Little Ash Girl

Little Ash Girl

Chapter 1

There was a slight breeze blowing across the barren wheat fields on either side of the winding gravel road on that long ago day. I felt it in my bones, though it wasn’t a cold breeze. I wonder now it was a warning of what was to come. We feel the wind, but we seldom listen to it. Perhaps we should. The wind has been places and played witness to things that are far beyond the reach of our imagination. It knows what has come before and perhaps it also whispers of things to come.

I recently graduated from NYU with a degree in journalism. Like most people fresh out of college I had dreamed of landing a job with the New York Times or some other nationally recognized newspaper. I would travel the world writing fantastic stories and winning rewards. That was not to be my path, however.

As my father was fond of saying, “Son, you have to start somewhere.” I just had no idea that my somewhere would find me walking down a road in the middle of no-where Kansas. Yet here is where I was, young and wondering what the future had in store for me.

In the distance I heard the rumble of an engine and instinctively stepped to one side of the road to let the driver by. I figured that the powder blue, pickup truck would pass me by and just keep on going. Instead, the vehicle sputtered to a stop just a few feet behind me. An elderly gentleman, dressed in black overalls and a red shirt, climbed out of the driver’s side and slammed the door. He hobbled towards me, his cane crunching in the gravel along the side of the road.

He stopped just in front of me as the wind blew across the field. It wasn’t a gentle breeze this time but a howling wind that picked up my too long brown hair and slapped it across my face. In the sound of the wind, I heard not whispers of things to come but what sounded like screams of a man in pain. The screaming wind seemed to grow louder and louder until it turned into an almost animalistic howl. It slowly faded away until the resounding silence was almost worse than howling wind had been.

“Did you hear that?” I asked the elderly gentleman, frightened by what I had just heard.

His blue eyes stared off in the distance for so long that I wondered if he had even heard me. Then he turned to me and said, “I heard the wind, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yes, the wind,” I agreed nervously.

“I’m Ed Wallen,” he stuck out an aged hand and I shook it. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

“Stanley Wordle,” I introduced. “My bus broke down about a mile or so back. I have an appointment with the local paper that I did not want to miss. I decided to walk the rest of the way.”

Ed studied me for a few moments, as if trying to decide something. After a long moment, he nodded back towards his truck. “I’ll give you a ride,” he said. “I was headed that way anyhow.”

Before I could respond, he turned and hobbled back towards his truck. With a shrug, I picked up a small suitcase that I had sitting next to me and followed him. The wind picked up again and whispered something in my ear that I couldn’t hear. Perhaps it was again trying to warn me of what was to come.

Chapter 2

Ed Wallen turned out to be a man of very few words. He barely spoke at all during the short time that it took to drive us the rest of the way to a small, one stop light town. He would just lean forward every few minutes, or so, and peer off into the distance. I could not tell what or who he was looking for. Something told me that I was better off not knowing, though, so I did not ask him.

I expected Ed to pull up in front of a building and park his truck. Instead, he stopped in the middle of the road. He didn’t say anything, so I just climbed out of the passenger’s side and grabbed my suitcase. I had barely stepped back from the truck when it was suddenly gone. I hadn’t looked away and yet I did not see the truck leave. It was just gone.

I shook my head, wondering if the Kansas heat was getting to me. Maybe I had just imagined the entire thing. If that was the case, how did I make it into town so quickly? It had been less than an hour since I had walked away from my broken-down bus. I had left it five or six miles back. There was no way that I could have walked to town that quickly.

The time rang out from a nearby clock town. If I hurried, I would just make my interview with the Daily Beacon. I scanned the rows of nearby businesses lining either side of the street. There was a Post Office, a western style saloon, a hotel, a bank, a small library, and a small, run down building with a Daily Beacon sign hanging above the front door. With a deep breath, I walked towards the office building.

Inside I was greeted by a young woman with long blond hair and soft blue eyes. Her name tag said, “Shelly”. I smiled, introducing myself. She located my name on a paper schedule and instructed me to head towards the back offices.

Through an wooden door I found a large room with four desks in it. Three of them were occupied by two men and a woman. They typed hurriedly on computers while only pausing, briefly, from time to time to check their notes. I knew that there were deadlines to meet and wondered what story each one of them was working on.

I was about to ask for further directions when a short man with balding gray hair stepped out of a back office. “Wordle!” he bellowed my last name across the room. It came out as a statement and not a question. It felt like he knew me already, though we had never met before. “Follow me.” He turned and walked back into his office. I quickly followed, closing the door behind me.

“Sit,” he instructed as he sat behind a large wooden desk and almost seemed to disappear behind the large stacks of papers on it. He opened up a desk drawer, dumped some of the papers into it and sat back.

 I sat in one of the two chairs facing the desk and took in the room around me. Aside from the desk and chairs, there were also several filing cabinets and stacks of old newspapers. Now that some of the papers had been moved off of the desk, I could also see a stapler, a paperweight, and a computer on the desk. Three of the walls of the office were made out of soundproof glass.

“I’m Martin Staples, editor in chief of the Daily Beacon,” the man sitting behind the desk said proudly. “I take it you are the new reporter?” He sounded like I already had the job.

Before I could respond, the window behind his desk blew open, ushering in the wind. Again, it sounded like a man screaming. The screams became louder and louder until it turned into the howls of a dyeing man.

Looking flustered, Martin stood up. He quickly closed and locked the window. “How many times do I have to tell people all windows are to be kept closed and locked?” He mumbled, sitting back down.

