The Romantic Haunting of Helen Romano
Sit down, young traveler. Listen to this old woman’s story. You’re the first to have visited me in years. Hardly anyone even remembers me anymore. They don’t notice me, but I notice them; yes, yes I do. Yes I do…
*The old woman scratches her nose.*
I’m a people watcher you see. My grandmother taught me that. She’d tell me, now Elga child, look at the people quietly. Watch them like you would a bug.
She was a gypsy you know. One of the last of the true gypsy’s out there. She had the dark touch. The old-world magic tingled through her fingers. She taught me everything she knew if you’d believe me! Her knowledge was so vast… healing poultices, charms, curses, deamon-speak… and how to bring back the dead.
Why yes, yes! She could do it! When she was but a younger woman herself so many years ago—your grandparents weren’t even born—she performed the ritual to return a loved one from the great beyond. She told me Elga child, the art is a flawed one. They always come back a little slow; different. As if their soul has long passed on. All they remain to do is end the last goal in life they never accomplished. Finish the last thing they struggled to do before death ate-em-up.
Oh, the noise coming from the basement? Groans and screams you say? Don’t you mind. I will reveal them in time.
*The old woman pounds the floor with her foot, yelling for quiet.*
In my grandmother’s time there was a family called the Yancy’s. You wouldn’t have heard of them young traveler. Their line of ancestry has been cut. Yancy’s no longer walk this Earth. Edward Yancy, a young man out to prove himself had enlisted and gone off to war. His parents received letter of his ill-fated demise a few months later. You could imagine their sorrow. Poor dears. They came to my grandmother for help; she was well known at the time, and she obliged. She brought young Edward Yancy back from the cold beyond where he rested in peace. It was too bad the boy’s last goal in life had been to signal for a military rescue using fire. He burned down his house, his parents, half the town, and himself; all straight back into oblivion. He was obliged by the spell to finish what he could not do when he had once lived. After the fire, all that was left was his Soul-stone.
Hmm? The stone? I’ll explain it in a moment dear. It’s all part of the ritual.
*The old woman pounds the floor with the heel of her shoe once more, mumbling to herself about past deeds and unforgiven sins.*
Ah, the ritual. The last lesson my grandmother taught me before she too followed Edward Yancy into that sea of shadow. Before death claimed her she warned me, Elga child, now don’t you EVER bring me back. The rude awakening… dragged back into an existence of sensation and pain… no, no, no Elga child. Never bring ME back.
The years went by and I practiced her more basic art, living in the shadow of the great Mademoiselle. A few healing tonics here and there. A drink that would cure a man’s baldness. A perfume that would bring luck. But technology drowned my art and washed it away; far away into the corners of this room. This old house might be the last haven for such rubbish, as they call it now-a-days. Yes, my life grew sodden with common labor. A lack of magic; of dark Pagan mysticism.
I never married. No man would take the hand of the strange woman who lived in the deep forest. So instead, I took to watching the romances of the townsfolk. I am a hopeless romantic you see, even in this old age. Thus, I made the mistake of bringing young Helen Romano back from the dead.
*The old woman stares off into the distance, remembering days long forgotten by the rest of the world.*
I watched them all, young and old. Pretty Helen was one of my favorites. Oh you could have written the greatest of romantic tragedies based on her life, traveler! For young Helen Romano was in love with a boy who would not love her back. Roger Callahan only had eyes for Helen’s childhood friend, Makaila. He would brush past her as if she was but a flower in the breeze. If only Roger saw how that flower leaned in after him, wanting of his warmth and love… Her eyes held much lust and pain, my traveler.
Poor Helen Romano... struck down by a truck at the ripe age of sixteen. Her womanhood, just blossoming, cut short as her broken body snapped and dangled from hot metal piping beneath the large vehicle. It was a closed-casket funeral.
*The old woman stomps on the ground, then looks on into the darkest recesses of the room. She shudders as if seeing a lurking form; a demon waiting to devour her.*
I was so alone in my home; my entertainment being only watching the romance others could have that I would never be privy to. Oh how I had wanted young Helen to find love!
*The old woman turns to you with a wild look to her sunken eyes, her pupils are grayed and bloodshot.*
So I did it. I performed the spell to bring her back! It was no easy task either! I killed a virgin lamb and boiled a stone in its blood for three days using the stomach-sack of a goat as a cauldron. Dark words were spoken over the bubbling liquid. Herbs and powders were sprinkled in. I spoke with deamons using mirrors painted black and whispered secrets into small holes found deep in the forest. I coaxed vile insubstantial cords of spirit-chains from betwixt shadow and the edge of form, pulling what I could of Helen’s conscience back from whatever eternal void she had then moved into.
