I got my first tattoo today! No, it’s not that raven above. No, mine is incredibly on-brand for 31 Ghosts. But as my artist was working I said, “I have an idea for today’s ghost story.”…
“So…” Dale, my new tattoo artist, asked without looking up as the tattoo machine buzzed furiously in his black nitrile-gloved hand, “who’s ‘Melissa’?”
I watched as the black line he was outlining bisected the “l” in the name on my upper bicep. How do I explain… Easy, I don’t. “She’s an ex…”
Dale’s machine stopped buzzing and he looked up, an eyebrow raised behind his thick black horn-rimmed glasses. “Yeah,” he said flatly, “You said that already.” The machine clicked on again and Dale stared at the line he was drawing. “But who is she?”
“It’s… a long story…” I hedged.
“Brother, do you see this stencil on your arm? That’s the outline. Then I’ve got to put a lot of ink in the raven’s wings to cover the name, and do the green foliage… what I’m saying is we’ve got time.”
I let out a long weary sigh and then let spill. “We were together for a long time – ten years. And engaged for year and a half of that.”
“Engaged, but not married? What happened?”
Another sigh. “We… we went through a bad period…”
“That’s vague…”
“She kept complaining about feeling stifled in the relationship even though I actively tried to make sure she wasn’t being stifled… there was a lot of drinking…”
“Her or you?”
“Yes. And you can imagine how well that helps a relationship already heading towards the rocks…”
Dale made a descending whistling sound followed by an explosion noise.
“Yeah, something like that…”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five years.”
“Five!” Dale switched the machine off again and stared up at me. “You’ve kept her name on your arm for five years? Bro…” The buzzing started again as he looked down at his line and shook his head.
“Yeah, well… we both moved on. She got another boyfriend and I met and married Diane.”
“And Diane put up with Melissa’s name on your arm for, checks notes… five years?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah… okay, I deserve that. She… she said she didn’t want me to feel forced. Especially after…” I trailed off.
“After what?”
“Melissa killed herself.”
“Oh shit, dude.”
“Yeah…”
Dale was silent for a long time, as the Spotify punk station played and the machine buzzed. “No, dude, fuck that – Five years! I’m calling her Saint Diane now.”
I sighed and leaned into the persistent pain of the needle.
. . .
“It looks amazing!” Diane said, face close to my arm, examining every detail. “I love how he made the raven look so lifelike. I want to pet the wings!”
“Right?” I agreed.
“I can’t even see the name…”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
Diane turned her gaze from the fresh tattoo up to meet my eyes. “Every person in the world knows to never, ever, ever get a significant other’s name tattoo…” she rolled her eyes. “I love you, my dummy,” her faux scowl turned to a smile and she kissed me.
“I love you too, sweetie,” I wrapped her in a tight hug.
“Please don’t ever get a tattoo of my name,” she whispered in my ear before laughing.
. . .
A week later Diane was doing her makeup as I stepped out of the shower. I could see her glance at me in the mirror, widen her eyes and turn towards me, inspecting my raven tattoo. “Umm, honey…”
I toweled off my hair, “What? Is it peeling?”
“Uh… no, not peeling…” she pulled me over to look at myself in the mirror.
I stared at the reflection: the keen eye of the raven, the dark green foliage with berries, the careful line details in the wing – there it was, very clearly in the wing, “Melissa.”
“What the hell?” I said aloud.
“Seriously,” Diane said, inspecting the tattoo closely again, running her fingers over the lines of the name. “It doesn’t feel any different…”
I shook my head, “I’ll have to call Dale and see what’s up.”
. . .
The next day I was in the shower, Diane was at the sink again and called over the running water, “Oh, did you call Dale?”
“Yeah,” I called back. “He can’t get me in until next week. But he said it’s not uncommon for old ink to sometimes… what’d he say… ‘stand up’. I sent him the picture and he said he’d never seen it that pronounced before.” I shut off the water, opened the shower door and reached for the towel. As I stepped out of the shower, I noticed Diane gaping at me. “What?”
“The tattoo…”
“I know,” I said with a little irritation. “Like I said, Dale can’t get me in until next week…”
“No, it’s different….”
I moved in front of the mirror and stared at the raven again. Diane was right: “Melissa” was gone. But just as clearly in the same place was “Ten Pines” in the same font. I felt my blood run cold. “Holy shit…” I said dumbly.
“Erik? What’s ‘Ten Pines?’”
“It’s… it’s a campground…”
“A campground?”
“Yeah… I used to go there with Melissa.”
“Oh…” Now Diane stared at the words.
“And…” I started. My mouth had gone completely dry. I swallowed before adding, “…where she killed herself.”
. . .
Diane stepped out of the truck and stared at the lake visible behind the stand of trees.
“This place is gorgeous,” she breathed in the fresh, evergreen-scented air. “Why haven’t we come out here before?”
I stared at her across the hood.
“Oh… yeah… that was dumb,” she blushed.
I shook my head, “No, it’s fine…”
Diane and I stared at the lake while a gust of wind blew through the pine boughs. After a while she started, “…but she kept coming out here?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, her and her new boyfriend, Dave.”
Now it was Diane’s turn to stare at me. “You said ‘Dave’ like it was a dirty word.”
