The Flowered Blouse at the Juniper Arch

My name is Maya, and what I’m about to tell you happened when I was twelve, the summer before I started middle school. My parents had decided to send me to a week-long nature camp in the Poconos, and I was both excited and terrified. The night before I left, I stayed at my grandmother’s house, because she lived closer to the camp pickup point. She had a big, old Victorian house, full of creaky floorboards and dusty rooms that smelled of mothballs and dried lavender. I was tucked into the guest bedroom, which had a canopy bed with lace curtains, and I was trying to fall asleep, but my mind was racing.

Around midnight, I heard my grandmother’s voice from the hallway, soft and gentle, calling my name. She said, ‘Maya, sweetheart, come sleep in my room. I’m going to miss you so much this week.’ She was always a bit doting, and I didn’t think much of it. I padded down the hall to her room, and she was already under the quilt, patting the space beside her. I climbed in, and she hummed an old tune until I drifted off.

At about 5:45 in the morning, my grandmother nudged me awake. She said her old alarm clock would be going off soon, and I should get up and get ready. I shuffled out to the living room, which in that house was separated from the dining room by a wide, arched doorway, trimmed with dark wood and carved with little juniper branches. I lay down on the floral sofa, still half-asleep, and stared up at the ceiling fan. And then, I felt a sudden chill, like the temperature dropped a few degrees, and something made me turn my head toward the archway.

There she was. A woman standing in the arch, perfectly still. She had straight, jet-black hair that brushed her shoulders, and she wore a blouse that I will never forget: it was lilac purple, with three neat boxes on the front, each containing a different embroidered flower – one red rose, one yellow daisy, and one blue forget-me-not. She had on black jeans and white sneakers, like someone who was just about to go for a walk. But her face was pale, and her eyes were dark and hollow, and she didn’t blink.

I tried to call out, but my throat closed. The woman took a single step forward, and I saw that her feet didn’t quite touch the floor, just hovering a few inches above the wooden planks. She tilted her head, and her mouth opened, but instead of a scream, she whispered a single word: ‘Remember.’ And then she was gone, like a puff of smoke.

I shot up from the sofa, my heart pounding. I ran to my grandmother’s room, but she was already up, folding my clothes. I told her what I saw, and she went silent, her face losing all color. She sat down on the bed, and said quietly, ‘That was my sister, Clara. She died fifty years ago, right in that house, the night before she was supposed to leave for a summer job. She was wearing her favorite blouse – the one with the flower boxes. She always said she’d never leave without it.’

I never saw the woman again, but for years, that image stayed with me – the purple blouse, the black jeans, the hovering step. And every time I see a forget-me-not, I think of her, and I wonder what she was trying to tell me. Maybe she was just a restless soul, or maybe she was a warning. But I’ll never forget the day I saw a ghost in the archway, and I learned that some things never really leave.