Lincoln brought up Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree a couple of years ago. I finally watched the film version (animated, made for TV) and thoroughly enjoyed it. The visuals are perfectly spooky. John Debney's score is outstanding and in my opinion appears to have influenced John Williams' Harry Potter theme. I never would have guessed that was Leonard Nimoy (excellent work) voicing the character Moundshroud. A hugely entertaining film that I'll have to watch every Halloween from now on. Thanks, Lincoln!
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Ghost stories reveal our collective anxieties amid times of change.
Lydia’s story was the first ghost tale my mother told me as a child. Having read every book on the shelf in the paranormal section at the local branch library, even the boring ones about aliens, I pressed her for a “true” ghost story, one that took place somewhere not too distant.
The story she told me is one of North Carolina’s most well-known legends.
On a rainy Saturday night not that long ago, a young man was driving home from Greensboro. It was dark and late. The fog was thick on High Point Road, and he had to go slow to navigate its twists and turns.
As he neared the bridge just outside of Jamestown, he glimpsed something pale in the darkness. It was a young woman wearing a fancy dress, drenched in the rain, hitchhiking on the side of the road. He pulled over and opened the door for her; she slipped in without a word. He asked what she was doing out alone on such a miserable night.
“I’m trying to get home,” she said.
She gave him an address and pointed out each turn as they made their way through the darkness, but said little else. When they pulled into the driveway, he grabbed an umbrella and leapt out, hoping to shield her from the pouring rain. But when he opened the passenger door, the girl was gone. A few raindrops remained on the seat where she’d sat. Thinking she’d somehow gone ahead, he rushed to the house in confusion and knocked on the door.
An elderly woman opened the door just a crack, looking tired and wary. He stumbled over his words trying to explain what he was doing on her doorstep. The girl. The rain. The ride home.
She reached in her robe for a small photo.
“Is this who you saw?”
The photo was faded and creased, but he recognized the girl, and her fancy dress.
“That’s her. That’s the girl I brought home.”
The old woman shook her head.
“That’s my daughter Lydia. She died 20 years ago in a car wreck, coming home from a dance. You’re not the first to see her. She returns on nights like these to hitch a ride, but nobody can ever bring her back home.”
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