I sighed. “Eh, the guy was a fuck-up.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“No, seriously – ask Sarah or Mark. They’ll tell you they never liked him. Sarah said she thought he was abusive.”
“Really?”
I shrugged. “She said she never saw anything, but it was the way he talked to her sometimes… she said Melissa kinda flinched.”
Diane frowned and crossed her arms. “I don’t like Dave.” We stared in silence for a while longer. “Now what?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know – hey, what are you doing?” Diane had crossed to me and was pulling the sleeve of my henley up.
“Why… did you wear… long sleeves?” she cursed as she yanked at my sleeve.
“Whoa, come on… I’m sure it doesn’t work that way…” I protested.
“Oh shit!” Diane exclaimed and jumped back as if she was scalded, my sleeve up high enough to expose the raven’s wing. I twisted my arm to look at it: “Manzanita.”
“Maybe it does work that way…” was all I could say.
“What’s Manzanita?”
“Besides an incredibly diverse shrub endemic to California?”
Diane leveled me with The Look.
But I did know what “Manzanita” referred to: “It’s a trail,” I said, pointing down the road.
“Care for a hike?”
“I don’t think we have a choice.”
It was a quarter mile to the trailhead. “We used to hike this trail just about every time we came out here.” Once on the marked trail, Diane kept checking my arm every hundred yards or so. “Seriously, Diane?”
“Well… we don’t know when it’s going to change.”
She was right… though I had a growing lump in my stomach because I had a really bad feeling I knew where this was heading.
The trail meandered away from the lake and climbed out of the pines and into a broad meadow. I stopped abruptly. “Check the tattoo,” I said flatly.
Diane looked at me askew before she pulled up my sleeve. “Great Oak?” she read.
I nodded ahead of us.
Across the meadow, the old black oak stood exactly where I remembered it, its wide canopy impossible to mistake.
“Erik?”
“That’s it.”
“What?”
“That’s where she…”
“Oh… oh! You never said how she…”
“…hanged herself.”
“Fuck,” Diane said with finality.
Neither of us moved for what felt like an eternity.
“Erik?”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
I closed my eyes and took in a slow, deep breath and let it out before I opened my eyes again. I nodded to myself and started walking to the tree.
As we approached the tree in silence, Diane broke the stillness by saying, “I want to be respectful, but I swear to God, Erik, if there’s a fucking heart with ‘Erik plus Melissa’ carved into this trunk I will stab you.”
I started laughing…. And I couldn’t stop. I laughed so hard I felt tears coming down my cheeks. I finally caught my breath enough to say, “Thank you.” I pulled Diane into a hug. “I needed that.” I kissed her head and held her close.
“…so no carving, right?” I let her go and glared at her. “It was just a question!”
I shook my head and pulled up my sleeve. “Anything new?”
“Hollow,” Diane read.
We looked at each other, and then at the tree, both of our gazes raking up the trunk. Not seeing anything obvious, I walked around the trunk to get a better look at the point where one limb branched off. “Here!” I called as Diane hurried to follow my gaze – sure enough, a dark hollow could barely be seen under one of the limbs.
“Huh…” Diane said. “So…?”
“Oh, you want me to stick my hand in there?”
“Why else would she say ‘Hollow’?”
“’She.’ So, now we’re admitting this is… what? Melissa’s ghost?”
“No, Erik, I’m sure it’s some kind of ephemeral viral advertisement for some ‘hollow’ face cream… Of course it’s Melissa’s ghost.”
I frowned, but I was just stalling. I reached up and stuck my hand into the dark hollow. I could feel that it went down into the trunk more than was evident… but then I felt a little deeper and there was a ledge… and something hard and plastic. “What the…?”
“What?” Diane asked excitedly.
I pulled out a purple iPhone – it was covered in dust and spider webs, but it was unmistakable.
“An iPhone?”
“Melissa’s iPhone.”
. . .
Back at the car I was a little disappointed that Diane wasn’t more impressed I still had an Apple Lightning charger among the myriad cables in the center console. After a tense few minutes, we both gasped as the white Apple logo popped up on the screen. After a moment, the lock screen appeared.
Diane deflated. “We don’t know her password.”
I typed four digits and the phone unlocked. “Melissa never, ever changed her passcode.”
“Note to self,” Diane said aloud, “Change passcode…”
We exchanged a smile and turned back to the iPhone, where a bright exclamation mark hovered over the Messages app. Opening the Messages app, the exclamation mark stood next to “Sarah.” I clicked on the contact and read the message. Diane gasped and covered her mouth.
“HELP! Dave is drunk and pissed. He said he’s gonna kill me. HELP! He’s not kidding. I know he’s not! We’re at Ten Pines. PLEASE HURRY!!!” And below the message, “This message failed to send.”
. . .
“Hey Erik, it’s Dale. I had a cancellation this afternoon – wanna come by and I can look at that name in the tattoo?”
“Oh, Dale, hey… yeah, no worries. It’s… uh… it’s back to normal.”
The phone was silent for a long moment.
“Come again?”
“The name is gone.”
“How…”
“Dude… it’s a long story. You know, I was thinking of a piece on my other arm. It’ll probably take a while…”
