Tangled Head

Up until right now, Gordon Bessen’s journey had gone as planned. Dozens, then hundreds of miles had rolled by uneventfully under the tires of Mom’s battered Ford Escort. The coastal highway stretched out before him, the ocean on his left. To his right rose steep hills, dark with evergreens. He drove on into late afternoon under grey clouds, headphones crooked, absorbed in an audiobook.

When the engine cut out in the middle of a curve just out of sight of the sea, it took him a moment to register what had happened. He steered toward the side of the road and stepped on the clutch. The movement of his foot was instinctual and he was proud of his reflexes. He was the only person he knew who drove a vehicle with a manual transmission. The car rolled to a stop, tilting on the steep shoulder.

Gordon paused the book and pulled off his headphones. There was no auxiliary input on the car’s stereo (or any way to plug in a phone phone charger either), just a cassette tape deck. One of Mom’s cheerful mixtapes was still in there, the edge of it visible through the slot. He hadn’t found the courage yet to press play.

He turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. The fuel gauge showed more than half a tank. He twisted the key again, but there wasn’t even a click. Pulling the release lever for the engine compartment, he stepped out onto the asphalt and opened the hood. For a long moment he stared down at the tangle of wires and hoses and metal parts without any idea what he was looking at. He closed the hood with a thump.

When he left home yesterday he had hoped to reach Orcas Island before tomorrow. He drove all night, only stopping for the bathroom or to buy more coffee to keep from falling asleep at the wheel. Now what? He rolled his shoulders. What he needed was a town, a mechanic. Or at least phone signal or wifi before it got dark.

The air was cool and breezy under low tumbled clouds, the crash of breaking surf audible beyond a wall of trees. It smelled like rain. No houses or structures of any kind were visible. Nothing but endless trees in both directions. Gordon glanced at his phone, but there was a small x where the reception bars should be. He scratched his neck and looked back the way he had come.

Twenty-four hours earlier Gordon had taken a last look around his room and snapped off the bedside lamp. He gathered his things, headed down the stairs, lifted Mom’s keys from the rack by the door. In the living room Aunt Therese was watching a show about street food in South America, a glass of wine on the coffee table among the books and playing cards and stray pens.

“I’m heading out,” he said.

Aunt Therese gazed sadly up at him. “It’s your birthday tomorrow. Are you sure you want to leave tonight? We could have cake. And ice cream.”

“Goodbye, Tee.”

She sighed and reached for the wine glass.

Outside, Sophia was waiting in the driveway.

“Really, Gor?” She looked down, her hands curled inside the sleeves of her hoodie. “What do you think this will accomplish? Nothing, that’s what. Have you ever even been out of Orange County?”

“I feel trapped here, you know? Even apart from the Dad thing… I gotta get out,” he said. “Come with me, Soph.”

“No.” She shook her head. “We’re just kids.”

“Please?”

“I just — I can’t. You shouldn’t either.”

He hugged his sister even though she refused to hug him back and drove away in the warm dusk

A blue backpack slumped in the passenger seat. He dragged it out and began stuffing his things into it. Whatever there wasn’t room for he shoved under Mom’s faded picnic quilt, hoping it looked as if the blanket had been tossed casually across the back seat. Please, no one break in. There’s nothing to steal. Then he locked the doors, settled the pack on his shoulders, and set off in the direction he’d been traveling. There was nothing behind him for miles. The car was soon out of sight.

The trees opened up around another bend in the road and the vast, muted ocean filled his view. Where sky and sea met, a little light broke through the clouds in vivid bands of yellow and orange and pink. Gordon hooked his thumbs in the straps of his pack, listening for cars. He checked his phone again, but the x persisted.

A weedy lane, opening to the left, wound down into the trees. Next to the narrow drive was a faded wooden sign: Tangled Head Bed & Breakfast. He grinned with relief. A single drop landed on his cheek. He glanced up at the lowering clouds then jogged across the empty highway and down into the lane. Grass grew between patchy gravel and crept in from below tangled trees on either side. Downed branches and drifts of dead leaves lay in piles. Further on, a large rock had rolled into the right-hand tire track. A few turns in and the main road was lost to sight.

The trees ended abruptly and Gordon stepped into a clearing overlooking the sea. A big house with cedar shingle siding crouched close to the edge of a steep drop to the beach below. Under the eaves of the porch another wooden sign hung with the same flaking letters: Tangled Head Bed & Breakfast.

