The Boy in the Woods

Footprints on snowbanks with no one around them Trees that been backward though nothing has bound them Voices that whisper but never say names Fires that flicker with flickering flames When the lamp blinks, when the floor groans, when I'm filled with dread

I simply remember my my favorite thing,

and then I don't feel

so

dead

listening spooked.

Stay tuned.

There, in the house, the old man sat next to the old woman as she lay resting in their bed.

He held her hand

and she asked,

have I been a good wife to you?

He bent down to look her in the eyes and be certain she could hear him.

You are more than I could have imagined.

More than I dreamed.

I wake every day wondering if there has been some mistake.

How am I

so blessed among men?

My moon and my stars, I love you now even more than the day your father told me to never step foot on his property again.

But I was not able to bear you children.

You made our house the home of every every child that needed a safe space.

I have more children than I have fingers and toes.

In fact, the room next door is overflowing.

They wait.

I asked them for just a little time first.

That is selfish of me.

I hope it's okay.

You know,

this is my last night.

I can call the doctor, the doctor.

Husband, I am so sorry that I will go first.

That I will not be there to hold your hand as you hold mine, but

I am relieved as well.

Do you know why?

Tears streaming down his face.

Why, my love?

Because putting you in the ground, that

would be the death of me.

He grinned at her.

She beamed back at him.

And they laughed and they laughed and they laughed.

This book starts

now.

You see, there are many kinds of gifts, many kinds of promises.

We're going back to 1958 to meet Lynn.

Now, Lynn is but seven years old when her story starts, and she's in the back seat of her parents' car on the way to go visit her big, extended family.

Lynn,

take it away.

We usually spent more time at my great-grandparents' home on the edge of the city of East Liverpool, Ohio.

But once in a blue moon, the big folks would decide that they were going to get together at the family cabin that was down in a little valley way down off a country road.

Didn't happen often,

but one day in particular, it did.

It was already snowing when we were on our way to the cabin.

When my daddy pulled in, there were already some cars there.

And there was my Uncle Junior, my Aunt Ellen, and all their children.

Mary, Buster, Jerry, Larry, Michael, and Uncle Teddy.

There were some cousins that I didn't even know yet.

Cousins by the dozens, we were called.

Uncle Kedrick and his wife, Aunt Dessa,

and their four daughters lived at the cabin.

So the house was going to be full.

And when we got out of the car, there were all the greetings and welcomes, and oh, it's so good to see you, and the pats on the head, and the tweaking of my cheeks, and pulling on my braids.

Look how long your hair has grown.

Oh, you're too skinny.

Let me feed you something.

That was the usual thing in our family everybody had to be fed everybody had to eat

so here I was stuck in this house

again all the noise all the commotion

wonderful feelings between people but I needed my own space because that's the kind of person that I was

there was an old rocking chair that usually sat at the end of the porch.

And I tried to claim it for myself, put some books there as if that was marking my spot so that I wouldn't have to deal with all the noise, all the people running around.

But if I went into the house for any reason whatsoever and I came back out, there'd be at least two cousins in what I called my rocking chair, reading the books that I had pulled out for myself,

already in my personal space.

I was through.

I was done.

I wanted out.

So I put on my coat, I put on my gloves and my hat, and I went out the back door, and nobody seemed to notice.

And I just walked away from all the commotion

into the woods,

up a little hill.

The snow was already crunchy under the boots.

When I stepped, it was like breaking a crust.

There were pine branches that hung over that path that I had taken, so that the path was a bit more sheltered until I walked out from underneath

those branches and started to walk on a wider path.

I had never been in that part of the woods before.

I had never walked in that direction.

Usually I stayed right in the little valley where the cabin stood

or went with my cousins in other directions.

But I was having a good time.

I was by myself.

It was peaceful, and I could think about whatever I would think about at the age of seven.

And I just kept on walking.

But as I walked, I was starting to get cold.

So I turned around to walk back to the cabin.

At first, I still thought I knew where I was going.

If I just walked ahead, I would be able to see the cabin.

And then I got to a certain point when I realized that this didn't look like the same path.

I looked for my footprints and they didn't seem to be there.

But I just kept walking forward

until it seemed too quiet.

I couldn't hear anything except the soft shushing sound of the snow.

And that made me realize

there was nobody around.

I didn't know where I was.

And I started to get nervous.

I knew the sun would probably be going down very soon.

And the snow was falling harder.

My fear was that I would be walking and walking and walking in the darkness.

And at the end of the darkness, if I managed to get back to the family cabin, there would be so many angry people.

