The many winding paths of Grasscove, USA: Part One

*This story is underneath my folder titled “Grasscove, USA”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33[2]”. Enjoy!*

I usually don’t have trouble sleeping. But that text I got a few minutes ago has really shaken me up.

I am currently lying in my bed, with the white cotton sheet pulled close to my head. I’m looking out of the window, which I left open a crack to let in the cool summer air. The moonlight is shining through and I can see the buildings in my town, Grasscove, from over here. I’m still holding my cell phone and I’m still looking at the text that my girlfriend, Lilliana, sent me:

“Lilli 🩵

Going 2 train theme park 🚂”

Grasscove is a town that was made during the Wild West era and a lot of the buildings are still here today. There’s a ton of spooky stories that surround this place, eerie events that cannot be explained easily, and there’s a theme park that was built during 1953 but closed in 1986 centered on trains. I don’t know why they made a theme park about trains out of all things or why it’s not completely demolished, but they made the theme park and it’s still there.

I’m not really sure if all the spooky stories about ghosts, witches, and vampires are true for Grasscove, but I think it’s possible for all the stories to be real. I know that there’s something wrong with this town, so I don’t chance anything by going out late at night.

Lilliana is a hardcore skeptic, though. She believes in evidence and logic so much so that she doesn’t think anything happens to us after we die and she keeps trying to find out more “sensible ways” that all the bad things that happened in this town happened. A lot of people in town judge her for it because she’s not superstitious like they are, which is whatever, because they’re missing out on a really cool person anyway, but I still think that she’s wrong in some aspects.

Lilliana also really, really, really likes trains. Especially the old, rusty, and vintage ones at the amusement park. Her eyes will light up every time we go to the amusement park (we go a few times after school and don’t stay too long, as we have homework to do) and she’ll start talking to me all about the history of trains, how different trains work, that kind of thing. All of it comes in one ear and out the other, but seeing her get all excited makes me happy and interrupting Lilliana during such a time would just be plain rude, anyhow.

She kept telling me that she wanted to go to the train theme park at night to get a “better experience” when she had the time, but I never thought that she would actually go through with it! I’m a little worried that something might happen to her, because it does not seem like a good idea for her to be going to an amusement park at night, but maybe I’m being ridiculous.

I mean, it’s not like anything is going to actually happen to her. Nobody in Grasscove goes out at night, so nobody will come for her. Maybe the supernatural stuff is real, but I don’t really know that, so it’s probably not something to be concerned about. Besides, she’s sixteen years old, so she’ll be fine.

But then how did she get out of the house without her parents knowing? Did she leave through her window? That’s probably what happened, but why would she even text me about it? What’s the purpose of that? What am I going to do with that information?

I’m totally overthinking it. Lilliana just wanted to let me know what she was doing because she likes talking to me about trains. It’s literally nothing to get upset about. She’ll come home before she gets in trouble, nothing will happen to her and I’ll get my beauty sleep.

Except I can’t seem to close my eyes and drift off. Lilliana being at the train theme park is still scratching in the corner of my mind, the bed doesn’t feel super comfortable right now and…

Maybe if I just go upstairs to the attic and read a book, I’ll be in the mood to sleep later. I’ve done it before back when I was younger, it might help me now.

I push aside the covers on my bed, my phone in one hand, and make my way out.

………………………………………………………………….

It’s calming and a little bit eerie to be walking around in my house at 1:15 AM (I checked the digital clock on the oven in the kitchen and yes, it’s 1:15 AM). I like how it’s completely silent and how the moonlight is casting a pale, otherworldly glow through the cotton curtains on all of the windows, but I don’t like how I feel like I’m being watched. It’s probably because my parents and my little brother, Kayden, are asleep.

I walk down the hallway until I see the string hanging off the ceiling, then I pull on it and step back so that the stairs don’t hit me. I walk up the steps to the attic, glad that nobody is waking up from the creaking of the stairs as they were pulled down and the stairs as I step on them.

When I make it to the attic, I am welcomed by the taxidermy heads of deers, moose, and rabbits on the walls, shelves of dust-covered books, and a dust-covered purple armchair. Next to the armchair is a brown round side table that has a navy green camping lantern on top of it, also covered in dust. Across from it as a window that has navy blue linen curtains, overlooking Grasscove.

My Mom and Dad have been collecting far-too lifelike taxidermy heads for as long as I can remember. I don’t understand what’s so appealing about them because they were made from murdered animals and looking at them feels like they’re silently crying out for their souls to be saved, so I speed walk past them towards the book shelf, coughing up the particles of dust as I go on. Nobody really cleans this part of the house, so it’s always covered in dust and smells like mildew.