Heavy raindrops were falling now, still scattered but thickening steadily. He hurried across the driveway and up the front steps. There didn’t appear to be a doorbell, so he banged gently on the front door. No one answered. He knocked again, louder. After a third try he leaned to peer through a large window, but the interior was too dim to make out through the grimey glass. The rain fell harder. Wind gusted through his sweater, the smell of salt and rotting seaweed strong in his nose. He twisted the knob of the front door, and finding it unlocked, stepped inside.

“Hello?” His voice sounded terribly loud in the gloom.

As his eyes adjusted, it became clear that Tangled Head, though still straight and sound, had been empty for a long time. Dust coated every surface. Cobwebs bridged the corners. The walls were bare and the built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace were empty. Above the mantel a huge mirror reflected his own tangled, too-long hair, his tattered sweater and worn out sneakers, the shapeless blue backpack. To the right of the front door was a reception counter and a bell with the words: Ring for Service. At the back of the room a stairway climbed upward out of sight.

Gordon crossed to the foot of the stairs. “Hello? Helllooooo…” There was a dark stain on the carpet runner covering the bottom step. “Anyone here?” A slightly metallic smell of dust and rot made him turn quickly back toward the front door. But where would he go? The rain thrummed against the roof.

Drawn by the glint of evening light through the west-facing windows, he entered the kitchen and looked out. At the horizon the remaining sliver of sunset was rapidly being swallowed by rain sweeping down from the inland hills. Booming waves far below rumbled through the glass as they swept the coastline in a wash of foam and spray.

After hugging Sophia goodbye, he had driven west until he reached Highway 101 and turned north. By mid-morning today he’d left California for the first time in his life. Hours passed. Lack of sleep turned his eyelids to sandpaper. The mini mart food made his stomach hurt, and too much coffee heaped fresh irritation on the constant fury burning within. He’d been counting on getting there tonight, going over what he’d say again and again in his head, but he was maddeningly delayed, trapped again already.

He turned away from the windows and reached for a lightswitch he already knew wouldn’t work. A loud click shot through the stillness. Nothing. The sound made his heart race, though he knew there was nothing to be afraid of. He dropped his backpack to the floor and sat down at the kitchen table, unsure what to do next. Rain closed in, shutting out the last of the sunset.

His arms and the back of his neck prickled. He looked up. In the black corner beside the refrigerator the shadows seemed to contain something even darker.

Gordon bounded from his chair, sending it flying backward with a deafening clatter. “Who’s there?!” His heart beat in great, painful thuds. He tapped the flashlight icon on his phone with shaking fingers and light flooded the kitchen. There was nothing in the corner. Idiot.

Righting the upset chair, he drew a long, slow breath. He’d driven all night with only a short nap at a turnout for a scenic viewpoint. His eyes were playing tricks on him. Just an abandoned building filled with shadows and his fragile imagination. Outside, the wind and rain were rising. It seemed a serious storm was on its way.

There were matches in his backpack, but unless he found a candle or dry wood for the fireplace, they wouldn’t be of much use. He retrieved the matchbook and pushed it into his pocket anyway. His phone battery showed 21%. Enough for a quick look around.

He surveyed the main room by phone light. Reception counter, fireplace, vacant bookshelves, staircase, a door in the back wall. Striding forward, he flung the door open with one hand, phone held out before him like a weapon in the other.

The rear of the building consisted of a bedroom, a combined office and storage room, and a pantry with another door leading back into the kitchen. A loop of dust and spiders. At the table once more, he glanced toward the shadowy corner to be sure it was still empty then tapped the flashlight off.

From the living room came a muffled thump, like something heavy falling on the carpeted staircase.

Gordon didn’t move. Cold dread washed over him. Crouching low by the pantry door, he waited and listened.

Seconds stretched to minutes, but there was no further sound. He crept forward and peered around the edge of the entryway. A gust of wind rattled the panes of glass behind him. The rain crashed down with sudden fury. He raised his phone and tapped the screen. Light flared in the dark, illuminating everything, but the room was empty. Maybe a branch had fallen in the storm? Or was there something in the house? A wild animal?

He sank to the floor and leaned against the jamb, fingers pressed to his temples. Did he believe in ghosts? How many times had he wished he could see Mom again, even if all that remained of her was rotting away in the dirt?

Rain rushed at the walls and roof of Tangled Head. The first blue-white flash of lightning sliced through the uncurtained windows. Seconds later, thunder rumbled, not far off. He got to his feet.

The last words Dad had spoken before driving away replayed in his head: I have to go. Don’t come after me.

They didn’t give chase right then, but of course they went looking for him later. Furiously at first, then with a kind of hopeless desperation as the weeks turned to months. Aunt Therese said if her brother didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be. Coward.

