Ghost of Halloween Past

Marta prepared a lunch for her daughter Kristin and wrote on the brown paper bag the name, “Emily.” Closing her eyes tightly, she gripped the counter for a moment, then crumpled the bag and threw it in the trash.

She had no daughter named Emily. She had never had a daughter named Emily and would never name a daughter Emily. She hated the name Emily ever since she had caught her old ex-friend Emily Tyson sucking face with her old ex-boyfriend, Clyde whatever-his-name-was. That was long ago. There were so many names. Why would she ever choose Emily as a name for a child? But that was the child’s name in her dream, in that nightmare world where she mothered a child named Emily, cared for her, and made her lunch.

She rolled her eyes and took out another bag and began writing an “E,” again. She stopped herself and sloppily transformed it into a “K,” and completed the name Kristin. She sighed. This girl from her dreams haunted her.

And it was October, a time for haunting. The leaves had turned and begun to fall, swirling in their haphazard way, in the cool breezes of autumn. Autumn? That would be a nice name for a daughter. Why had she not dreamt of a daughter named Autumn?

But it was always Emily, never any other name in her dreams. And it galled her, because she loved this girl, Emily. The girl was cute and vivacious, pigtailed, and always in the same print dress covered with those little blue flowers, the same little blue flowers in her hair, five petals like the points of a star around a yellow center. Kristin was moody. Her moods ranged from sullen to sassy. And she rarely wore dresses and despised flowers. Why would anyone despise flowers? But that was Kristin. Maybe it was just a phase. Kristin was at that age where children had phases. But did she love this dream girl more than her own daughter? The thought horrified her.

Marta glanced up at Kristin, who was finishing her breakfast cereal at the kitchen table. “Finish up, Kristin. You’ll have to hurry to make the bus.”

Kristin glanced up at the ceiling as she dropped her spoon into her bowl and rose from her chair. She flung her bookbag over her shoulder and picked up her bag lunch. She glanced at it, pursed her lips and squinted. “So, who’s Emily?”

“What? Emily?” Marta stammered.

Kristin held up the bag and pointed to the name. “Yeah, Emily?”

Marta sighed. She took out another brown bag. “Please, Kristin, write your own name on the bag.”

Kristin took the pen and scrawled on the bag. She held it up for her mother. “Is that better?”

Marta examined the bag. “Now, that’s not funny. Please write your own name on the bag, not Emily.”

Kristin crinkled her brow. “I wrote Kristin. See?”

She traced over the letters as she spoke, “K R I S T I N, Kristin.”

Marta blinked and looked over the bag, again. “I’m sorry, Kristin. I have not been sleeping well. I could swear it said Emily.”

Kristin rolled her eyes, transferred her lunch into the new bag and put it into her book bag. “You’re so weird.”

Kristin scurried off to catch the bus.

Marta glanced down at the bag. How could she have written Emily twice? She specifically recalled changing the E to a K and writing Kristin, but the evidence was indisputable. And how could she have seen Emily in what Kristin had written? Emily, Emily, Emily! Why Emily?

She shook her head. There was no sense to make of it. The Emily she had known, what had happened to her? That was back in high school. Had she married Clyde whatever-his-name-was? Had he murdered her, so now, the ghost of Emily sought revenge for her letting her have Clyde all to herself, only to find he was a murderer? That was just crazy. Besides, the girl in her dream was about Kristin’s age, maybe a little younger. She wasn’t old enough for the drama of high school and wouldn’t be thinking about kissing a boy.

Maybe it was some other trauma that caused her troubled dreams? She had had some bad times with men before she was married. She forced herself not to think about it. They were very bad times. They were the times she shut out whenever she went to that supermarket next to that place. But there was no Emily in that story. And no Clyde what’s-his-name. And no murderer. But there was a violent crime as bad as murder. Or almost as bad. Committed by a nameless man with only a vague description recorded in a police report filed with the cold cases.

Marta shuddered and forced herself to think of something else. That reality was worse than her nightmare. Or was it?

“Emily, those flowers are so pretty!”

Emily giggled. “Thank you, Mommy. Do you know what they are called?”

“Why, no. I don’t. I think I used to know, but I can’t seem to remember now. Whatever they’re called, they suit you so well. They bring out the blue in your eyes.”

“Mommy...”

Marta stopped the memory of her dream before it turned into the nightmare. She would not let her conscious mind relive that part of her dream.

She would have to go past that place again today. Buying candy for the kids, after all it was Halloween. She didn’t like Halloween. It brought back the memories of the bad times. It was a time when bad things happened. But the children expected candy. And the children made Halloween bearable. She grabbed her keys and went to the Subaru. She started the car and turned on the radio. Nothing but static, and then one station tuned in. It was that religious station. She shook her head. She hadn’t much use for religion. After all, nameless men lurked in church parking lots and bad things happened. She closed her eyes and thought of something else, anything else. Even Emily. That sweet, happy child of her dreams. But not the end of that dream. Never the end.

“I kept having this dream,” the voice on the radio said. Dream? “This dream that I was looking for my baby, and I couldn’t find her. There were all these other babies, but none of them were mine. I would wake up crying, saying, ‘where’s my baby!’”

Marta turned the radio off. She had never had that dream. She had her baby. Kristin. She couldn’t bear to think about losing her child. She had never lost a child.

