare myself, I followed her. My knife trailed against every tree I found, providing some route to guide me when I returned. My boots dug into the ground, trying to keep up as I watched hers from ahead.

Each slice in the wood left me further behind her than the last, so I threw it into the snow, focusing only on her. “Marnie! Please!” My feet tripped over themselves, but I forced them up again the next moment and continued my perilous dash. “Listen to me, Marnie!”

She provided no response, still running with practiced ease as she navigated through every tree, every fallen log, every stray branch. I lagged through bushes and twigs she’d seen times over, tripping over myself. The Deep Wood drew nearer, and my lungs pushed against my chest, my feet pounding down against my boots as I struggled to reach her. I kept moving closer, then closer, until I heard a rip and was pulled back.

A branch had caught my jacket. I pulled against it, but my efforts were futile. Marnie quickly started to fade ahead of me, so I shrugged off my jacket and fell back into pace as the cold gripped me. The mark where the woods split into the Deep Wood steadily approached—dead trees vast and foreboding. She didn’t hesitate as she ran towards it, so I slammed my eyes shut against every voice in my head telling me to stop and forced myself to run through.

When my eyes opened again, she was gone. “Marnie?”

She couldn’t be gone. She wasn’t that far ahead of me. But her footprints had disappeared and so had the echoes of her footsteps. Every sense in my body ached to turn back, but I wouldn’t turn around. She was gone. Everything got colder when she was absent. And I hated the cold.

I needed to bring her back.

I bolted forward, calling out her name desperately. The snow under me smashed into nothing as I ran, my neck aching as I scanned for her. I’d never gone this far into the Deep Wood before, and, according to Marnie, I should’ve been close to the warmth. But all I felt was cold, growing stronger with each step I took.

I craned my head again, turning behind me to see if I’d made a mistake. Maybe I’d been in a loop—running endlessly through the woods, never reaching her and never returning home.

Clang.

A sharp pain shot through my leg.

I screamed and collapsed onto the ground. I looked down, and my hands shook as I saw a growing pool of blood. A bear trap clung to my foot, its teeth digging in. My ankle writhed against it as the bone protruded from my fresh, pounding wound.

My head fell against the snow. A shaky breath left my lips, visible in the freezing cold. I couldn’t move, I had no jacket, and as I stared toward the sky, a wave of tiredness washed over me. Even if I managed to escape this trap, I couldn’t find home. I had no markers. I was lost in the one spot where no soul stepped foot in.

I breathed her name once more—a hollow, choked-out rasp. If I could find her, it’d be okay. The sun would set, and my eyes would close. But if I saw her, if I saw the remnants of her secret sun lingering on her rosy cheeks, it would be okay.

She didn’t respond.

The last thing I heard was my calls, sparse and few and fading fast. They blurred along with the trees surrounding me, along with the clouds above, melting into the densely wooded sky. For a moment, I swore I could see her white hair, blowing against the clouds; maybe it was, and she’d found me before disappearing to her hidden sanctuary.

I wouldn’t know. My eyes fell shut, and as my senses drifted away, I knew I couldn’t escape the grasp of the woods. I never could. But Marnie did. No matter what the people might say, I'd seen her escape. And, as bitter as it was, I couldn’t help but feel relief. She had found the one thing I never did. Warmth.