by Edward Donnelly

Created on: October 09, 2010   Last Updated: October 22, 2010

Phoebe

I was hiking one fall evening when I saw Phoebe's ghost for the first time. She appeared along the trail and asked me to walk with her. She had a soft and kind, Irish brogue. I recognized her angelic face from the pictures in the newspaper.

I walked with her as the moon lit up the trails. She had a quiet and sweet disposition about her. I followed her as she told me her story. She came to these woods the night she died. She had just moved here from Ireland and started ninth grade. The girls at school were jealous of her because she was the pretty new girl that the boys liked.

She tried to make friends, but the popular girls didn't like her. The girls started spreading rumors around school, saying she was a whore. 

It was a peaceful and quiet night. I could hear the soothing sound of the river and smell fire wood burning in the distance.

As we walked up a steep trail, she went on to say that she tried to let it go, but her silence only enraged the girls. They began posting messages on Facebook, calling her an Irish pig. She didn't want to tell her parents because she didn't want them to worry, so she suffered quietly.

This went on for months, she said. And one fall day while walking home from school, a group of girls drove past her, threw a can at her and called her an Irish slut. She went home that day and cried for hours. Her translucent blue eyes were filled with tears as she shared her  story.

That night she walked deep into the woods with a scarf that her sister had given her for Christmas. She cried some more as she looked up at the twinkling stars and asked God for forgiveness. She pointed to a verse that she etched into a tree moments before she hanged herself. She led me to it and disappeared.

It read: As my body hangs here tonight, let my soul burst through this broken body and into the light.

                                                                                                      - Phoebe

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