Marsh Girl by Mary Leoson
It was only a hole in the ground at first — the sole hint a house would emerge. A backhoe’s claw had torn at rocks and soil and ice, disturbing their rest. The earth resisted. It didn’t want to release sleeping things but gave way to foolish human persistence.
I imagine it’s how all nightmares begin.
By removing those layers of earth they freed a hiding spirit, maybe one buried on purpose. It suggested the land was haunted, but it wasn’t the plot itself — it was the pond beside it. Water runs deep, infecting the water table, seeping into nature in concentric circles, bringing with it the rings of hell.
I don’t live there now, but the place still haunts my dreams — seeps in when I least expect it — like it’s trying to draw me back into its web to feed. And there’s a guilt I can never resolve, for I entrapped someone else to be set free.
The home went up quickly, as they do with modern construction. That idyllic space held all our dreams — they were laid into the foundation, nailed into the boards and planks that became levels. I once imagined the first floor would be filled with laughter and the smell of baked goods. We’d do most of our living there — cuddling on the couch, sharing meals, shouldering each other’s burdens from long days at work. The second floor would hold the master bedroom and three smaller rooms were marked for future children. I wanted a boy and two girls; my husband wanted the opposite. We planned to love them regardless.
When the house was done, we built a fence to keep those fictional children safe, decided against a pool for the risk it might pose. The locks were adequate, with bolts on the front and back entryways and a safety on the sliding glass door off the kitchen. We invested in a state-of-the-art security system with extra smoke detectors and a carbon monoxide indicator in the basement. We thought of threats long before they were a reality. But we only considered tangible solutions — locks, alarms, cupboard latches, child-proof lids. It wasn’t until our first-born came home from the hospital that another threat showed its face.
I woke from the dream with a start. A dark shadow hung in the corner of the bedroom. Its edges reached out, receded, like it was breathing. I froze, peeking out from the covers like a five-year-old. I shook my head straight, rationalized my fear. The bedside light banished it back into another realm, revealing a blank canvas — two walls meeting a ceiling. Just a converging place for cobwebs.
But the shivers ran over my body, sweat chasing them.
Lily was sleeping soundly in her crib, but I had to check. Not once, but twice. The first time I peeked in and saw the shadows playing on her face. By the time I got back into bed, I’d turned them into demons. I crept again across the floor and into the hall, turned on the light to frighten them back into their corners, then lamented my anxiety because it woke her. Her cry began as a whisper, edged into a fuss, then a crescendoing wail. It was the sound of my fears — sharp and lingering.
The nightmares were more consistent when she turned one month old. Her little spirit strengthened; I could see it through her eyes, just as mine waned. I became withdrawn, ate less, even as she took my milk and stole my sleep. It’s what mothers do. I knew this — it’s what I had wanted — and yet there didn’t seem to be enough to fill her up. She was always taking, draining me.
I couldn’t see it then, but it wasn’t her. It was someone else.
She came to me at night, her song like a whisper I couldn’t catch. She slunk in through the cracked window, hid beneath my bed, waited for me to fall asleep. I’d wake to her standing beside me, her gown marred with soil, her bonnet casting grey on her face. She’d reach for my hand and wouldn’t be denied.
This friend was someone I’d wished for all my life. A gentle soul to guide me, so I’d never know loneliness. We’d walk together, sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes on the deck, always in the moonlight. It drew her in shades of blue, like smoke rising out of a fire. She was wispy, floated beside me, a hidden facet of my inner self. A crazy mother without a child. It was almost too late when I realized she wanted mine.
I thought of her as the Marsh Girl, though she was a secret I had no one to tell. Mark would have thought me insane. I’d long ago cast off the girlfriends I might confide in; they were all off mothering. Some nurtured children, others their husbands, and still more their employees, pets, and gardens. Friendship was but a memory.
On the nights that she didn’t come, I’d imagine her floating above the marsh like fog. She’d settle in above the cattails, lull the coyotes to sleep with her sweet tune. She’d guard the creatures like a fierce angel, a warrior born of nature with arrows tucked beneath her gown. At dawn she’d sink into the earth, become one with the surface, tuck in to sleep beneath the roots of an oak. There she’d wait until darkness came again.
I longed for her in her absence, wondered by she’d abandoned me. She was my only companion, a wilder aspect of my own spirit, free to explore outside the confines of humanness. But I was trapped — inside a body, inside a house. And I’d created this cage myself, a nightmare hidden in a dream. It wasn’t what I’d imagined at all, but I’d handed over the reins to fate.
Full moon was the Marsh Girl’s favorite time. She seemed to draw her energy from it, neither waxing nor waning, but in full form. She was a dark silhouette against its light, her eyes pools of stars that ever expanded. I was a skeleton, my bones jutting out from a gaunt face. We danced together, she as a lithe maiden, me as a ghost.
