Returning unexpectedly to my little home one Saturday afternoon, I found Professor Drake, the village school-teacher, in conversation with my mother. Before my presence was noticed – for, being barefooted, my step was noiseless – I caught the fragment of a sentence: “it is painful to be forced to tell a mother these facts about her son, but duty compels me to say that I despair of teaching him.” Then seeing me, he paused and said something about continuing the subject at another time. Slow as I was in some respects, his words needed no interpretation. My cheek burned in humiliation, my heart beat violently; for it is not pleasant to one mentally incapacitated to hear the fact stated, and, less still, for one who loved his mother as intensely as I did, to realize that the most painful part of her life of devoted privation was small in comparison with the distress that resulted from my stupidity. I was indignant, and felt tempted to return and upbraid the teacher, for were not his words the immediate cause of my mother’s sorrow? Her face was expressive of despair. But the facts were on the pedagogue’s side; and, moreover, I appreciated that he, too, grieved over my misfortune. I fled from the house and aimlessly moved on, meditating, miserable. I climbed the back fence into the woodland pasture, upon which our little garden jutted, and after crossing it wandered away from Stringtown, I cared not whither. An hour passed, and my anger and mortification subsided. I ceased to think of the incident; indeed, no record remained to remind my now dormant intellect of the fact that I existed. My mind had become as unconscious of all external things as it was of inherent emotions. My limbs moved irresponsively and my body automatically passed along. I fancy that I had assumed the condition of a brute of the lower class or a creature like a turtle, the difference being that in my brain an intellectual spark rested, and through it the drowsy I of self could be excited into consciousness, while the lethargic mind of the turtle rests irredeemably in the unreachable shadows without. The great distinction between man and brute is that man knows he is man, and the brute knows nothing of himself. I existed and was awake, it is true, but in this trance that possessed me knew nothing of external things.
The sun sank slowly toward the distant tree-tops, and still I wandered without method. The village disappeared behind me, but, regardless of my whereabouts, I strolled dreamfully along until at last I stumbled over an inequality in the grass. And as the flash shoots upward when a spark touches a fibre of gun-cotton, so the sudden fall caused my mind to dart back into self-consciousness. The instant I fell I became aware of the fact that never before had I ventured into the present locality. I next observed a shadow that the sinking sun seemed to throw toward me. A long shadow upon the hill behind which he was disappearing, stretching toward me, took the form of a gigantic cross, the apex reaching to and touching the mound beside me. This did not, at the instant, cause me the least concern; a shadow is but a shadow. I raised my eyes to seek the object that broke the ray of sunshine, and, child that I was, marveled then at the miracle; for smooth, as if planed by hand, the top of the hill stretched across my field of vision; there was no intervening object between the sun and me. The face of the day king, unmarked by tree or shrub, shone clear and untarnished over a horizontal ridge-summit that was fenceless, objectless, as straight as a ruler. Stretching down the barren hillside, came those rays straight into my face; and down that smooth hillside projected toward me, as if it had an intent in thus pointing at myself, the great grey shadow lay sharp, and as still as if carved in stone—an effect without a cause—and just beyond its tip I lay trembling.
I now realized fully my location. He who heeded not the warning to avoid that spot bred trouble for his future. Never before had village boy dared to press the grass where I reclined. Never before had child beheld either sunshine or shadow from the place I occupied,—a spot, it was said, the Indians shunned because of its evil influence on him involved in its occult maxes. In the tradition of the early settlers an Indian maiden had here met a tragic death; and we knew that it was here that the father of the “Corn Bug” (so nicknamed because of his propensity for the juice of the corn) had been murdered. In mature life no intelligent person believes ghost stories or these absurd Indian traditions; tales that cluster around every precinct of our land and find resting place in the minds of children and of ignorant people. But to us children, and to the negroes with whom we were so intimate, that place was accursed, and would so have been held by us, even in the face of any testimony to the contrary. Although the soil was rich, bushes of sassafras and persimmons – God’s emissaries for worn-out grounds too poor for other plant existence—refused to grow on or near the spot. In this silent dell of the “dark and bloody ground,” that from a distance we children, venturing cautiously, had once timidly approached, whisperingly pointed to, and then, huddled together, ran from as if from Satan, I now lay alone. My heart throbbed and thumped, my flesh quivered at I knew not what, my limbs refused to move; and the face of the great sun, clear as crystal and bright as molten silver, sank slowly in the west. Simultaneously the weird earth shadow, that singular grey cross, fell slowly toward me. I watched it lengthen until the distended arms crept over my form and enveloped me, and then a quivering play of changing sunset-lights spread about the sky, amid which at last the upper rim of the sun disappeared, the rays flickered; yet, strangely enough, before twilight deepened darkness fell upon me. Whether the shadow to which I refer was an object from the material or outside part of life that appeared to my real eyesight, or a shade from the inner circle that impressed my perceptive faculties, I shall not presume to say; the reader may form his own conclusions concerning the cause of the phenomenon. I report only what I witnessed; and I yet recall vividly the spectral outline of this weird, strange shadow, stretching without discernible cause down the long, barren hillside. I remember that as I lay prostrate on the lone tomb, gazing at the approaching umbra, I wondered first if it would reach my feet, and then, as its apex passed over them, if its great arms would engulf me. I remember to have given a sigh of relief as the last vestige of the sun was about to disappear; for I had unconsciously accepted, without thinking it out, that should the arms of the grey cross reach my body, my life would end with the sinking of the sun and the lengthening of the shadow. Then I recollect that as the upper rim of the crescent sun sank and passed from view, and the final slanting rays bent themselves and streamed upward, the arms of the cross at the same instant passed over my body, —and I recollect nothing more. How long I lay in the dew of the blue grass I cannot say, but when I regained consciousness it was as if I were awakening from a dream.