“Did you hear that?” I asked looking nervous.

“The wind?” he looked surprised. Then he started laughing. “I heard you are from New York. Aren’t they tougher in New York? Yet here you are frightened of a little wind.”

“You called me the new reporter?” I was anxious for a subject change.

“Well, you are,” Martin replied, “if you can handle your first assignment.”

Chapter 3

Maybe Mr. Staples had said that to frighten me, though I did not know why. The assignment was the most mundane one I had ever heard of. I was sent out to interview the workers in a nearby wheat field. It was a basic piece about how the crops were doing. My father’s words again echoed in my ears, “Son, you have to start somewhere.”

I approached one of the workers. He had jet black hair that hung down his back in a long braid, dark eyes, and bronzed skin. “Leave!” he told me in a heavily Spanish accent before I could say anything. “Leave before it’s too late!” He turned and walked away before I could respond.

I tried approaching other workers, but no one would talk to me. They either ignored me and continued working or just walked away. It did not make sense. Why wouldn’t anyone talk to me?

Then one of the workers turned toward a quickly darkening sky and shouted “Run!” Before I could react, acid rain poured down from the sky in huge, punishing droplets. It scorched the earth and set the gathered stacks of wheat ablaze.  Flames seem to grow from the quickly blackening ground. The workers ran about, howling in pain as their bodies burned with flames. The smell of burning flesh burned my nostrils and made me gag.

I just stood there in the middle of it. I was a part of it and yet not. I could see what was going on. I could smell what was going on, but the acid rain did not touch me. It did not burn my flesh to my bones.

A small sound, like the cry of a dove, caused me to look up. I saw a young girl standing just a few feet away. She was ash-gray, like a statue. The girl smiled, her teeth as colorless as the rest of her, and I fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.

Chapter 4

“She saved you,” I opened my eyes to see the first worker that I had approached standing over me. “She saved you just like she always saves me.”

“Who?” I got shakily to my feet. The wheat worker and I were the only two left standing in the now smoldering wheat fields. There was no sign of any of the other workers.

“The Little Ash Girl,” he said. “She saved you like she always saves me.”

“This has happened before?” I looked all around me, trying to take it all in.

“Every night,” he confirmed. “The next day I come back to work, and it is as if it had never happened before. The same people are here, doing the same thing.” He would say no more other then that his name was Miguel Torres.

I returned to the Daily Beacon offices and wrote my article. It only said that the wheat crop was doing well, and it was expected to be a record-breaking harvest. What else could I say?

I spent most of the next two weeks in the local library doing research to figure out what was happening in the field. The only thing that I found was countless articles saying some varied versions of what I had written about the wheat fields. Why did Martin continue to send reporters out to interview the workers? There had to be more to the story, but what?

Chapter 5

I returned to the wheat fields almost a month after my first visit. It was late enough that I did not have to see the acid rain burning the fields and the workers. They were nothing more than smoldering blackness. Miguel was not anywhere around. I did not know what I was looking for but I was determined to find it.

“Why are you here?” a gruff voice spoke from behind me. “This isn’t your business! Go back to where you came from and leave it alone!”

I turned to Ed Wallen. “You knew about this?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “You were looking for it to happen that first day that we meant. You heard the screams on the wind before it even happened.”

“Of course I know!” Ed’s voice suddenly turned very soft. “She is my daughter, Madaline. She does this every night, and I can’t stop her!”

“It’s Madaline,” Miguel seemed to come from nowhere. “I did not know.”

“You know her too?” I turned towards him.

“I know the name,” he was consumed with a sorrow that spilled out of him in waves. “It is always there, on the edge of my dream.”

Miguel and I turned to Ed with questions shining in our eyes. “Madaline was your lover,” he told Miguel.

“No,” Miguel shook his head, “I would remember if she was.”

“There was a small shed over there,” Ed paused to point. “It caught on fire. Madaline pushed you out, but she was trapped. She was burned alive.” He doubled over, his shoulders shaking with gut wrenching sobs.  

“No!” Miguel’s scream was almost soundless. I could see the terror of remembrance sweep over him. I wanted to comfort them but just stood there as if frozen in time.

“How can we help her?” I turned to Ed as he stood up. “How can we stop this from continuing to happen?”

“We can’t,” he shook his head. “It’s too late for her.”

Chapter 6

           I left the blackened fields that day determined to find a way to help Madeline. I never had to, however. The next day an article in the Daily Beacon told of Miguel’s death. He had burned alive in the wheat field. Many believed that the fire had been a tragic accident, as I had written in the article. Only I knew the truth. Miguel’s memories, once remembered, had been too painful for him to bear. He died the same way that his beloved Little Ash Girl had died.

           I never saw Ed Wallen again. When I asked some of the towns people about him, I was told that he had died a long time ago. I knew different. I was also told that he never had a daughter. Maybe only I was meant to know the truth.

           I left Kansas a short time later. A friend of mine drove me out of town in a powder blue pickup truck. The wind blow in through an open window on the driver’s side. It seem to whisper of things yet to come.

           “Did you hear that?” My friend asked me.

           “I heard the wind,” was my only reply.

           I turned to look out the back window. I saw a young girl with long brown hair. She smiled at me and reached out a hand as a little girl ran up to her. Miguel and Ed called them from somewhere far away. As they slowly disappeared, I whispered, “Goodbye Kansas. And goodbye Little Ash Girl.”