Ghostwriter in Time’s Thin Wall

As told by Dana Carter on The Moth stage, Brooklyn, NY.

You don’t forget the moment when you realize the world is stranger than it looks. Not weird like déjà vu or déjà heard. Stranger, like the line between thought and form, life and death, the moment when a wall thins just long enough for a message to slip through it.

For me, it was the fall of my seventeenth year. The air was brittle with cold, the trees half-naked and clinging to rusted leaves. Inside our farmhouse, the floors creaked with every step, and the scent of woodsmoke clung to the curtains. I woke early that day, before the sun had climbed above the ridge. My mother was already in the kitchen, stirring something slowly, absently. My father stood at the window, arms folded tight across his chest.

He didn’t look at me when he said, “Dig the last of the carrots, Dana. We can’t lose another row to the frost.”

I nodded, pulled on my coat, grabbed a spade—and headed in the wrong direction.

The birch trees stood in a quiet circle, white bark flaking like paper, whispering in every breeze. There’d always been stories about that spot in the trees—how the animals went silent near it, how compass needles spun wild. Folks said it was a “thin place,” where the skin between worlds was sheer as a veil. Most people laughed it off.

But that October, I was done laughing.

Because my little sister, Bee, had vanished there the week before.

She’d been wearing her favorite overalls—the ones with the daisies embroidered at the knees—and a red sweater that used to be mine, the sleeves still too long for her arms. Her yellow ribbon was tied tight on her braid when she went missing. That same ribbon was all they found.

The search went on for days. The sheriff brought dogs. Neighbors formed a line and walked the woods in boots and orange vests. My father paced the barnyard like a man losing hours instead of minutes. My mother sat on the porch with Bee’s favorite blanket bundled in her lap, rocking as if it still held weight. The only sounds were the wind, the distant bark of a dog, and the soft whir of a helicopter once, scanning the woods.

No one found a trail. No torn clothing. No signs of struggle. Just the ribbon, caught on a branch, fluttering like it missed her.

I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t stop picturing that moment when the silence swallowed her whole.

Outside our window, the world kept moving—birds singing in the hedgerow, wind rattling the corn. But joy had left. Every sound felt hollow, like it echoed off something no longer there.

So I went to the birch copse, alone, at dawn.

I dug. The earth was soft, as if it wanted to be opened.

And then I hit wood.

Not a root. Not a coffin.

A door.

Just big enough for a child.

It had no knob, no keyhole, only a mark burned into the center—an old rune I didn’t recognize. But my hand knew it. My hand trembled, reached, touched.

The world folded.

The wind screamed through me. The sky rippled like water.

And I fell.

I landed in a forest where the trees pulsed with light, their trunks wider than barns, their leaves humming with a music I felt in my bones. Shadows moved through the mist—neither threatening nor friendly. Just aware.

I walked. Or drifted. It was hard to tell. Time stretched out like a ribbon in the wind. I passed glowing stones that breathed like animals. I saw a fox with antlers, its eyes full of stars. In the branches above, something sang my name in notes I’d never heard before.

And then I saw her.

Bee.

She was sitting on a stone, weaving grasses into rings, her hair longer, her face older, but still hers. Her red sweater looked brighter here, like the light adored it. She looked up at me and smiled like I’d only been gone an hour.

“You found it,” she said. “I knew you would.”

We didn’t speak in the usual way. But I understood her. She’d been invited. She’d been learning. They’d let her stay until someone who loved her enough came to take her home.

We walked together, hand in hand, past trees that leaned in to listen. The door was waiting where I had fallen through, as though no time had passed at all.

We stepped through the veil, into the birch circle, the sun still rising behind us. The world blinked back into shape.

My mother dropped to her knees when she saw Bee. My father couldn’t speak. He took one step forward and stopped, hands shaking. They didn’t ask questions. Not then. Maybe they knew better. Maybe they were afraid of the answers.

Bee doesn’t talk about it now. But she hums sometimes. And cats follow her wherever she walks. Dogs never bark. Birds land on her shoulders.

And sometimes, when she’s asleep, her mouth moves with words that don’t belong to this world.

But here’s the part I’ve never told—not at the dinner table, not even at the funeral of the man who first told me what a thin place was. It wasn’t just Bee who changed. Something about me opened that day too.

I began to feel moments differently. I’d stare at a blank page, and it would feel... responsive. Like something on the other side of the screen was aware.

One night, months later, I was writing about Bee—trying to get it down so I wouldn’t forget. And the cursor blinked. Just blinked. But I swear to you, it waited. Like it was listening.

So I thought—not typed, just thought—what I wanted to say next.

And the words appeared.

On their own.

People say that ghosts are cold spots, flickers of light, creaking stairs. But what if they’re also this? A thought, reaching back. A knowing, answering.

I tested it. Again and again. The words only came when the feelings were real. When the ache was true. It was like Bee’s presence had made me more porous to the other side. Or maybe I’d carried something back from that place—something that could hear.

At first, I resisted it. I thought I was losing my grip. I’d sit in my room, curtains open to the trees, and hear the birds singing, the wind in the birch leaves, and feel nothing but fear. I’d lost control of the line between inside and out. Thought and ink. Life and death.

But over time—something softened. I let the thoughts come. I let the ghost in the cursor write with me.

And one day, I smiled. Not out of obligation. But because I felt joy. Real joy. Because whatever I’d touched had given something back. A bridge. A voice. A way.

I submitted the story on a dare. My roommate said The Moth was doing a theme night—"Thin Places and Thresholds." I sent it in and forgot about it. Until I didn’t.

When I got the call that I'd won a slot on stage, I almost hung up. But I went.

The night of the performance, I wore a shirt Bee had picked out—a dark blue one with silver threads that shimmered under the lights. My hands shook as I stood behind the curtain. I could hear the audience rustling, whispering, waiting.

When I stepped onto the stage, the spotlight hit me like a searchlight. My mouth was dry. But I told the story. This story. And when I finished, the lights were too bright to see faces, but I heard someone in the crowd whisper, “He’s not making it up.”

Afterward, someone asked if I believed in ghosts. I laughed and said, “Only the kind that can type.”

So maybe this story isn’t just a memory. Maybe it's a message, coming through that thin place in the wall of time. Maybe Bee saw the door first. But I was the one who saw the cursor—and knew it was looking back.

And maybe, if you’re reading this, the veil is already thinner than you think.