On the edges of the pond beside the house, we twirled and laughed. We spun this way and that, her fingers cold and refreshing, laced with mine. The earth was soft beneath my feet, sinking, embracing me. The water called to me, urging me home, to sleep in its sweet embrace. There was nothing I wanted more.
“Claire!”
The shout roused me from my reverie. I looked about myself, feeling the cold in a new, jarring way. Snow covered the banks of the pond; all thoughts of a lush summer night receded into my mind. The ice-cold water stung my legs, at the bottom of which were my anchored feet, numb.
Mark was a shadow running at me, covering the distance between the pond and the house in a manner I’d never seen. He slid to a stop before me, reaching out his hands. His face was contorted in the moonlight, a mixture of anger and terror, his eyes cutting me. The breath rose from his lips in desperate gasps but no words could escape. It was then he yanked the baby from my arms.
The Marsh Girl didn’t come to visit me in the hospital. The medication drained her power, put a barrier between us I couldn’t tear down. But I could feel her waiting there, watching. She lurked on the other side of the veil, and I kept her secret.
A hole grew inside me that she once filled. In a bottomless well, I’d swim deeper and deeper, only to find layers of muck and grime. No water, no soft caress, no beating heart in time with my own. She was but smoke that slipped through my fingers, a wish that floated away with the wind.
Christmas came and went, and New Year’s too. There were presents and songs, food and wine, and lots of visits from family. They looked at me sideways, trying to hide their discomfort. I gulped, said nothing, averted my gaze until I could hide behind a smile. My energy came in short bursts — moments I’d reach out to connect with someone — but inevitably was disappointed. The conversation always returned to the same thing: How are you feeling, dear?
A carefully made-up face was armor I retreated beneath. During the day I lurked more and more in the recesses of my mind, allowing a lovely, pleasant, polite persona to speak. She was stupid, frivolous, and Mark loved her. He couldn’t see me clawing from the inside, trying to get out. It made me resent him more.
Lily knew, though. My baby always knew. I could see myself in her big blue eyes — a distorted reflection that fed her, held her, swaddled her like a machine. The days blended together — weekday, weekend, it didn’t matter. Coffee in the morning, wine at night — like the nectar of the gods to keep me going. I knew I shouldn’t drink due to breastfeeding but lying to myself was now second nature. Lying was all I had left because if I was honest, the self-loathing would drown me. Each day was the same, riddled with layers of fabrication and dead dreams, and they sucked my soul with each passing moment.
I stopped taking the meds, but I didn’t tell Mark. He didn’t deserve to know. He had scared the angel away.
The Marsh Girl came back to me two nights later, at the next full moon. We slipped out the kitchen door at 3am, crept across the deck and down the stairs. The snow crunched beneath my feet as I crossed the yard to the back corner — a place where the earth dipped and reached out to the swamp. The cattails bobbed above the fence, leaning in, like hands grasping for me.
We built a fire there and huddled under the chenille throw, our breath mingling in the winter air. The cold tickled my face, but I was warm in her presence, the glow of the flames dancing across her lips, playing with her features. They morphed as she began to speak — one moment a child with curious eyes, the next a maiden with a come-hither glance, and then a mother with a swollen womb. As her belly grew before me, her eyes met mine and I froze. Her story poured into me like an opening storm cloud.
She was roused from sleep by unkind hands. They wandered her body, then tore at her clothes. The pain was a violent intrusion, but a hand covered her mouth, stifled her screams. She couldn’t breathe. He was crushing her.
When it was over, he fled, leaving her in her tarnished sheets, red with her own blood.
Her growing womb was an embarrassment to her and her family. She hid it underneath heavy skirts and ignored remarks from other young women about her plumpness. The Reverend told her mother it was a gift, but she felt damned, feral, like a cow about to give birth. Full of shame, she was ruined in the eyes of suitors.
When the baby came, she thought she’d be freed from a burden. But when her mother took the infant to the pond to drown it, part of her died, too. What was a mother without her child? The quiet was suffocating.
It wasn’t long after that she’d followed into the cold slumber the water promised. And there her spirit lingered for days, for nights, forever, but her child was nowhere to be found.
I woke with my face against the snow, violent shrieks of the fire alarm piercing my ears. The smoke was thick around me, wafting in the cold winter wind. It burned my throat, suffocated my screams. The deck was on fire.
I rushed toward the sliding glass doors, yelling for Mark. But all I could see was my own reflection, wrapped in the throw, embers rising into the air around me. I raised my arms to throw off the burning mantle, a phoenix in the glass. And that’s when I saw the Marsh Girl beside me — no longer the child, the maiden or mother. She was a crone, not wise and guiding, but bent on revenge.
