Haunted Legends Read Online Free Page B

recent ghost. In part he was trying to create an American mythology to match those of Europe. I’ve always been impressed by how well Irving succeeded.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
has become part of our folklore and, along with his
Rip Van Winkle,
largely defines the way we think of Dutch Colonial New York.

KAARON WARREN
That Girl
    Kaaron Warren’s first novel,
Slights,
was published by Angry Robot Books in 2009. Her second,
Mistification,
came out later in the same year, and the third,
Walking the Tree,
will appear this year.
    Her award-winning short fiction has appeared in
Poe, Paper Cities, Fantasy Magazine,
and many other venues in Australia and around the world. Her story “Ghost Jail,” which first appeared in
2012,
was reprinted in
The Apex Book of World SF,
and “The Blue Stream,” her second published story, was reprinted in
Dead Souls.
    Warren lives in Canberra, Australia, with her family.

 
     
     
     
     
    St. Martin’s was clean, you could say that at least. Apart from the fine mist of leg hair, that is. I watched as Sangeeta (“You know me. I am Sangeeta.”) crawled through the women’s legs, a long piece of thread hanging from between her teeth. She stroked a shin, a knee, looking for hairs to pluck.
    “Come on, Sangeeta. All the ladies are bald, now. You’ll have to find a dog.” The head nurse was very kind when there were visitors, the inmates told me.
    They sat along the wide verandah that wrapped around their dorm. Like many verandahs in Fiji, it acted as their social center. It was the only place in the hospital with comfortable chairs. The dining hall, in a collapsing once-white building behind the dorm, had hard chairs designed to make you eat quickly; the art therapy room, across the loosely pebbled driveway, had stools. This was one of the things I wanted to change; put comfy chairs in so the women could sit and stitch, or paint, or weave. At present they made small pandanus fans and carved turtles from soap to be sold at the annual bazaar. My funding covered a month, and came from a wealthy Australian woman who’d visited St. Martin’s and been depressed at the state of the art therapy room, with paintings so old there was more dust than paint. They had no supplies at all. My benefactor hired me to sort out the physical therapy room, perhaps train the nurses in some art techniques. The nurses loved the sessions with me and used them to gossip, mostly.
    Sangeeta dragged herself up using the band of my skirt. “You’ve got too many hairs in your eyebrows. And your lip is like a hairy worm.”
    I turned a stare on her and she shrank.
    The head nurse said, “You comment on our guest’s appearance? Are you perfect? There are things you will need to learn, Sangeeta. If you want to return to your life in Suva.”
    Sangeeta primped her hair. “I am a beauty therapist. Of course I am beautiful.” Her face was deeply scarred by acne. Open wounds went septic so easily in the tropics. There was a red slash across her throat, vivid shiny skin, and two of her fingers were bent sideways. The fingernails were painted and chipped, bitten to the quick. “I studied in Australia. I married an Australian man but he went mad every full moon.”
    “Of course he did,” the head nurse said. “He was cursed on your honeymoon at Raki Raki.”
    “He upset the witches. He didn’t believe they were witches and took a photo of me kissing one of their pigs. Then he said I smelled like bacon and could not make love to me.”
    “You are blessed,” one of the other inmates said. “You will die untouched.”
    “My second husband turned out to be gay,” Sangeeta said, all the time the thread hanging from her mouth. She held the thread taut. “Can I pluck your hairs? Make you smooth?”
    The other women set up a clamor, all wanting to do something for me. To me.
    Only the old lady at the end of the verandah sat quietly, her lips moving. I walked over to her and bent my head down. “What is it, dear?”