A year later, a single postcard arrived.

Dear Gordon, Sophia, and Therese,

I hope you are all doing well. I miss you. I am settled in a small, private place where I can watch the waves. You know how much the ocean and quiet means to me. Life is uneventful and I just wanted to write to tell you not to worry. I am not ready to come home, but I am getting better, I promise. I’m sorry for everything.

Love, Dad

There was no return address, but the postmark was from Orcas Island in Puget Sound. Gordon studied every inch of the island he could access with Google Earth and street view in myopic fury and checked whatever rental records he could find. He located the post office, and knew which ferry to take. He had a pretty good idea of where to start looking once he got there — unless Dad had mailed the postcard from the island just to throw them off. But he didn’t think so.

The stairs creaked under his sneakers as he went up. On the second floor, a narrow hall ran the length of the building. A dead fern drooped in a pot in the corner. He rolled his shoulders and started with the first door on the left. It opened with a groan. There was nothing inside. The next door was the same. And the next. At the end of the hall he peered out of a small window set into the far wall. White-cappped waves and boiling breakers made dim impressions through the driving rain. He opened the rest of the doors on his way back, flashing his phone briefly around the vacant, dusty spaces they revealed. At the bottom of the stairs he stepped carefully over the dark stain and turned off the flashlight. Only 9% battery left.

When Aunt Therese first came to live with them, he was still numb. She said that he and Sophia were too young to live by themselves, even though they both had jobs after school and shared Mom’s car whenever they needed groceries or wanted to see a movie. Aunt Therese said they would need her, eventually, even if they didn’t want her right now. He said he didn’t care what she did.

As he shuffled back toward the kitchen, a bolt of lightning dazzled the room. In the blue-white glare, a thin figure stood silhouetted in the entryway. Then all was plunged into darkness once more.

Gordon cried out and dropped his phone. Thunder shuddered against the walls as he fell to his knees, fumbling with both hands. For several frantic seconds he scrabbled on the dusty floorboards, not daring to raise his head or even to open his eyes. Then his trembling fingers closed around a familiar shape. He tapped the light on. There was nothing in the entryway. He spun, shining the light in every direction. He was alone.

He jumped to his feet and hurried into the kitchen, breathing fast. Someone was in the house. And whatever they wanted, whatever they were doing here, they knew he was here too. He yanked open kitchen drawers, one after another, feeling around with blind fingers, flashing the phone over his shoulder repeatedly. Something, anything, preferably long and heavy or dangerously sharp. At the back of a cupboard above the sink was a small cardboard package. He turned the light toward it. Birthday candles.

He pressed his forehead into the edge of the shelf until it hurt, one hand gripping the cupboard door, trying not to panic. His sister and aunt were right, he shouldn’t have come. It had been a mad idea from the start. Dad didn’t deserve to be found, asshole, and now Mom’s car was broken and he was trapped and alone in an old house and someone was probably sneaking up behind him right this very moment.

He gulped and opened his eyes. Whoever they were, this lurker in the dark, he would see them first this time. He would be the shadow in the corner. He slipped into the space beside the refrigerator and pressed his back to the wall.

The minutes ticked slowly by. Thunder rumbled but there was no leading flash this time. Rain hammered the roof and walls of Tangled Head.

Something moved in the dark a few feet away. Bands of terror squeezed his lungs. He blinked rapidly, straining to see in the gloom. If only he’d found something big or sharp before hiding — a butter knife, a chair leg — anything. He held his fists up like a blind boxer. Lightning seared the sky above the house, illuminating the kitchen.

A few feet away, a girl with straight black hair and wire-rim glasses stared back at him. Buried in her chest was a blade of some kind with an ornate gold handle. Her plaid shirt and the front of her jeans were wet with blood. Then the light was gone.

Gordon huddled deeper into the corner, shuddering as thunder battered the walls. He suddenly realized his phone was no longer in his hand. He must have dropped it or left it on the counter with the birthday candles.

His throat was too dry to swallow. His arms prickled with gooseflesh. She couldn’t be real, couldn’t be there… What had he even seen? A knife in her heart?

He fumbled in his pocket and drew out the book of matches. Striking one, he held it up fearfully, raising a hand to shield his eyes against the sudden yellow burst.

The girl was still there. She stood between him and the table, nearly colorless; a black and white photograph, except for the muddy stain on her clothes. She touched the gold handle in her chest as if to make sure it was still there. The match seared his fingers and he dropped it, gasping, as the room plunged again into darkness.

“What’s the matter?” Her voice creaked like a rusty gate. “Can’t stand the sight of blood?”

