The Bedsheet Veil

The Bedsheet Veil

Halloween had always been my favorite time of year. The spooky decorations, dressing up, free candy: I loved it all. Halloween never failed to create that feeling in the air that anything could happen. People reverted to their inner child-at-heart (if they weren’t kids to begin with, anyway). Laughs came more easily. Even getting scared was somehow fun, an adventure.

I’d donned a long line of awesome costumes through the years, if I do say so myself, from Ninja Turtle to pirate to zombie-rock star (of course that is a thing). But I’d never gone as a ghost. I almost chuckled to myself, thinking about how I could have overlooked such a classic costume option.

Once the sun skimmed the horizon, turning the sky a dark, dusty orange over the deep purple mountains, a perfectly festive color scheme, porch lights came on and the streets rang with excited chatter. Little kids danced ahead of their parents. Groups of teens whispered along the dimly lit sidewalks, tasting freedom in the crisp autumn air. Shadows ran against the darkness and shrieks periodically pierced the night, clashing with canned scary sound effects.

Trailing along the familiar paths myself, my senses were alight as they took it all in. I barely felt the cold, though breath rose visibly from the trick-or-treaters around me. The vapor reminded me of my own translucent look. I tried to push away the uncomfortable thought to the back of my mind, letting the atmosphere of frights and delights take over, a night of pretend.

As the night wore on, fewer young faces drifted along the sidewalks. One by one, porch lights winked out. A tense silence descended on the neighborhood as many settled in to sort their hauls, wash away their make-up, and finally drift off into the one night’s sleep where nightmares might be welcome (so long as they aren’t too scary). The occasional shout still sparked against the quiet, but more or less, Halloween ended for another year.

I didn’t have candy to trade or face paint to scrub off, so I continued to wander, somewhat aimlessly, in the cool night, orange leaves shivering beneath my feet. After a few blocks, I knew I was nearing the edge of the neighborhood. While deciding whether or not to turn back, a small, black shape darted in front of me. I blinked and looked closer. It was a cat. She hesitated for a moment beneath a streetlight before rushing into the trees across the street.

Shrugging, I decided to follow it into the thicket that backed up against where the houses stopped. It may have seemed a foolish move but I figured, what did I have to lose?

The cat trotted easily between the trees, clearly not impeded by the darkness. I could see her well enough too and she never got too far ahead of me. It was almost as though she wanted me to follow her. The further I went, the more I began to realize this wasn’t simply a sparse stand of trees, one speck of wilderness surrounded by subdivisions, but rather a decent sized forest. The trees grew closer together and the underbrush would have probably been almost impassable to the average hiker. But neither the cat nor I let the foliage arrest our journey…to wherever it was we were going.

As I left the familiarity of the neighborhood, the residual sounds of the holiday winding down faded. Yet the air did not grow still. New noises flickered to life. Owls who-ed and rustled awake, in search of a midnight snack. Small bodies wiggled through the undergrowth. The leaves around me shook and whispered, though there was no wind that I noticed. I felt as though if I listened closely enough, I’d hear voices beckoning me forward.

The cat still lead me, her path unwavering, deeper into the woods. I neglected to question how I could still see her, though I was beyond the reach of any light now, even the moon’s. Eventually, she seemed to slow so that I was almost beside her rather than trailing behind.

What do you want? I wanted to ask her, but I didn’t dare disturb the subtle vibration that began filling the space in front of us. Tension built in my chest, though I told myself I had nothing to fear. The cat took a few more steps and, with me shadowing her, we broke through ferns taller than me into a small, empty clearing. Nothing stirred within. Even the blades of grass were immobile. Somehow, here the vibration grew to a crescendo, buzzing in my head.

And where nothing was in sight moments before, a thick mist rolled between the trees, solidifying into distinct shapes. The pale fog grew arms, legs, bodies, faces, each pulling itself away until it stood, or floated rather, separately. The vibrating broke apart into chattering voices.

At first, I expected the mournful, meaningless mutterings of the dead, like lost spirits I’d read about. But these sounded joyful. They were happy to see one another.

I shook my head, confused. That confusion only deepened as the cat that had guided me here brushed through my legs, flicking me with her tail and she entered the clearing full of ghosts and met them like an old friend. She looked back at me and tilted her head toward the assembly, as if telling me to join her, neither of us outsiders here.

I hesitated. Follow a black cat into the woods on Halloween? Sure, why not? But mingling with other dead souls was something I struggled to make myself do. It would require me to acknowledge the one thing I strived never to think about… that I really wasn’t the odd one out here.

From the day I’d woken, or rather, hadn’t, as a spectral after image of my former self, I refused to accept this was my new reality. I didn’t want to believe that last year really was the last for me. My last on this earth. The last time I’d hug my family or eat my favorite meal. My last Halloween. I’d gone around trying to insert myself in a world I no longer belonged to, and resented the living when I realized that I couldn’t. When it wasn’t the same.

But this clearing was free of that resentment. That loss. That denial. I could sense only contentment here as the spirits caught up. I somehow knew that this was the one time they could all reconnect. The time of year when the veil between the living and…us was thinnest and ghosts could congregate en masse, visiting, reminecessing, maybe a spot of lighthearted haunting, just to remind those still breathing that we weren’t totally gone.

That little cat nodded back at me knowingly as I approached the others and I realized that maybe this wasn’t my last Halloween, but the first of many. I looked down at my transparent body and no longer felt fear or depression, at least not in this moment. I felt accepted, and I knew this was the first step to enjoying the afterlife rather than trying in vain to cling to my life before. Already, I was looking forward to the sort of camaraderie I’d always felt Halloween, renewed once again. My first Halloween as a ghost was turning out better than I’d hoped it would.