She drove to the supermarket. They really should not put those places next to supermarkets. They should not be where people have to see them. She focused on the road as she passed that place. She would use the entrance furthest from it, park as far from it as she could. Why did she glance over? But she did. And she saw them, protesting. What business was it of theirs?

She recalled walking past them with her escort. He would make sure she got into that place safely. “Hail Mary, full of grace…” They could not know what she had been through. It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do. What else could she do? “…blessed is the fruit of thy womb,” she heard them pray.

Marta parked her car and gripped the steering wheel tight. Again, she glanced at the place, and the protestors. These people, they just couldn’t know. How could they judge her? Wasn’t it her right? Why were they protesting? But were they protesting? Not really. They were kneeling. Praying. Marta closed her eyes. Please, I don’t want to look. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to remember.

Marta pushed a small cart into the supermarket. Just buy the candy and get out of here! Away from that place. She felt the pain, again. It wasn’t supposed to hurt. They told her it wouldn’t hurt. But it was the right thing. She had not chosen what had happened to her. Everyone said It was the right thing.

A toddler road inside a cart pushed by her mother. She wore pig tails and smiled. Marta gripped her cart and tightly closed her eyes for a moment. Emily, she looked like Emily, as a toddler. The little girl pointed at the candy on the shelves. Marta indiscriminately pushed candy into her cart. Look away. Stop staring at that girl. The girl giggled and pointed at her.

“Now, Emily, it’s not polite to point,” the girl’s mother said.

“Emily? Did you say Emily?”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “No, Lainy. Her name is Elaine, not Emily.”

Marta blinked several times. “Oh, I thought you said Emily. I used to know someone named Emily.”

“That’s nice,” the woman said, pushing her cart away and not looking back.

Get a grip! What is your obsession with the name Emily? You’re spooking people. Marta pushed her cart to the checkout line.

“Did you find everything you were looking for?” the cashier asked.

Marta glanced at her nametag. Emily. She gasped. “Yes, yes, just check everything out. I’m in a hurry.”

The cashier’s shift was ending. Her replacement called to her, “Sally, I can take over after this one.”

“Sally?” Marta asked. “I thought your name was Emily?”

“Nope.” The cashier pointed at her name tag. “Sally, just like it says here.”

Marta examined the name tag and rubbed her eyes. Surely, it had read Emily, but now? Marta paid with her credit card, placed the bags in her cart and pushed the cart through the automatic doors. Emily, Emily, Emily. She glanced up at the protestors next to that place. Emily, Emily, Emily! She unlocked the car and shoved the bag of goodies on the passenger seat. EMILY, EMILY, EMILY! She gripped the steering wheel and began to weep. Emily, why Emily? Who is Emily?

A man knocked on her window. It was one of the protestors. He was an older man, with a kind face. He held a cup in one hand and some little blue flowers in the other. The same little blue flowers with the yellow centers. Emily’s flowers. He was taking donations. Donations for what?

Marta rolled down the window. “Those flowers? What are they called?”

The man smiled. “Why, these? Here, take one. They’re called forget me nots. Because no child should be forgotten and every body should be buried.”

Marta’s eyes widened. They bury them? “Where do they bury them? Who buries them?”

“St. Agnes Church, on Canal Street. We’ve buried thousands of children there.”

“Children?”

“Yes, they are children, you know. They just haven’t been born yet, is all. Would you like to contribute? They make us pay for the remains.”

Marta gasped. “Remains?”

“Yes, the little ones. Their bodies.”

Without thinking, Marta reached into her purse then pushed a five-dollar bill into the cup.

“Oh, thank you ma’am. You know the Lord calls us to treat each person with dignity. That’s why we give them names and bury them. And pray for them. Just like we would for anyone else.”

Marta wept. Between gasps she blurted. “You name them? You name them?”

“Are you all right ma’am?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Marta wiped her eyes. “Tell me, you have to tell me. Would you ever name one Emily?”

The man blinked a few times. “Well, Emily is a fine name. I’m sure there must be an Emily.”

“Thank you, sir. I have to go. I just have to go. You said St. Agnes on Canal Street?”

“Yes, that’s right, ma’am. Just take a left out of the parking lot, then it’s your next right. Canal Street. St. Agnes.”

Marta took the left out of the parking lot, her eyes blurred with tears. The end of the dream, she could not keep it back. “Mommy, don’t let me go!” Marta took the next right and entered the parking lot of St. Agnes Church. Then, the impossible turn of her dream into a nightmare—the child’s grip on her hand, the flowers of her print dress waving in the breeze over the chasm. “Mommy don’t let me go!” Marta shook her hand loose from the child, and turned so she would not see her fall. She woke from her dream, to the world as it is.

“I let her go! My God, I let her go!’

Marta’s knuckles whitened as she grasped the steering wheel. She glanced up at the sign:

ST. AGNES CHURCH

“Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr’s crown.”

And there, thousands of little crosses, each with a name and an inscription. Marta found the row, the row for that date, that date she had forced herself not to remember. She looked down the names, drawn to the one by some mystical power. Past the Mary, and the Eric, and the James, and there, she fell to her knees.

“Emily, my sweet Emily. Forgive me.”

Little blue flowers with a yellow center adorned the tiny plot. Through her tears, Marta read the inscription on the cross:

Forget Me Not

EMILY