It seemed as though I had been possessed of a vision, yet no details remained. I had surely experienced the knowledge of sweets and sours, sorrow and pain, peace and distress, but not of things, thoughts, or sights. A black object, wrapped in black paper, has an existence in the night, although it cannot be seen; a fragment of platinum foil, thrown on a surface of molten silver, has an existence in the light, yet is not to be seen; a transparent object in a transparent liquid held between the eye and the sun is, and yet is not perceptible to the sight. Thoughts and experiences of my sleeping self had been realities, but to my waking self were not real. I had lived and died, had passed into other realms and back again, and experiencing all, I yet recollected nothing. This struck me as more than strange; but only for an instant did I think of the occurrence, for I realized immediately that I was not now alone. As yet I had not opened my eyes; but as the sleeping child intently watched becomes restless, stirs before it awakes, so did I feel the presence of some body or spirit other than my own.
Cautiously seeking to discover the person gazing at me, for my nerves were conscious of that piercing eye, I raised myself upon my elbow and peered about, to see standing close behind me an Indian girl, tall, erect, beautiful. By the light of a full moon I saw her form clearly, distinctly, and noted that her head was decorated in gaily coloured feathers, and that her dress was made of the draped skins of animals. Her bosom was partly covered, partly bare; her face and bust together, as I now recall the scene, making a picture that might serve as an artist’s ideal. One hand rested on her side; the fourth finger of the other was placed upon her lip, as if, in the language all nations understand, the language of signs, she were bidding me be silent; and thus she stood, with elbows extended, gazing before her. She made no movement, and, as one entranced, I lay motionless at her feet. She seemed to be listening for a sound, and to fear that I would move or speak; but I was powerless and could not move.
Then again I observed a strange phenomenon. The graceful position her form unconsciously assumed cast a shadow over the earth, on and up and into the clear sky. Over the crest of the hill, back toward where the sun had sunk, the figure of a gigantic cross high in heaven was uplifted, —a perfect cross. The distended elbows of the maiden created the two shadow-arms of the weird cross, and from behind her, shining through her form as through a haze, I saw the rising moon’s face. Marvelous apparition! The visage of the moon peered at me through her very body, and thrust that shadow over the earth and into space beyond. Strange—I remember to have thought—strange that when facing the sun I should have closed my eyes upon a cross upon the earth, and opened them upon an overlying cross in heaven. Yet while this query led my wondering thoughts, it did not surprise me that the girl’s form was translucent; neither did it seem remarkable that I heard, in answer to my mind’s words, the reply,—
“Not strange at all. The figure before you was present while the sun still shone, but such creations are invisible in the sunlight. She it was who absorbed the radiance of the sun’s rays, and thus permitted the shafts of darkness behind her to cast back at the sun the skeleton of that depleted sun-ray. The shadow observed on the hillside in the sunlight resulted from the dominating power of the shade of darkness behind. To mortals the sun prevails over all else, but to other existences shade is the reality. She whom you now see is only perceptible when a person occupies the peculiar position, both body and mind that you now enjoy; not every one can see what you behold.”
My reverie was at this point suddenly interrupted; a second shadow crossed the moon’s face, and I beheld, stealthily approaching the girl from behind, an Indian with uplifted stone axe. I tried to scream, to move, but could not. The smile on the face of the unsuspecting girl remained sweetly, wildly beautiful. Behind her countenance that other face peering through her own—as if the tracing of a saint were thrown before the picture of a devil—leered, sinister, desperate, ugly; and through both of them the moon was shining. I tried again to warn her of the danger, but could not break the spell that bound me; staring, motionless and powerless, I saw the uplifted war-axe of the phantom chief sink deep into the black hair that covered her spectral skull.
Following now a sheep-path along a hillside, now a corn-row through the field, now a dry creek-bed, I ran. Whether my course led to the right or the left concerned me not. I only asked to leave that hateful valley as far behind as my strength would carry me. Could I have known the way, I would certainly have fled to my home; but I sped bewildered, and saw no familiar landmark. A sudden rustle of the bushes at my feet caused my heart to jump, my steps to halt; a timid rabbit crossed my path, vanishing in the darkness as quickly as it had sprung from cover. Again I fled, only to halt, trembling; an object, black, of mammoth size, of strange shape, appeared before me, and as I stood transfixed the monstrous form grew before my eyes, evolved from nothing. Floating from out the air, it towered to the very heavens above; and then as suddenly as it had appeared did it shrink and assume the familiar form of a black cow. She advanced along the path upon which I stood, steadily and peaceable, possibly ruminating over subjects too deep for human cogitation. Quickly it flashed upon my mind that to trace back the path the cow had trodden would carry me to the barnyard and the home of her owner, and acting on the impulse, I fixed my gaze upon the moonlit ground and steadily walked along that well-defined cow-path. When next I raised my eyes, the light of a candle shining through a window gladdened my sight; with rapid step I reached an open doorway, and without knocking or even sounding a cry leaped into the room. As I made that last spring forward, it seemed as though unseen hands clutched my coat-sleeves, as though goblins and ghosts threw themselves upon me, as though weird arms encircled my form and clutched my ankles and feet, and as though superhuman things cried and moaned about me.