Her body I dug up, replacing it with the virgin lamb’s entrails and the goat’s skull. Her corpse, I cut it open; removing her heart and burning it in the fire that boiled the blood. At the end of the third day, I pulled out the stone that had sat patiently within the red liquid, hidden within the goat’s stomach. I sewed the now-painted-marron object into the cavity that once housed Helen’s heart. It took a moment, but eventually the stone began to pulse with life as if organic.
Helen Romano had been brought back from the dead!
*The old woman clenches her teeth and looks about ready to peel at her face; either in excitement or anguish, it is unknown.*
Helen looked at me once, her body torn, flayed, disjointed; then turned and left my home without a word. She hobbled and creaked, each bone bent in odd angles. Her body would twitch and move in a dark fashion; she sometimes crawled on all fours like an animal and other times would move backwards, her head reversed. Her body disappeared amongst the trees of the forest, heading off into the night. I watched her go and did not see her again for many days. Where she was throughout that time, I do not know. Maybe there was a hole in the forest for her, a place where she could crouch down, wind whistling through her broken throat as she whispered her own secrets into the dark.
*The old woman goes silent and a soft wail echoes out from below the floorboards. It sounds sad. Suddenly, there is scampering and the old woman stomps the floor once more.*
I wandered through the town both day and night with a fervor; hardly did I sleep at all those days. Then it happened. Helen had finally made her first move towards finishing the goal she’d never started in her previous life. She got Makaila her childhood friend, out of the way of her being with Roger, the boy she loved even beyond mortality.
Poor, poor Makaila. She’d kissed Roger Callahan once too many and Helen Romano wouldn’t have it. Helen entered into the girl’s room in the dead of night, her broken body squeezing through the thin window and dropping to the ground with the sound of crackling paper. Makaila must have been terrified; huddled at the corner of her bed, watching as the disfigured corpse of a girl she once knew slowly crawled on all fours up her bed and over her body. Nearly laying on top of Makaila, their eyes met. One full of tears, the others misted over and possibly not even directly looking at its victim. Helen struck. The lips that had kissed Roger Callahan once too many times were torn from Makaila’s face. The skin pulled free like snapping taffy. Helen left her at that and Makaila screamed and screamed and screamed; then died of shock.
Police investigated but couldn’t figure out who had done the evil deed. But some of the townsfolk that wandered the streets at night saw her. The corpse of Helen Romano. The broken form crawling and walking backwards into the dark of the forest. Her movements stiff and jagged… Rumor began to spread that Helen Romano had returned to haunt the town. Most dismissed it, but I found the matter terrifying. I had never expected sweet Helen—that flower leaning in after Roger—to perform such an act.
Helen’s poor parents, hearing rumors that their daughter had returned, were so desperate for any hope that fate had played a vile trick on them that they wandered the town in search of their dead child. Their bedraggled featured and shadowed eyes showed such tiredness. I watched from the shade of an elm as they called out her name on the streets; townsfolk shaking their heads and believing the couple had finally gone crazy.
They knew her too well: their daughter. I followed them one night as they walked into a small park behind Roger Callahan’s home. Helen had often frequented the park and spied upon the boy from behind the bushes. She was there that night, watching Roger’s window. If you traveler, could imagine Helen’s parents’ reactions as they saw their mutilated daughter sway in the nightly breeze, staring off at Roger’s window. I watched as they called to her and she turned. They cried and hugged their defaced daughter, ignoring her terrible look. She did not react, just continued to stare at Roger’s window. Her parents grew desperate and began to yell at her, asking her what was wrong, how she had returned to them, and why she would not speak. When they tried moving her from the park, Helen grew restless. Her parents were getting in the way of her goal: to be with Roger. When they tried once more to move her, Helen turned as if to hug her father. Her father, in joy at her daughter’s recognition, embraced her. Helen’s only affectionate return was to rip open her father’s throat with her bared teeth. I myself jumped back in shock as her mother screamed.
Helen moved in a disjointed blur, grabbing her own mothers head and smashing it into the pavement. Her mother’s jaw was torn loose and the girl with the stone heart scampered off backwards into the night. I myself then hid in my home for days, shaking at what I had done. At what I had created.
*The old woman licks her dry lips and settles in her seat, her hands fidgeting. She looks regretful. Another moan echoes from the basement.*
The town was in an uproar; everyone whispered of Helen Romano. The girl had killed her friend and parents. She was a vengeful entity, come to lay waste to the people from her past. The forest and town was scowered, but no trace of the girl was found.