“No, I — I —” he wheezed. Rain beat wildly against the walls of the house. “The knife… are — are you ok?”

He grabbed another match. He struck it, once, twice. On the third scratch it flared to life. Her face tilted away from the light. Behind her glasses her eyes were two black pits under drawn brows. With a wash of disbelief he realized he could see the table through her body. The match burned down toward his paralyzed fingers.

“Ever since I was a kid —” he began, his voice almost a whisper. “I told everyone, myself mostly, that I believed in… in ghosts. Mostly just — just in case I ever met one.”

She stirred, moving closer. He shrank back, dropping both the matchbook and the nearly spent match. The spinning flame glinted in her glasses and winked out.

“I’m G-Gor. Gordon. My car broke down.” He waved his arm vaguely in the direction of the highway. “I saw the sign, Tangled Head. The door was unlocked, so I — I… I came in.” He thought he felt the matches against the toe of his sneaker and stooped quickly to pick them up. Fumbling past the refrigerator and along the sink, his groping fingers found the box of birthday candles. He continued to back away as he tried to work a candle loose. He couldn’t see anything.

“I’m n-not scared of you.” It was a lie. But his terror was giving way somewhat to morbid curiosity.

“Maybe you should be.”

He struck a match and touched it to a candle. This time he managed to hold his hand steady and the flame grew tall and bright. “Should I?”

The darkness around them retreated from the little light. She was beginning to look more forlorn than threatening, the walls and floorboards showing through her, though her eyes were still only black holes in a drawn white face.

“Why?” Feeling bolder, he edged past her in a wide arc toward the kitchen table. He tilted the candle to make it drip, then stuck the base into the hot wax so it stood up on its own. “Why should I be afraid of you?”

Candlelight wavered over her face. She approached the table. “You tell me.”

“Well, I guess I was at first, scared, but now… You really are… aren’t you?”

“Dead?”

“It is sad?”

She shrugged.

“I told you my name. What’s yours?”

“Mary.”

“Mary,” he repeated. “I’m, uh, glad to meet you, Mary.”

She sat down across from him.

Gordon lowered himself into the other chair. He couldn't tear his eyes from the knife. “Have you tried to, um, take it out?” He immediately felt ashamed for asking.

Grasping the handle, Mary pulled the blade free and tossed it into the darkness. Fresh blood coursed down her shirt.

“There’s always more blood. As if I actually had any left.” Her brows were knotted. “No matter how many times I throw it away, it always ends up right back where it started.” Her face contorted. “What’s it good for unless I can use it for something?”

“So…” Gordon wasn’t sure how to ask but couldn’t help himself. “What happened to you?”

Her eyes blazed from their black depths.

“You said you’re — well, I guess it’s obvious — um, dead. How…?” He stopped. “We don’t have to talk about it. Sorry.”

Lightning flickered in the windows, further away than before, and a moment later thunder rolled across the night, quieter now.

“Someone came to Tangled Head,” she said at last. “Right as a storm was blowing in. Just like you.” She raised a hand and ran her fingers over the handle of the knife almost tenderly, tracing its ridges and grooves. He hadn’t noticed its return.

“He tried to rob us.” She pulled the knife out once more and weighed it in her hand. Blood splattered the table. “He broke into the register while I was in the kitchen getting tea. The others were upstairs. When I came back he was stuffing cash into his pockets. Maybe I screamed. Or was about to, anyway. This must have been with the mail on the counter. He threw it at me. Only it wasn’t a letter opener, it was an antique Dad was researching to see if it was valuable.”

“Damn. So… he threw that at you and just ran away?”

She directed the tip of the knife toward the stairs. “That’s where they found me. They carried my body away, then cleared the house out and shut it up. Eventually I realized a lot of time had passed, and I was still here. And… I can’t leave. If that isn’t fucked up, what is?”

Gordon rolled his shoulders. “I’m sorry. My mom — she died two years ago. For a while I half hoped I might get to see her again, even though I knew better. If she was — you know — like you.”

“Most people don’t hang around after they die,” Mary said. “It’s not a good thing. You should be glad you didn’t find her.”

“I’m sure you’re right. But it didn’t stop me from wanting it, you know? After she — Dad left, just drove away without us. I was so mad at him for that. Still am, I guess.”

Mary watched him.

“But we got a postcard a couple of weeks ago. I’m pretty sure I know where to find him.”

The candle had nearly burned down to the table.

“I almost forgot. Happy birthday to me.” He took a second candle from the package and lit it from the first, sticking it into the melted wax.

“Today? How old are you?”

