My Accidental Ghost Story (or Why I Regret Ever Picking Up a Stephen King Novel)

Sunset today found me a few miles west of tiny Rosendale, searching for a forlorn stretch of asphalt known as Witch Road. Legend has it that an old woman lived there in the 40's and that she had practiced the dark arts. Since her death, there have been many reports of odd happenings along the road where her abandoned home can still be found. Dramatic fluctuations in temperature, odd sounds and lights, a tree that resembles a witch and, gulp, a little girl who peeks at you from around trees.

So I suppose it made perfect sense for me to try to find this place at sunset, just when the lifeless winter landscape of the Dairyland takes on an even creepier Blair Witchian quality. But I found the road easily enough...

And, yes, there was a house at the curve at the bottom of the hill and, yes, it definitely was abandoned.

I parked PER1NE around the curve at the end of the road to keep her out of my shots and walked back to house, snapping photos. There was a creepy twisting sound in the treetops, a slow, mournful creaking that made the ample hair on the back of my neck rise. But there was nothing paranormal about that, right? Across the road from the witch's house I found another collapsed structure with an odd, handwritten sign.

Creepiness and creaking aside, I noted no fluctuations in temperature, no strange lights, no ghost girls peering at me from behind dead trees. So I decided to return to PER1NE to retrieve the WSHSHP trophy for a photo session before it got too dark.

I was on my way back to the house, trophy in hand, when I paused for reasons that still escape me and looked back in the direction of PER1NE. There, laying in the road behind me, was one of my recently deceased father's leather gloves. And it appeared to be giving me the finger. So I walked back to take a photo.

Upon closer inspection, it wasn't the middle finger of my father's glove that was extended; it was the forefinger. Yes, the glove was pointing, and it was pointing directly at PER1NE, still purring around the corner, and away from the house where I had been walking to take my photo.

I swear on my father's martini shaker full of ashes that I did not stage this photo. This is exactly how I found the glove. I also swear that the instant I figured out that the glove was pointing away from the witch's house that ominous creaking in the trees started again.

I made an executive decision that the photo session was over, which is a polite way of saying I let out a little yelp like the kind my sister's wiener dog makes when I sit on the blanket he's sleeping under. I picked up the glove and made a thigh-swishing beeline for PER1NE, eyes straight ahead, not once peeking at the trees on either side of the road.

THE END