We called him "E.T." A young man and a clerk in an old rural Fina convenience store. Old and ratty. The kind of place that sold boiled peanuts, milk, SlimJims and sand maggots. We rented an old slave house down the road. One day I had a load of firewood in my Pinto wagon and E.T. asked me if I ever used the old fireplace in the house. I told him we used it all the time since it was the only heat in the main room, and it really got cold in there.
The house was a "cracker" built place. No frame at all, just cut-on-the-property 4 x 4 corners holding up 4 x 4 top beams sitting on 4 x 4 floor joists. The walls of the entire house were rough-sawn planks of various widths nailed to the top and bottom beams sealed with narrower battens. No insulation, no interior walls, no studs. The outside was the inside. Sometime in the distant past someone had separated the house into 2 rooms, living room and bedroom, and added a bathroom on the back side under the porch. The early morning sun reflected off the white sand under the house and came up through the floorboards. Tin roof. Cool and breezy. Freezing cold in the winter.
Well, E.T. asked me if we had ever seen the faces of an old couple in the flames of the fireplace. We hadn't and he seemed disappointed. Other tenants had told that story many times.
In between our house and the equally old farm house was a small lake with a long dock that went to the middle. Probably used for fishing. Sally and I sometimes walked to the lake and went out on the dock to just enjoy the stars and quiet. One night we were out at the end of the dock as usual. No moon, clear winter night, no light pollution and no wind. I swear we couldn't tell the sky from the reflection of the stars on the lake surface. Still. Quiet. Dark.
From the right I saw a bit of fog, I thought, form at the edge of the lake. As the fog slowly glided toward the dock it took on the form of a woman. She got to the end of the dock, stood there for a minute or so looking out at us, and then just drifted apart. We stood quietly for a time and then I asked Sally what she saw. Exactly the same thing. I asked her if she felt afraid, and she said she did not, and in fact felt that the lady was no threat at all. I felt exactly the same.
We left the dock and discussed what we might have seen, and never returned there again. I don't to this day know why we didn't go back.
Months later we were up at the farm house paying our rent and I told our landlord about E.T. and his question about the fireplace. Louie laughed and said "For a minute there I thought you were going to tell me you saw the Lady of the Lake." The hair stood up all over my body and still does when I think about it. He told us that from time to time a ghostly woman wanders from the lake into the farmyard and just disappears. She might have been killed there, he said, or was a suicide. Rumors from the very old days not substantiated.
I don't know the truth of that, but I know this: Sally and I saw and interacted emotionally with the Lady of the Lake. She looked as us and projected "calm" and "no fear". I wonder if she still walks the lake shore on cold winter nights. What could she be looking for? I guess there are some things we will never know.
The house was a "cracker" built place. No frame at all, just cut-on-the-property 4 x 4 corners holding up 4 x 4 top beams sitting on 4 x 4 floor joists. The walls of the entire house were rough-sawn planks of various widths nailed to the top and bottom beams sealed with narrower battens. No insulation, no interior walls, no studs. The outside was the inside. Sometime in the distant past someone had separated the house into 2 rooms, living room and bedroom, and added a bathroom on the back side under the porch. The early morning sun reflected off the white sand under the house and came up through the floorboards. Tin roof. Cool and breezy. Freezing cold in the winter.
Well, E.T. asked me if we had ever seen the faces of an old couple in the flames of the fireplace. We hadn't and he seemed disappointed. Other tenants had told that story many times.
In between our house and the equally old farm house was a small lake with a long dock that went to the middle. Probably used for fishing. Sally and I sometimes walked to the lake and went out on the dock to just enjoy the stars and quiet. One night we were out at the end of the dock as usual. No moon, clear winter night, no light pollution and no wind. I swear we couldn't tell the sky from the reflection of the stars on the lake surface. Still. Quiet. Dark.
From the right I saw a bit of fog, I thought, form at the edge of the lake. As the fog slowly glided toward the dock it took on the form of a woman. She got to the end of the dock, stood there for a minute or so looking out at us, and then just drifted apart. We stood quietly for a time and then I asked Sally what she saw. Exactly the same thing. I asked her if she felt afraid, and she said she did not, and in fact felt that the lady was no threat at all. I felt exactly the same.
We left the dock and discussed what we might have seen, and never returned there again. I don't to this day know why we didn't go back.
Months later we were up at the farm house paying our rent and I told our landlord about E.T. and his question about the fireplace. Louie laughed and said "For a minute there I thought you were going to tell me you saw the Lady of the Lake." The hair stood up all over my body and still does when I think about it. He told us that from time to time a ghostly woman wanders from the lake into the farmyard and just disappears. She might have been killed there, he said, or was a suicide. Rumors from the very old days not substantiated.
I don't know the truth of that, but I know this: Sally and I saw and interacted emotionally with the Lady of the Lake. She looked as us and projected "calm" and "no fear". I wonder if she still walks the lake shore on cold winter nights. What could she be looking for? I guess there are some things we will never know.
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