“17.” He sighed. “Why are you still here, do you think? Not stuck in the house, I mean why haven’t you gone on to… I dunno, the afterlife?”

She didn’t speak for so long he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Finally she said softly, “I should not have died.”

“No,” he agreed. “Do you have, like, unfinished business of some kind?”

“I can’t figure out how to leave Tangled Head,” she whispered fiercely as if she hadn’t heard him. The lenses of her glasses reflected twin flames. “I’m trapped.”

“Trapped, ha. I know the feeling. Honestly, that’s probably why I’m here. Why I left Sophia and Aunt Therese. Anyway, most stories about ghosts mention being tied to a place. But sometimes they possess an object or a person or something like that, don’t they?”

Mary didn’t say anything.

“If you could leave, where would you go? What would you…?”

All at once, the hair on the back of his neck was standing up. Startled, he stared at her.

Mary was eying him with something like envy. Or hunger. “I want out,” she snarled. The knife was still in her hand. “There has to be a way,” she said, her voice very low now.

Without warning, she drew back and flung the knife with all her might. The blade spun once and passed right through him, ringing as it bounced into the dark. Gasping, he pressed both hands against his chest, an icy chill radiating from the point where the knife had entered. He tried to speak, but all that escaped was a hoarse croak.

Mary laughed harshly. “Clearly that knife can’t touch you any more than I can. We’re not real anymore, that horrible thing and me. I hate it.” She leaned forward and touched where the knife had pierced him. Her hand sank into his sweater, vanishing up to her wrist. It was freezing. The ache spread as her icy fingers plunged deeper, probing. Her eyes grew wide. A grin spread slowly across her face.

He tried again to cry out, but no sound came.

Mary began to stretch and distort, coming apart like melting cheese, sinking and oozing into his arms, his chest, his whole body, filling him with her freezing, dripping self. He screamed and his eyes went dark.

Gordon lay on his back. Irregular drips and plops sounded all around, but the sigh of steady rainfall was gone. He opened one eye, then the other. It was no longer fully dark, a hint of pre-dawn beginning to filter through the windows. Craning his neck from where he lay, he saw his toppled chair. Nothing, it seemed, remained of Mary.

He felt a bit like stretched cheese himself, spilled out across the floor where he had fallen. A chill gnawed from deep within, and there was an odd glint in front of his eyes. When he reached up, his fingers met glass. He snatched at his face, and in confusion removed a pair of wire-rim glasses. Something banged painfully against the floor as he rolled over.

There was a knife in his chest.

What the hell.

He staggered up and into the front room. Halting before the mirror above the mantel, he swayed in disbelief. Mary gazed back at him, her reflection swaying with his.

The ice inside him slid and shifted, as if she was seeking a better fit among his muscles and bones. Touching the plaid shirt that used to be his familiar, worn-out sweater, his fingers came away smeared with blood. Mary’s reflection matched his movements, though her face didn’t betray the horror that tore the breath from his lungs, nearly drove all coherent thought from his mind. The glasses he had flung away were somehow back on her nose. He raised a bloody hand to the mirror. Their shaking fingertips met on the surface of the glass.

Broken twigs and drifts of leaves covered the narrow lane that led up to the main road. The storm had left a terrible mess. Deep puddles reflected a paling sky through gaps in the heavy branches overhead. At the top of the overgrown drive, they turned right and ran up the highway toward where Gordon had left Mom’s car. He wanted to stop, but she was too strong. Together, they pushed her glasses back up their nose as they splashed through the puddles.

A gull called in the blue stillness. Beyond the wooded hills, the rim of the eastern sky was turning bright, the last of the tattered storm clouds from the night before dispersing, stars showing in the open spaces overhead.

They reached the little Ford and paused. Slowly, almost wonderingly, Mary pulled the knife from her breast for the last time and let it slide between her fingers. Gordon felt every inch as it slid free, felt its unbearable weight slipping away. Tears sprang to their eyes as it clattered to the asphalt and lay in a puddle, staining the water with her blood.

* * *

A small, battered Ford drove down the ferry landing on Orcas Island and turned right. It veered to the side of the road and stopped opposite the post office. The driver’s door swung open. From the stereo came the upbeat sound of a cheerful homemade mixtape. The sky overhead was thick with grey clouds, and from across the water, a cool breeze sighed through the evergreen branches, bringing odors of salt and rotting seaweed.

The driver’s straight black hair blew across her face as she stepped out of the car. Mary rolled her shoulders and pushed her wire-rimmed glasses back up her nose. Gordon nodded. As one, they crossed the road to the post office.