by

Karen Lethlean

Shouldn’t really brag, but I do get a kick out of running obscure trails around my home, until this started to happen. First ghost stepped out of bushes, scrub, thick trees a few weeks ago. Imagine my surprise, I stopped to take photographs of Gymea Lilly plants. Intrigued by how they look like Audrey II from the film Little Shop of Horrors. Shimmering and hazy with captured light. I saw age in her body, moving as though still burdened by a vast and lonely place. Her wrinkles like finest, most fragile spider webs, I’ve seen a few of those, usually laced with morning dew droplets. This was my first ghost. 

Her hat, sat still, fastened to disheveled hair. Patches of singe stuck to her skin, as I looked at her fingers reaching out, tufts of heat and blistering were visible.

FFFFfire… came from a torn mouth. I looked about, but the trail was dressed in mist, rather than smoke. About this point I began to think, perhaps this person died during a bush fire. I guess in other countries they call them wildfires, but here, they destroy acres of undeveloped land, and are called bush fires. Sometimes crossing great divides and destroying suburbs, people die. When a change of wind direction happens, some get trapped. Out here on the trails such a thing might happen one day. In only one year’s worth of bush burning, 445 are recorded as dead, hope I don’t encounter more, could ruin my morning runs.

She wafted, came to rest alongside the pipeline I habitually follow. My sanctuary points, when skinny trails through bush annoy, and I want to encounter more space. Rather than have dripping with dew branches, and all sorts of rock, stick, leaf obstacles which lurch out trying to trip me. Occasionally I opt for wider, made roads type of trails. What was a ghost doing in such open spaces? Was she a victim of fires started when welders spent time working on this pipeline, in summer’s heat and under-story vegetation caught aflame and rushed up a hillside toward ridge top homes? So many trapped, not expecting such a fire, so close to houses. Her outline was set and static, her insides swirling, misty, full of translucent opals spun in an ancient hand. Later I realized every ghost was different in texture, but only after I’d encountered a few more.

I tried to reach out, take her hand, offer a token empathy. But before I could a crow disturbed air, and she faded. I began to wonder about the flotsam and jetsam left after fires. Reminded me of a crust on edges of bathtubs, what happened when we transgress boundaries of death and life?

Skies cleared and I remembered where I was. Time to run home. A willowy shimmer stretched atop hills, as if my pathway was declared safe.

By the time it happened again two weeks later, storm clouds gathered across hilltops. Fueled by suspicious attitude and not accepting what I saw, I ground to a halt. Surely this was a wallaby, or perhaps a small kangaroo. But no, a person appeared to be running away from me. Had I made a mistake, and this was a suburban dog off on a jaunt, like on paved streets, before I head on obscure trails? Felt weird, but still I couldn’t identify what made shuffling through scrub noises ahead of me.

When I got to look into the pearly depths of his eyes, a tiny boy stood ahead of me. Yes, during lock-down I’d crossed paths with kids before. Often, they love to walk atop the pipeline. Not sure if as a concerned parent I would let my kids traipse along a rounded top of local water pipelines…what if they fall? What if they sustained an injury? Good luck carrying some kid back to civilization to get a broken arm, or a head injury. Even if they’re not walking such risky territory, often kids ask me all sorts of thing. For example, “Can you get down to the bottom of this waterfall?”

I might know lots of random trails, especially used by mountain bikers, a collection of dedicated trail runners like me, but water tumbling over rocks, not my desire to get to below of waterfalls.

“What’s happening? Why are you out here? Who are you?” I asked my silvery companion.

Again, lips opened, a dreadful scratchy noise came out. “L…l…l…lost…!”

Not so hard to figure, every Australian landscape that matters is dotted with lost children. Their voices and myths continue to whisper, down through the ages. Plenty of tales about kids who wandered away from home. Never to be found again. More than likely drowned in smallest creeks and rivers. We live in a country where children are immersed in liquid from an early age, learn to swim as preschoolers.

Back in the bad old days, probably more often associated with European settlement parents tended to not spend as much time watching children. That’s my theory anyway. Often survivors, such as the Duff kids, Isaac 9, Jane 7 and little Frank 3 years old, returned after being found by indigenous trackers.

So, my theory grew, a woman who succumbed to fire, and now a child, a victim of a harmful environment, wandering off on his own. A light jacket, insufficient to warm a child, or keep out rain, partially dangled off his tiny frame. He was so beautiful, body textured like clouds rolling over the moon. Pearls of tiny lights still shining. I imagined a silent movie reel of his parents hiding their faces, shocked and forever remorseful about a lost child. All these trees, all these confusing trails, stumble away and you might be lost forever, only find your way out with modern technology. Earth below, residue of so many seasons, so much rain, a whole planet below my running footfalls.