I was afraid both of being lost and of getting in trouble for walking into the woods by myself.

I felt myself tensing up,

felt an urge to cry,

and that's when I saw a little cabin

just a short distance from the path.

It was almost hidden because of the thickness of pine trees around it.

As I started to walk toward the cabin

because I thought at the very least that someone might be able to tell me which direction to go.

The cabin had no lights at the windows,

which made it seem

too dark.

And I could see

that the wooden part had been built on brick,

red brick.

but everything seemed dull.

The wood was a dull gray, as if all the life had been worn out of the wood.

The roof kind of sagged,

and there was no smoke coming out of the chimney.

And then

I noticed the person standing there.

And on that cabin's little porch was a boy.

I was surprised to see someone standing there,

But at the same time, there was a slight sense of relief.

Somebody was there.

I wasn't alone.

The boy had his arms folded over his chest, and he just stared at me.

He was dressed in pajamas,

kind of pale, yellowish tan, as if they'd been washed too much.

And his hair was kind of a light brown.

And the way it was cut reminded me of the character Mo in the Three Stooges.

That bowl cut that isn't particularly attractive on anybody, but can look cute on a little boy.

He seemed about my size,

maybe my age.

And he was standing there all alone.

Snow was still falling, and he stood there looking at me.

He didn't say anything, and I stared at him, just thinking,

why would he stand there in his pajamas?

Why wouldn't he go inside where it had to be warmer?

I didn't say hi.

I didn't wave.

I just looked at the boy and he looked at me.

And then he said,

You've gone the wrong way.

Turn around.

Go straight.

And even though he was a little boy, no older than I, his voice seemed to have a certain force to it, an assertiveness, commanding.

So I didn't question what he said.

I said, Thank you,

and I turned around and started walking back in the direction from which I'd come.

But I looked back, he was still on the porch, but now he was pointing,

pointing in the direction I should go.

And so I went in that direction.

And after a while, I could see the indentations of my boots,

not completely covered with snow.

I was relieved.

I was excited to the point of feeling like I could cry.

And I started walking down the right path now as quickly as I could.

If I could have run, I would have,

but the snow was thick enough that I had to just kind of stomp and walk.

As I descended on that little incline, I saw the roof of my Uncle Kedrick's cabin,

and that made me feel so much better.

But as I continued down that path,

I also saw Uncle Kedrick and my father standing outside,

and I knew they had probably been looking for me.

And so I wrenched my face up and put on my pitiful,

and I walked toward them

with the tears starting to fall.

My father was upset.

He said,

What is wrong with you?

Didn't you hear us calling for you?

I said, I was lost.

Uncle Kedrick kept calling me baby.

Baby, do you know how worried we were about you?

Oh, baby, why would you walk away like that?

So I made sure I stayed as pitiful as I possibly could, and I told them about the little boy that told me the right way to go.

And my Uncle Kedrick stopped talking,

asked me about the boy.

I described the boy to him, a boy in his pajamas standing on the front porch of a raggedy old cabin, and

how he had a haircut like mowing the three stooges.

And Uncle Kedrick cut my father off from doing any more fuss and

told me to go in the house.

I took off my coat and my boots, my gloves, my hat,

and I was grateful for the warmth and grateful for all the sounds, all the voices, all the noise.

I figured I better take advantage of it right then because eventually my mother would find out what I had done.

And I was going to be in trouble with my mama.

That was the worst thing that could possibly happen.

But daddy didn't say anything to my mother.

Uncle Kedrick didn't say anything to my mother.

And I figured if they weren't going to tell her, I wasn't going to say anything either.

Time passed.

We didn't go to the cabin very often after that

day.

It wasn't because there was a problem with it.

We just didn't visit that often

until I was 16.

Our whole family was going to go to the cabin again.

And so we all met there, and

there was still a lot of love.

After a time,

I went went outside

and my daddy came out too.

And he said, do you remember the time we were here when it was real cold and you got lost?

I said, yes, sir.

He said,

do you remember the boy that you talked about

and that old cabin in the woods?

I said, yes, sir.

He said, well, I didn't want to say anything about this

when you were littler because I didn't want to scare you.

But when Uncle Kedrick sent you in the house, he and I stood there talking.

And he told me

that there was no cabin in the woods.

And there was no little boy.

That when he was younger,

there had been a cabin there.

And an old old woman had lived there she took care of her grandson

but on a cold cold bitterly cold night

when the fire had been built too high in their fireplace

the house caught fire

the old woman died in her sleep

They didn't think she even woke up.

The house burnt down.