When I get to the bookshelf, I pick the book titled “Grasscove ghost stories” and brush the dust off the cover, the cover being a black and white, crackly and grainy photo of our town back in its prime condition, in the Wild West era, and I go over to the armchair and again, wipe off the dust. I can feel a little bit of the dust in my eyes and in my lungs, but the attic feels more private than any room in the house, so I sit down with the book, putting my phone on the table.

I don’t need to turn on the lamp because the moonlight is enough light for me. I can just read with the light of the moon.

Although the title of this book promises “ghost stories”, it’s not just ghost stories, but every single paranormal story about this town, with different supernatural creatures in them. My Dad got me this book when I was ten years old and when I told him it scared me, he decided to take the book away from me. I know he was trying to help me, but I got really upset that he took it away. I didn’t understand why I was upset, since the book gave me nightmares, but when I went to get Christmas decorations from the attic when I was fourteen and I saw the book on the shelf, I realized that I was mad about it being taken because I felt like he thought I was “too weak” to keep it. Obviously, he doesn’t mean “weak”, just that I “can’t handle it”. All I did was say that I was scared, not that I never wanted to see it again. It may be frightening, but the book on ghost stories is still one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read.

Now, I could tell my parents that I’m no longer scared of the book and that I want it back, but I find that it’s much more fun to sneak into the attic at night and read it in the dark when no one else is awake. It really builds up the atmosphere and it’s safer than going to the old train theme park in the dead of night, LILLIANA!

Ugh, why am I still all unsettled about all of this? Lilliana is literally going to be fine. I’ll just look for my favorite story and read that to pass the time.

Ah! Here it is! “Emery’s aching heart”. This one is my favorite because the boy in this story seemed to love so deeply that it knew no end. This is loosely based on a real-life cowboy and his girlfriend, Katherine. I say loosely because the last parts of the story are thought to be made up, but it’s fun to read and the ending really, really speaks to me:

“Emery Lathom tended to the livestock and sang his melodies, his hands all worn, but his heart still yearned. He knew not what he wanted, but he couldn’t ignore it, for it was screaming in his mind, in his soul, keeping him awake at night.

One day, while riding a horse through his ranch, he saw a girl with her black hair tied in a braid, wearing a purple pinstripe dress, standing by her farm fence, across from his own. She simply watched, her dark-brown eyes sparkling with interest, her lips curled into a smile.

He saw her smile and decided that he’d talk to her for a while. Her name was Katherine Saddiller, she loved to talk to him for hours.

That wasn’t the only day they met, for the two would converse every day, any time and found much in common with one another, so much so that they were friends, then they were more, then one day, Katherine didn’t show.

Emery waited a bit and still, no sign. He rode on his horse to her house and she did not yet appear before his eyes. He rode all throughout town, calling out her name, asking anyone where she could be. No one could answer, for no one knew, until just then, the town clock struck two. His eyes looked up and hanging from one of the clock hands, was his sweetest Katherine.

Bloody and bruised was she, but Emery rode towards the clock to save her dead body from rotting in misery.

He tried to climb up the town clock, but down he fell, his body broken, his head cracked and splattered.

The clock tender came and took her from the clock, but Emery was nowhere to be found, his family was distraught.

So the town buried Katherine, wondering how and why such tragedy occurred, yet if you go out into Grasscove at exactly 2:00 AM, you may see Emery with a bloody mouth, riding on his horse, calling out for his Katherine.”

“That’s a cool story, Elizabeth, but it implies that all of us vampires are lonely, which is just not true, because I have you!” Lilliana’s voice-wait, Lilliana?!

I turn around and see a girl who is my age standing right behind me, reading over my shoulder with wide gray-blue eyes made wider with black eyeliner. Her dark blonde hair is in a half-up ponytail tied by a yellow ribbon. She’s wearing a white tee shirt with ruffle sleeves and a smocked mini yellow floral skirt, for yellow is her favorite color, along with pastel pink and baby blue. There’s two band aids on her right knee, for she shaves too fast, giving herself cuts and leaving thin, faint stubbles of hair on her legs like dainty ribbons tied up with her flesh. She’s wearing white socks underneath black lace-up combat boots, for boots are more comfortable for her.

She is very much Lilliana, but her mouth drips with crimson, velvety blood, staining her skin and her clothes. Her eyes have a spark in them that I’ve never seen before, a spark that makes me feel the same way I do about the Grasscove ghost stories book: fearful and fascinated. I don’t know how she got here so quickly and…wasn’t she just at the train theme park? Why is she covered in blood? What’s going on?

“Keeping secrets is bad, I know, but you’ll understand when I tell you more.” Lilliana says, a prickle of tears in her eyes.

As shocked and confused as I am, I still don’t want her to cry. She always has a realistic perspective on things, so I’m pretty sure she has a sensible explanation for this.

There isn’t anything to be afraid of, because she’s fine.

It’ll be fine.