*The old woman leans in towards you.*
The fateful night finally came when Helen Romano worked up the courage to face Roger Callahan. I was walking the night streets when I heard the boy’s shrill screaming and crying. The whole town heard it. We all ran to the boy’s house, civilian and police alike. The sight, my traveler, the sight we came upon that night! There was Helen’s broken body, yanking Roger Callahan out through his window by his collar. The boy struggled desperately to escape the monster that had nabbed him in the night. Oh, how frightening of a sight!
Helen’s bones protruded from her flesh, her skin matted with mud and disfigurement. Her head faced the wrong direction, staring down at her love with a large blood-stained smile. She began to drag Roger off into the forest.
The townsfolk screamed and shook in place, witnesses to the unholy apparition. Those that didn’t believe in Helen before, now did. The police yelled for Helen to stop but the girl did no such thing. Her passion was too great. They shot at her with their guns but the bullets whizzed through her flesh without any effect, some even bouncing off her stone heart. Roger was struck through the lung. What a calamity…
Helen dragged Roger’s bleeding body off into the forest and the dark consumed them both.
*The old woman looks at the floor.*
I found them of course. Helen rested against a tree, Roger in her lap. She cooed at him and stroked his hair. The boy had died yet Helen hadn’t noticed. She kissed his lips and face and smiled at him. I cried I did, at the sight. I coached Helen to bring Roger to my home and she complied, dragging his body along. It was such a sad sight to see… Love was never meant to be for poor Helen Romano.
Naturally I brought Roger back from the dead of course. Poor Helen was dead, so was he: it was only fit.
*The old woman shakes her head and sighs.*
I was a fool! I forgot that Roger would only do what he had been set out to do right before his death. His final unfinished goal: to get away from Helen! So there they were! Polar opposites! One attracted, one mortified! They ran circles in my room! Helen reaching for Roger, Roger running away…
That’s why I locked them in my basement. I’m a hopeless romantic. An old bat with love in her eyes… Ah love… They’ll have it for eternity now.
*There’s a moan from beneath the floorboards and more scuttling.*
Hear that? That’s them now! Poor Helen’s probably trapped young Roger against a corner again.
*The old woman cackles. You can tell she’s lost in her romantic fantasies.*
Love is eternal, my traveler! I have spoken with deamons through blackened mirrors and heard the holes in the forest whisper back. I have seen glimpses of the great beyond and been witness to a thousand horrors. Yet, love still stands above all other imagery… Would you care to see them? The two undead lovebirds?
*The old woman stares at you expectantly.*
*The old woman scratches her nose.*
I’m a people watcher you see. My grandmother taught me that. She’d tell me, now Elga child, look at the people quietly. Watch them like you would a bug.
She was a gypsy you know. One of the last of the true gypsy’s out there. She had the dark touch. The old-world magic tingled through her fingers. She taught me everything she knew if you’d believe me! Her knowledge was so vast… healing poultices, charms, curses, deamon-speak… and how to bring back the dead.
Why yes, yes! She could do it! When she was but a younger woman herself so many years ago—your grandparents weren’t even born—she performed the ritual to return a loved one from the great beyond. She told me Elga child, the art is a flawed one. They always come back a little slow; different. As if their soul has long passed on. All they remain to do is end the last goal in life they never accomplished. Finish the last thing they struggled to do before death ate-em-up.
Oh, the noise coming from the basement? Groans and screams you say? Don’t you mind. I will reveal them in time.
*The old woman pounds the floor with her foot, yelling for quiet.*
In my grandmother’s time there was a family called the Yancy’s. You wouldn’t have heard of them young traveler. Their line of ancestry has been cut. Yancy’s no longer walk this Earth. Edward Yancy, a young man out to prove himself had enlisted and gone off to war. His parents received letter of his ill-fated demise a few months later. You could imagine their sorrow. Poor dears. They came to my grandmother for help; she was well known at the time, and she obliged. She brought young Edward Yancy back from the cold beyond where he rested in peace. It was too bad the boy’s last goal in life had been to signal for a military rescue using fire. He burned down his house, his parents, half the town, and himself; all straight back into oblivion. He was obliged by the spell to finish what he could not do when he had once lived. After the fire, all that was left was his Soul-stone.
Hmm? The stone? I’ll explain it in a moment dear. It’s all part of the ritual.
*The old woman pounds the floor with the heel of her shoe once more, mumbling to herself about past deeds and unforgiven sins.*
Ah, the ritual. The last lesson my grandmother taught me before she too followed Edward Yancy into that sea of shadow. Before death claimed her she warned me, Elga child, now don’t you EVER bring me back. The rude awakening… dragged back into an existence of sensation and pain… no, no, no Elga child. Never bring ME back.
