Lost, Found & Forgotten
a supernatural short story about choices
This was written for the 30 Days of Fright Writing Challenge, prompt 17: forgotten. Hosted by Wendy Cockcroft.
Okay, so it wasn’t technically written for the challenge. It’s an old story, and it just underwent some recent revisions, so it counts! And it fit the prompt too well. This one is on the longer side for me, at about 3000 words.
How do you ever know you are making the “right” decision? And what are you willing to leave behind when you choose one path over another?
Lost, Found & Forgotten
“It’s possibly the most important decision of my whole life,” Jessica said.
Charley shoved the last bit of ice cream cone into her mouth. “You’ve been with Matt for eons.” She stretched out the last word and rolled her eyes. “You need to decide. You can’t just string him along.” Upbeat carnival music drifted from the carousel across the dusty midway.
Jess sighed. “I know.”
Matt was the one who’d taken care of everything after her accident. Driven her to physical therapy, come to her apartment to make dinner every night, helped her through the boredom and the depression. She owed him so much.
But getting married wasn’t as simple as her parents and sisters made it seem. It changed things. Why not ride things out the way they were, for now? “I just wish I could see the future, ya know?”
Charley laughed and pulled out her card from the Madame Fortunata machine. They’d each put in a quarter and watched the animatronic lady with the crystal ball move jerkily in her repurposed phone booth and spit out a fortune. Charley held hers up. It said: You will be carefree. Probably accurate. “We already got a glimpse into the future,” she said, giggling.
Jess fingered her fortune, folded in her pocket. Hers just said, Destination Unknown.
“Back just in time,” Charley said as Matt jogged up and slung his arm around Jess’s shoulders.
In front of them, strings of yellow-white lights blinked against a dark, makeshift building. The sign on the ride said: Lost, Found, & Forgotten.
They took a step forward as the ticket-taker—a teenage boy, dressed all in black—undid a chain across the ride’s entrance. He wore black shimmering fairy wings, too. “Visit the frightful land of the fey. If you dare.”
Jessica wavered. She didn’t care for haunted houses and similar cheap scares.
“C’mon, Jess,” Charley said, pushing her shoulder. “Don’t be a wuss.”
There were two separated roller coaster cars on the track. As they stood there, another empty car rolled up at the end.
“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Matt said, now that they were poised to take their seats. Earlier in the evening, though, he’d been adamant that they go on this dumpy-looking ride. It was the last night of the carnival, so it was their last chance to go, he’d argued. Just once.
Now Matt turned to the ticket-guy. “This ride looks kinda small. Does the ticket only get us one go-through, or can we go again?”
The guy shook his head and said soberly, “No one ever goes twice.” Jess assumed this was meant to sound ominous.
Matt shrugged and got in. “One per car, please,” the ticket-guy said, gesturing for Jess to get into the next one.
“No way,” Matt said. “We’re together.”
“You shouldn’t—”
“We’re riding together,” Matt said firmly. “We’re engaged.”
She wanted to say, “Actually, we’re not yet,” but she just stood there, unsure what to do.
The ticket-guy rolled his eyes. “At your own risk,” he said. Jess took a seat next to Matt and pulled the metal bar down over their laps.
“I’ll be right behind ya!” Charley called from the car behind.
A gaping black doorway loomed before them.
There was a clanking sound as the guy pulled down a lever and their car began to move forward into the inky darkness.
***
Jess had expected strobe lights, projected ghosts or maybe even animatronics in gory costumes popping out to scare them, but so far … nothing. Just darkness.
“This is weird,” she whispered. Matt squeezed her hand. If not for that, and his warmth next to her, she could imagine she was alone. What if she didn’t marry Matt? Would he agree to keeping things as they were? Not likely. And they couldn’t go back to being “just friends” either. He’d be out of her life completely.