And that boy,

that little boy,

well, apparently he ran out of that house.

Whether it was out of fear or to find help,

nobody knew, but

he got lost

and he froze to death out there in the woods.

I thought at first my father might be joking.

He was a great storyteller.

But I remembered my Uncle Kedrick's reaction.

The look on his face,

kind of a surprised stare,

and a silence between us when I told him about the little boy.

And I looked at my father's face,

and I could tell he wasn't playing, he wasn't joking, he wasn't telling me a ghost story.

He was serious.

What my father was saying

was that I had been standing before a structure that didn't exist,

thanking a little boy who was dead.

And I was just dumbfounded, dumbfounded.

I had no words.

I had to go and see if I could find

that cabin and prove that my Uncle Kedrick was wrong

or that my father was making up a story.

I walked back into those woods.

It was summertime.

No snow to worry about.

And I walked through

the archway made by pine trees

and I walked in the direction I had come when I'd been told go back, go straight.

It took me a while to find that path.

about as wide as a road.

And I walked along it and walked along it, looking for a cabin, because there had to be a cabin there.

Uncle Kedrick had to be wrong, but I didn't see anything.

And then

what caught my eye was the color red, a deep red there on the ground,

a bit back from that path.

And walking toward it, I knew that what I was seeing was dull brick,

covered with weeds and tall grasses.

I walked over and I was holding my breath.

I could feel myself shaking.

For there was what looked like the foundation

of a small house.

And also

the remnant of

a fireplace and a chimney tumbled back into the tall trees.

I just looked at it.

I crouched down, put my hand over it,

but I couldn't bring myself to touch it

because

here had been

a cabin

a long, long time ago.

Someone had died there.

And

I felt kind of sick at my stomach at that thought.

And I walked away from there and made my way back to Uncle Kedrick's cabin.

I think the little boy appeared to me in part because he and I were children.

Children relate to children,

even ghostly children.

And I think that perhaps he saw his situation

lost in the woods, alone in the woods.

And although he couldn't do something for himself, he could help me.

That little boy hadn't helped me.

I might have kept on walking down that path.

I don't know if I would have had enough sense to turn around,

and my fate could have been the same as that little boy's.

At seven, I never thought about that, but I do think about it now.

And

truth be told, I'm afraid to go back.

He helped me once,

but

I'm grown.

I'm old,

I'm alive,

and he's not.

And I wonder how he might feel

about that.

Lynn's family cabin isn't there anymore.

It was torn down decades ago to make way for State Route 30.

The place it once stood, it's grown over with trees and brush darkened by the shadow of the highway.

Now can only be visited in memory.

Thank you, Lynn Ford, for taking us there.

For more information on Lynn's home-fried tales and where you can hear them, head to our show notes.

That story was scouted by Dan Yashinski.

The original score was by Lauren Newsome.

It was produced by Zoe Frigno.

Spooksters, this journey, it is not for the faint of heart.

If there is a door that you knew with absolute certainty that you were not to open, but you opened that door anyway.

And that's when everything happened.

I want to hear about it.

I need to hear about it.

Why?

Because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener.

Spooked at snapjudgment.org.

Spooked emerges in the dark of night from the underground crypts at KQED Studios.

Don't seek to find the portal, else the portal seeks to find you.

Spooked is brought to you by the team that doesn't open random doors.

Especially when they hear voices begging to be let out.

Except, of course, for Mark Ristich, because Mark says everything,

everything

needs to be free.

There's David Kim, Zoe Frigno, Eric Yanez, Elliot Lightfoot, Marissa Dodge, Taylor DeCott, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Paulina Creeky, Juan Diego Beltran, Sasha Wilson, and Dan Yashinski.

And we've got the magic words from Spook Legal that state, no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission.

Take that,

billionaire overlords.

On Team Spooked, the union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Local 51.

The Spook theme song is by Pat Massini Miller.

I know it's in Washington.

And I had a perfect moment recently.

Warm night, food, wine, my kids leaning in.

The punchline, the laughter.

Such a small thing perhaps, but want to savor because how many perfect moments does one person get?

Sublime, the transcendent.

I want to collect them in a bottle or encase them in amber, but

they run through my fingers like smoke.

It's said that some moments are so radiant that a person will seek it out again and again even past death

which is horrible because

everything

is temporary

even this moment, this moment right now, this moment we spent together, you and I, this moment is fleeting

Nothing is sadder than ghost chasing ghost.

That way madness.

That way darkness.

Which is why the best advice I have to give

is to never ever,

never, ever, ever,

never,

ever

turn out

the lights.