The years went by and I practiced her more basic art, living in the shadow of the great Mademoiselle. A few healing tonics here and there. A drink that would cure a man’s baldness. A perfume that would bring luck. But technology drowned my art and washed it away; far away into the corners of this room. This old house might be the last haven for such rubbish, as they call it now-a-days. Yes, my life grew sodden with common labor. A lack of magic; of dark Pagan mysticism.
I never married. No man would take the hand of the strange woman who lived in the deep forest. So instead, I took to watching the romances of the townsfolk. I am a hopeless romantic you see, even in this old age. Thus, I made the mistake of bringing young Helen Romano back from the dead.
*The old woman stares off into the distance, remembering days long forgotten by the rest of the world.*
I watched them all, young and old. Pretty Helen was one of my favorites. Oh you could have written the greatest of romantic tragedies based on her life, traveler! For young Helen Romano was in love with a boy who would not love her back. Roger Callahan only had eyes for Helen’s childhood friend, Makaila. He would brush past her as if she was but a flower in the breeze. If only Roger saw how that flower leaned in after him, wanting of his warmth and love… Her eyes held much lust and pain, my traveler.
Poor Helen Romano... struck down by a truck at the ripe age of sixteen. Her womanhood, just blossoming, cut short as her broken body snapped and dangled from hot metal piping beneath the large vehicle. It was a closed-casket funeral.
*The old woman stomps on the ground, then looks on into the darkest recesses of the room. She shudders as if seeing a lurking form; a demon waiting to devour her.*
I was so alone in my home; my entertainment being only watching the romance others could have that I would never be privy to. Oh how I had wanted young Helen to find love!
*The old woman turns to you with a wild look to her sunken eyes, her pupils are grayed and bloodshot.*
So I did it. I performed the spell to bring her back! It was no easy task either! I killed a virgin lamb and boiled a stone in its blood for three days using the stomach-sack of a goat as a cauldron. Dark words were spoken over the bubbling liquid. Herbs and powders were sprinkled in. I spoke with deamons using mirrors painted black and whispered secrets into small holes found deep in the forest. I coaxed vile insubstantial cords of spirit-chains from betwixt shadow and the edge of form, pulling what I could of Helen’s conscience back from whatever eternal void she had then moved into.
Her body I dug up, replacing it with the virgin lamb’s entrails and the goat’s skull. Her corpse, I cut it open; removing her heart and burning it in the fire that boiled the blood. At the end of the third day, I pulled out the stone that had sat patiently within the red liquid, hidden within the goat’s stomach. I sewed the now-painted-marron object into the cavity that once housed Helen’s heart. It took a moment, but eventually the stone began to pulse with life as if organic.
Helen Romano had been brought back from the dead!
*The old woman clenches her teeth and looks about ready to peel at her face; either in excitement or anguish, it is unknown.*
Helen looked at me once, her body torn, flayed, disjointed; then turned and left my home without a word. She hobbled and creaked, each bone bent in odd angles. Her body would twitch and move in a dark fashion; she sometimes crawled on all fours like an animal and other times would move backwards, her head reversed. Her body disappeared amongst the trees of the forest, heading off into the night. I watched her go and did not see her again for many days. Where she was throughout that time, I do not know. Maybe there was a hole in the forest for her, a place where she could crouch down, wind whistling through her broken throat as she whispered her own secrets into the dark.
*The old woman goes silent and a soft wail echoes out from below the floorboards. It sounds sad. Suddenly, there is scampering and the old woman stomps the floor once more.*
I wandered through the town both day and night with a fervor; hardly did I sleep at all those days. Then it happened. Helen had finally made her first move towards finishing the goal she’d never started in her previous life. She got Makaila her childhood friend, out of the way of her being with Roger, the boy she loved even beyond mortality.
Poor, poor Makaila. She’d kissed Roger Callahan once too many and Helen Romano wouldn’t have it. Helen entered into the girl’s room in the dead of night, her broken body squeezing through the thin window and dropping to the ground with the sound of crackling paper. Makaila must have been terrified; huddled at the corner of her bed, watching as the disfigured corpse of a girl she once knew slowly crawled on all fours up her bed and over her body. Nearly laying on top of Makaila, their eyes met. One full of tears, the others misted over and possibly not even directly looking at its victim. Helen struck. The lips that had kissed Roger Callahan once too many times were torn from Makaila’s face. The skin pulled free like snapping taffy. Helen left her at that and Makaila screamed and screamed and screamed; then died of shock.