Click click click. Their car began climbing a small incline. Then a breeze as they whooshed downwards. The coaster took turns, looped back upon itself, went slow up and then fast down. All in the pitch black darkness. The effect was disorienting.
Then, up ahead, a misty grey light.
***
“Disembark please.”
The world was a shield of fog now. Jess still felt disoriented as they got out. She stumbled a little and Matt was quick to grab her arm. Tendrils of fog snaked around their ankles.
“Be back soon,” a ride operator said behind them. “Don’t be late when you hear the call.”
There was a grating sound. She turned to see a heavy wooden door just sliding into place where the exit had been.
“What the hell?” Matt pulled on the iron handle, but the door didn’t budge.
Through the fog, Jess could make out a grassy slope, topped with trees shrouded in clinging mist. She strained to hear the midway music and see the lights. Instead, she thought she heard lapping water.
After a few steps, they could see that they, and the dark building, were on the shore of… a lake? Besides the sound of the water on the pebbled shore, the place was eerily quiet.
This is what she imagined the lake in Oregon would’ve been like.
Right before her accident, she had been planning to tell Matt they needed to put their relationship on hold. She and Charley were going to rent a cabin out in Oregon near the Willamette National Forest, get jobs for six months—maybe longer. She was going to run on the McKenzie River Trail. It was something she’d long dreamed of doing. But her accident had changed things.
Out across the water, all was dense grey-white fog.
Matt shrugged. “This must be part of the ride.”
Jess wondered about Charley. “Should we just wait here then?”
“You stay here. I’ll check it out.” Matt was already walking up the hill. “They prolly use dry ice to make the fog.”
“I don’t think—”
“Hey, here’s a trail.” She heard his voice, but the fog and tall grass had swallowed him.
“Don’t just leave me!” she called.
She glanced back at the closed-up building, then started up the hill after him. The path was worn, as if frequently used. “Slow down,” she called, a little surprised that he wasn’t showing over-concern about her leg, even though it rarely caused her problems anymore. She had even taken up speed-walking around the block in the early mornings, before Matt got out of bed. He would worry that she was overexerting herself.
Atop the hill at the treeline, there was no sign of Matt. The trail split and snaked into the sparse woods in myriad directions. It reminded her of a campground her family used to visit in the summers. Full of different paths and trails, but never really far from the safety of the campsites. She and her sisters would each run off their own ways, but always keep in contact, call out to each other, unseen, and meet up back at the camp, out of breath, showing off the treasures they’d found—a giant pinecone, a small bone, a stream-polished stone. Fairy treasures, they called them.
Her sisters were married now, with families and lives of their own. They saw each other at Thanksgiving.
They didn’t believe in fairies anymore.
And Jess didn’t run through the woods—or anywhere—anymore, not since her accident.
She tried not to think of that day, hobbling and pulling herself for over an hour out of the woods, her leg broken in three places. No matter how good a runner she was, she had been stupid to run the trails that far out, slick after a rainfall, out of the range of houses and cell phone coverage, all alone. That’s what her oldest sister said. More than once.
“Matt?” There was a rustling sound, like a small animal moving through underbrush. Then a child, dressed in green shorts and a t-shirt, burst out of the woods.
“Oh, hullo!” the child said. She had short blondish hair and large dark eyes.
“Hello?” Jess was surprised, but relieved to see another person. “I need to find someone.”
The girl cocked her head to the side. “Are you sure you need to?”
Jess tried again. “Did a man come this way?”
The girl put a long, pale finger to the side of her chin. “Not that I saw, Miss.”
Jess glanced around at the paths snaking into the ghostly forest. Somewhere among the trees, far off, she saw faint moving lights, like hazy fireflies. “What’s that?”
The girl giggled at her jumpiness. “Oh, those are just my sisters.”
Every word that she and the girl spoke hung hollowly in the misty, overly-silent air.
Jess had seen—believed she’d seen—lights like that before. The day she got hurt. She’d followed them—they’d led her—dazed and limping, back to the main road, to safety. She’d never told anyone.