So sad, as children are our future.

I understood because a bubble of lost things swelled in me too.

Maybe I got this wrong.  I might need help with identification and reclaiming my routes into bush land. Facial recognition software wouldn’t work on the melted chrome of their eyes, and near transparent skin, the drifting of their turbulent foggy innards. Speaking of which, do you know how many textures of fog exist, clouds, mist and early morning dew adding to my trail ambience of wafting water laden air? Strangely, I felt as if wandering through Whitby, where mists encapsulated gravestones, and gave Bram Stoker a mighty scare and made him think about an undead creature. I needed to be less overwhelmed.

These creatures were unearthly but familiar, texture of my apparitions could be found in photographs of early morning air. How often had I taken out my camera and snapped a picture of rainbow lights, or sunbeams through clouds, mists, or dew. Yet swirls and puffs of sediment disturbed track sightings. I couldn’t help drawing parallels between smoke from concerts where the air is thick and pulsing. Coronas of haze which I’ve seen plenty of times around streetlights early in the morning. And yes, they do often stay on all night. Especially on humid summer nights, condensed breath hanging low and close, chalk dust always fading. Steam from showers and rivers of morning heady again moisture laden air above a pond and arrows of jet trails – all of these and more I noticed, used to cataloguing and identifying such things as I tumble down skinny tracks.

I want to share these stories with other listeners but am afraid of what will be said. The little boy grabbing at my sweaty person, an older lady trying to warn me about potential dangers. Their wide hand gestures and dramatic wind swirled hair. Would people suggest my trails are dotted with such apparitions, or would they say I am just imaging things. Especially as plenty of homeless people live in close-by National parks, and you can come across their camps deep or even shallow in the scrub. 

Sometimes others ask, “Where did you run? What did you see?”

Not tempted to unload stories of ghosts. I remark about tracks that populate wide trails, the sort of gravel areas under ridge top power pylons. Sometimes I wonder if they are footprints of other scepter or real people. What if Commando soldiers from the local army camp train in these places? Will they say to me, get out this is our bush? Don’t you realize that our bombing range is just over that hill? Sure, I do, I’m not deaf, and I can hear artillery shelling sometimes. Safer to talk about animal trails, twin pointed toes of deer prints, occasional long think wallaby prints.

Just keep ghosts to me, who will believe it anyway?

Until the third. Another woman. Bruises on her face, made her expression darker. Same deep tormented eyes.

“F…F…”

“You want to tell me about another bush fire.” Again, not a whisper of smoke drifting through scrub. Besides which, this woman is very different from my earlier encounter with a fire ghost.

 “N…Nooo – Fight!”

I am curious, she almost vanishes down some trails I suspect kids on mountain bikes have constructed. So, I follow. Usually not my scene to explore bike trails, as they often fishtail and are hellishly rough. Concerned I might fall, have a bad stumble, and knock myself out. But I couldn’t help myself, she appeared to want me to follow. Mud sucks around my shoes, claiming them, I am half buried in open seam of earth. Her consistency was that of a weak soup, left out, dizzy at the edges. Wearing a large white shirt, reminiscent of a man’s business shirt. But she wore close fitting jeans, with a large hippy embroidery section, just above her knee. Perhaps I should not have been tempted. But what was she trying to tell me? I wanted to sweep my hands across her body, calm her panic. She made a mournful sound, deep in her throat. Rumblings that if you could touch her, you’d sicken at holes in her surface. I couldn’t imagine what she might be trying to say. But knew she wanted me to follow, gather my energy for a graphic discovery.

Besides a waterway, deep in a place where vines rustle and sigh as they settled in dusky air. I can see silver-tipped clouds which float in endless azure spaces. Suddenly I see a body. She hovers overhead, desperately pointing. Broken legs obvious. Worms and flies partially feasted on remains. I suspect soft facial tissue might have been subjected to cats, foxes, or other carnivorous creature’s forays. Her body, a whirlpool ready to suck me down. Obviously wearing the same clothing, yes this is her, or rather her earthly remains.

Now I must say something, explain to someone how I know there is a body here. Soon there will be police tape, a cordoned off area, and explorations as to how this person died. If I believe the ghosts, a fight; being bashed senseless, attacked by someone who was supposed to love her. At least one woman a week is murdered in such a manner. What stories will these earthy remains tell? All I could do was guess the way she might have died. But she wants me to do something to evoke justice, to solve a crime.