Police investigated but couldn’t figure out who had done the evil deed. But some of the townsfolk that wandered the streets at night saw her. The corpse of Helen Romano. The broken form crawling and walking backwards into the dark of the forest. Her movements stiff and jagged… Rumor began to spread that Helen Romano had returned to haunt the town. Most dismissed it, but I found the matter terrifying. I had never expected sweet Helen—that flower leaning in after Roger—to perform such an act.
Helen’s poor parents, hearing rumors that their daughter had returned, were so desperate for any hope that fate had played a vile trick on them that they wandered the town in search of their dead child. Their bedraggled featured and shadowed eyes showed such tiredness. I watched from the shade of an elm as they called out her name on the streets; townsfolk shaking their heads and believing the couple had finally gone crazy.
They knew her too well: their daughter. I followed them one night as they walked into a small park behind Roger Callahan’s home. Helen had often frequented the park and spied upon the boy from behind the bushes. She was there that night, watching Roger’s window. If you traveler, could imagine Helen’s parents’ reactions as they saw their mutilated daughter sway in the nightly breeze, staring off at Roger’s window. I watched as they called to her and she turned. They cried and hugged their defaced daughter, ignoring her terrible look. She did not react, just continued to stare at Roger’s window. Her parents grew desperate and began to yell at her, asking her what was wrong, how she had returned to them, and why she would not speak. When they tried moving her from the park, Helen grew restless. Her parents were getting in the way of her goal: to be with Roger. When they tried once more to move her, Helen turned as if to hug her father. Her father, in joy at her daughter’s recognition, embraced her. Helen’s only affectionate return was to rip open her father’s throat with her bared teeth. I myself jumped back in shock as her mother screamed.
Helen moved in a disjointed blur, grabbing her own mothers head and smashing it into the pavement. Her mother’s jaw was torn loose and the girl with the stone heart scampered off backwards into the night. I myself then hid in my home for days, shaking at what I had done. At what I had created.
*The old woman licks her dry lips and settles in her seat, her hands fidgeting. She looks regretful. Another moan echoes from the basement.*
The town was in an uproar; everyone whispered of Helen Romano. The girl had killed her friend and parents. She was a vengeful entity, come to lay waste to the people from her past. The forest and town was scowered, but no trace of the girl was found.
*The old woman leans in towards you.*
The fateful night finally came when Helen Romano worked up the courage to face Roger Callahan. I was walking the night streets when I heard the boy’s shrill screaming and crying. The whole town heard it. We all ran to the boy’s house, civilian and police alike. The sight, my traveler, the sight we came upon that night! There was Helen’s broken body, yanking Roger Callahan out through his window by his collar. The boy struggled desperately to escape the monster that had nabbed him in the night. Oh, how frightening of a sight!
Helen’s bones protruded from her flesh, her skin matted with mud and disfigurement. Her head faced the wrong direction, staring down at her love with a large blood-stained smile. She began to drag Roger off into the forest.
The townsfolk screamed and shook in place, witnesses to the unholy apparition. Those that didn’t believe in Helen before, now did. The police yelled for Helen to stop but the girl did no such thing. Her passion was too great. They shot at her with their guns but the bullets whizzed through her flesh without any effect, some even bouncing off her stone heart. Roger was struck through the lung. What a calamity…
Helen dragged Roger’s bleeding body off into the forest and the dark consumed them both.
*The old woman looks at the floor.*
I found them of course. Helen rested against a tree, Roger in her lap. She cooed at him and stroked his hair. The boy had died yet Helen hadn’t noticed. She kissed his lips and face and smiled at him. I cried I did, at the sight. I coached Helen to bring Roger to my home and she complied, dragging his body along. It was such a sad sight to see… Love was never meant to be for poor Helen Romano.
Naturally I brought Roger back from the dead of course. Poor Helen was dead, so was he: it was only fit.
*The old woman shakes her head and sighs.*
I was a fool! I forgot that Roger would only do what he had been set out to do right before his death. His final unfinished goal: to get away from Helen! So there they were! Polar opposites! One attracted, one mortified! They ran circles in my room! Helen reaching for Roger, Roger running away…
That’s why I locked them in my basement. I’m a hopeless romantic. An old bat with love in her eyes… Ah love… They’ll have it for eternity now.
*There’s a moan from beneath the floorboards and more scuttling.*
Hear that? That’s them now! Poor Helen’s probably trapped young Roger against a corner again.
*The old woman cackles. You can tell she’s lost in her romantic fantasies.*
Love is eternal, my traveler! I have spoken with deamons through blackened mirrors and heard the holes in the forest whisper back. I have seen glimpses of the great beyond and been witness to a thousand horrors. Yet, love still stands above all other imagery… Would you care to see them? The two undead lovebirds?
*The old woman stares at you expectantly.*