The little girl was looking at her intently. Jess got the uncanny impression that the child knew what she was thinking.
“You must meet my aunty,” the girl said. “She can help you.”
***
The girl skipped and trotted ahead, deftly hopping over tree roots and rocks. Sometimes she turned around to make sure Jess was still following, and to throw out words of encouragement. “Careful of that big stone! Watch your head on that branch!”
They emerged into a wide grassy clearing. A stone cottage with a thatched roof stood there, and at the edge near the trees, a small log cabin with a gently sloping roof and a stone chimney.
The cottage was sparse inside, with a fireplace, a wooden table with two chairs, and a doorway into a second room. In the corner, by a window, stood an empty Madame Fortunata machine. The crystal ball was there, but no Madame.
“Aunty! I brought a visitor!”
A woman drifted into the room, her blue robe-like dress flowing about her as if she were underwater. She looked just like the illustration of the fairy queen in an old book Jess’s grandmother used to read to her. “Welcome.” Her voice was deep and musical.
The little girl slipped quietly out the front door.
“I need to find someone,” Jess said at once. “We got separated, and we’ll need to get back to the ride soon.”
The dark-haired woman raised an eyebrow and Jess couldn’t tell if she was skeptical or confused or something else. “There’s more than one exit from this place,” she said, as if that clarified something.
Jess shifted awkwardly.
The woman swept over to the Madame Fortunata box and scooped up the crystal ball. She glided over to the table, placed it there, and sat, gesturing for Jess to sit, too.
“Please, I’ve got to find my fiance,” Jess said. The word surprised her, and she realized with relief that she must have subconsciously made a decision.
“Hmm.” The sound reminded Jess of the purring of a cat. “I thought you wanted to know about the future before you made up your mind. My mistake.” She scooped up the crystal ball again.
Jess looked at this too-tall, too-pale, ethereal woman with the too-dark eyes and the cryptic smile. “You can do that?”
“Mmm,” the woman nodded and put the crystal ball down once more. Jess slipped into the chair opposite her.
The ball was almost instantly clouded by a blue fog. It radiated a coldness. “Go ahead,” the woman said soothingly. “Touch it.”
Jess put her hand on the cool crystal, and suddenly she imagined that this is what dying was like, seeing your life in flashes before your eyes. Matt was there. A house, like her sister’s house in the suburbs. She felt her own feet walking down a sidewalk. She smelled pasta sauce and saw Matt standing over the stove. He turned to smile at her. She heard a baby crying. And so much more. All in a flash.
Suddenly, she was at the table, pulling her frigid hand back, with the fairy woman watching her. “Seems pretty nice, doesn’t it?”
Jess felt like she’d been startled awake from a long nap. “So, you’re saying I should marry him.”
The woman frowned. “I don’t give advice.”
Jess sat back in her chair, wondering how much of this was real. It was a nice life she’d seen.
But she wondered about the parts she hadn’t seen. She hadn’t seen herself running.
“Thank you,” she said. The woman just nodded. “I—I need some air.”
Jess stepped out into the mist, breathed in the silence and the grass and the trees. She still loved the woods, loved being alone, despite what had happened to her.
“Do you have to go find your friend now?” The little girl had sidled up to her without her noticing. “I want to show you my playhouse.”
Jess smiled. “I can spend a few more minutes here.” Matt would find his own way back, she was sure.
The girl grabbed her hand and led her to the cabin at the edge of the clearing. Up close, Jess wasn’t surprised to see it looked like the cabin she and Charley had planned to rent.
There was no furniture inside. Instead, piles of trinkets littered the floor and hung on strings from the ceiling. The little girl said proudly, “These are my treasures.”
