Blue

Her mom’s tears were dripping on her neck when she noticed it. The grey, almost blue when touched by sunlight, handprint on the side of the car. It hadn’t been there before, and it couldn’t belong to either of them. It was too big. Its fingers spread far and wide along the side of the passenger door.

It was cool out there in the mountain woodland. For her, this place always felt like the edge of the world. For her father, it might as well have been the only place left in the world. This city, this state, this cabin at the bottom of a twisted road between a cliff and a dense forest, the mist streaming from the Smoky Mountains in the background, it had been his favorite spot in the world. It’d been his paradise. Naturally, it’s where they went to spread the ashes.

The cabin didn’t belong to them anymore, but it hadn’t changed much. It still had the rusted sign reading “John Wayne Trail” on the porch rail and the old horseshoe hanging crooked above the door. The new owners didn’t know they were there. They’d never need to know. There were no cameras, and they were alone. Mom could cry without an audience in a spot that now felt haunted.

She stared at the handprint, hoping it would somehow disappear on its own but of course it didn’t. Mom was pressed into her shoulder, sobbing and mumbling about life not being fair. She didn’t notice the handprint or her daughter wiping it.

It left a blue streak and a chalky residue on her fingers. She wiped it again as another sob ran into her shoulder. Its texture matched the ashes now lying like snowfall in the woods. It hadn’t blown away in the wind with the beautiful meaning the way it does in the movies. It puffed out onto the ground the way flour blasts out of the bag all over a clean countertop.

That was just like him difficult, stubborn, and disappointing. A whole life summed up in cutting open a plastic bag and dumping the remains in the woods. She wiped the residue on her jeans, leaving another smear. It was all over her, and she kept wiping it against any surface she could reach.

“I miss him,” her mother cried. “I miss him so much. I loved him so much!”

She clung harder as her daughter’s eyes scanned the bright, green forest. It was the perfect day for a hike. Slowly, she lowered her eyes to the clumps of her father resting in the bushes. He didn’t look rested. It took her back to the sound of his heavy, restless footsteps pacing the house at night, to the times he dug holes in the backyard and then had no memory of it in the morning. It reminded her of how he never slept longer than two hours without waking up and the nightly conversations he’d have with himself.

Life wasn’t fair. He’d been the only proof she needed of that. He was dead, and it still felt like he was awake. She could never sleep until he slept. It was the only way she was sure he wouldn’t come into her room to tell her about the people in the attic, the monsters behind the house, or the ghosts that spoke to him in his dreams. She would never come back to Tennessee again. If anyone spread her ashes here, she’d haunt them into madness.

They got back in the car and made the long drive home. Her mom’s tears cleared up before they got out of Sevierville. They were nothing but a memory by the time they crossed into Georgia. Almost envious, she watched her mom drift in and out of sleep. She could sleep; she never had a hard time sleeping. She never had to deal with the insanity. Her husband considered his daughter to be his confidante. He never woke his wife up, never told her of the horrors that lived in his head. She lived in near bliss.

They got home late that night, or perhaps it was early in the morning. The sky was black, and the neighborhood was quiet. Her mom was snoring in the passenger seat. She decided to give her a moment before waking her up. She left the car running and walked up to the house, spare keys in hand.

When she reached the front door, she noticed it. The same ashy handprint was waiting for her, right above the knob. Even dead, her father wouldn’t let her rest. 

Rachel Roth

Author of Dead Flies and The Undead Redhead