Jess carefully walked around the room, the girl close by her side. There were hair ties and dented matchbox cars and plenty of coins and buttons. Things lost, that one might find lying on the ground. Hanging from the ceiling were more unique items. “These are my special prizes,” the girl said, as Jess touched them. A My Little Pony lunchbox, a pink striped winter hat, a white baby shoe, and …
“This is mine,” Jess gasped. It was her charm bracelet—with a new charm for each time she’d won a race or completed a trail. “I lost it the day I fell in the woods.” Tears pricked at her eyes.
The girl looked a little sad when she said, “Then you can have it back.”
Jess thought about all the runs in the woods, the fairy treasures she’d found over the years, and it seemed a fair trade. “It’s okay. You can keep it.”
“You could stay here with us, you know,” the girl said eagerly.
Wouldn’t it be nice to stay here, in this quiet misty forest, collecting treasures? But Jess wanted to see Oregon, wanted to laugh with Charley, wanted to hike the McKenzie River Trail. She wanted to get back on her feet.
All of a sudden, she heard the distant carnival music, felt it on her skin, if that was possible, like welcome raindrops.
A foghorn sounded and a voice from a distant loudspeaker announced, “Boarding now.”
She looked out. Lights danced in the trees across the clearing, waiting for her to follow.
“I have to go!” she said, and hugged the little girl.
Then she turned to the forest, to the music, to the lights. And she ran.
***
Jess was out of breath and exhilarated from her run through the fairy woods. But she had a feeling in her stomach like she’d hit a squirrel and left it for dead on the road. Matt would be alright, right?
“Return ticket, please.”
What? She didn’t have a ticket! “I—”
The ride operator looked at her expectantly, holding out his hand. She rummaged around in her pocket, pulled out her card from the Madame Fortunata machine and thrust it at him. Destination Unknown.
“That’ll work.”
***
Much more quickly than she expected, her car click-click-clacked out of the dark tunnel, into the blinking lights and cheerful music of the carnival midway. The ticket-taker—the same guy?—lifted the metal bar and she scrambled out.
Charley was waiting. “I was behind you, but I got back before you? Weird.” She shrugged. “You look all sweaty. Did the ride through the dark freak you out, scaredy cat?”
She rubbed her eyes. “Actually… I guess I fell asleep. I had a weird dream. What about Matt? Is he back?”
Charley furrowed her eyebrows. “Who’s Matt?”
“Matt!” Jess said, but already the name was sounding fuzzy in her ears. “My boyfriend for eons, remember?”
Charley looked genuinely puzzled. “Boyfriend?”
Jess felt dizzy. “Charley, don’t mess around with me right now, please. I don’t feel so good.”
Charley put her hand on Jess’s shoulder. Some of the midway lights went off, but the carousel music still floated on the breeze. “Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”
Did she? She didn’t think so. “We need to go back and get him,” Jess said. She couldn’t remember a name. She searched Charley’s concerned face. “My boyfriend,” she said. “We were supposed to get married?” She said it like a question.
Charley smiled huge then and laughed. “Jesus, Jess. You had me going there for a minute. I thought there was seriously something wrong with you.” Charley’s comforting smile made Jess smile a little, too. “Like you’d ever consider getting married!”
Maybe she was just goofing around. What had she just been saying? She felt like she had forgotten something important.
They were still standing next to the dark ride, moths fluttering overhead by the strings of lights. Other lights blinked out across the midway. A few stragglers still hung around for one last game of ring toss or wandered in the direction of the exit, nursing the last of their cotton candy and snow cones. She and Charley had wanted to come to the very last night of the carnival, she remembered that. A girls’ night out. Before their trip to the Northwest.
The goth ticket-guy held the chain in his hand, but hesitated. No one was in line. “You girls wanna ride again for free?” he asked. “Last ride of the night.”
Jess looked at Charley. Jess had really wanted to go on the carousel earlier, but for some reason, they’d chosen this ride instead. Maybe if they hurried, they could still make it. “No thanks,” Jess said. “One ride was enough.”
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Oh, poor Matt! Very well told.