My hospital stay was quicker this time, just long enough to get me stabilized on meds — yet again. Mark took the baby and went to his mother’s while I completed intensive outpatient therapy. I met with others “like me” who were struggling with postpartum psychosis, but in all the time I listened to them speak, none had seen the Marsh Girl.
Upon my return home, I found a war zone. The deck was a burnt remnant in the back of the house, with scorch marks and smoke staining the once pleasant beige siding. The Fire Department had doused the flames before there was structural damage, but the cosmetic harm scarred our lovely home.
For once, it looked the way I felt. There was something satisfying about this, but I tucked that knowledge away to savor in the shadows.
Whatever they put in those meds drove the Marsh Girl away. Part of me was relieved — she was a reckless leech determined to drag me down with her. Revenge was so hot in her soul that she burned anyone who listened. Maybe that’s what it was — she was scorching me from the inside out. And if she couldn’t burn me, she’d drown me from the outside in.
She was a sliding rope I was holding too tight, but despite the sting, I didn’t want to let go. She had chosen me, trusted me, shared her deepest darkest secrets. We were kindred spirits in some ways, both longing to fill emptiness inside. Yet in other ways, we were day and night; I had no interest in hurting someone else, but she wanted to scald the world.
I was in the nursery when the realization hit me — she needed to feed. I had been her victim, almost handed her Lily. My instinct for self-preservation was muted. Most of me wanted to leap onto the other side of the veil and sail with the Marsh Girl through the skies. But there was a spark of something else, too. It was a thread at first, a memory of Lily’s laughter, a light in her eyes. The thread became thicker the more I followed it until it flooded through my chest and burst out of my eyes in long trails of salty tears.
I grasped the thread and I didn’t let go.
Planting trees as a barrier came to me in a dream, and when I woke I could think of nothing else. Willows to cleanse the earth, weeping tears the Marsh Girl could not shed. Their crooked branches might ensnare her, build a web of magic to lull her into their arms.
I would welcome new life onto the land, ask the willows to transform the soil. Mark joined me in this endeavor, though I didn’t explain why. I simply asked for his help with a project, told him it was an assignment from group therapy — to do something constructive with him instead of destructive.
By the time we were done, six willows stood between our fence and the pond. Their roots would dig deep, drink the water, call her home. And if we were lucky, she’d sleep among them, cease this game of vying for my soul, for my child.
The Marsh Girl was absent for a long time. I’d like to say her memory faded over time, but she became a mythic creature to me — a symbol of my own weakness and the trials so many women have faced. I found myself looking for her out the window before bed, wondering if she’d return — both never wanting to see her again and longing for nothing more.
Just before we moved, I owed her one final visit, even if I didn’t invite her back into my home, into my head. I could have stopped taking the meds, dropped the barrier between us, but I knew I wouldn’t make it back again if I slipped to the other side. So I waited until Mark and Lily were asleep on that final night. Beneath the light of the full moon I crept out into the back yard, through the fence, and to the surface of the pond.
My reflection stared back at me, with fuller cheeks, livelier eyes. The air rushed around me, tousled my hair like a mother to a child. The spring breeze carried with it a hint of singe, or perhaps it was just my imagination. Maybe it was her way of waving from beneath the veil.
The broken glass was sharp against my finger, the pain potent. Blood gathered into a pool on the surface, until it spilled over, fell into the water. It was my offering to her, a homage to her existence, a final goodbye. As my essence sank beneath the surface, I saw a flicker of light there, the moon’s face looking right at me. A sigh, and then silence.
When I walked away from the pond that night, I left my shadow standing there.
It wasn’t my intention to go back years later, but my mind took to wandering as I drove. When I realized where I was, the horror gripped my stomach, but there was a longing also. I didn’t see the Marsh Girl, but I could smell her on the air — sweet like lavender, with a hint of singe. The hum of her lingered beneath the sunshine on the pond, rippling gently in the breeze. The willows were taller than I’d imagined they’d be, standing like beacons between the pond and the house.
It wasn’t until a cloud passed over the sun, dropping a shadow over the property that I saw them walking. I remembered them as younger, the family who’d bought the house from us. The mother and child skimmed the perimeter of the pond, navigating the land bridge between it and the marsh beyond. She looked up, her cheekbones prominent, her eyes sunken in their sockets. She led the child too close to the pond’s edge and I knew the Marsh Girl was waking. But she wasn’t hungry for me.
I pressed the gas and didn’t look back.
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Mary Leoson teaches English and psychology courses at the college level in Cleveland, Ohio. She loves to write with her dogs at her feet and survives on decaf coffee and protein bars. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Cleveland State University (NEOMFA — Fiction), an MA in English & Writing from Western New Mexico University, and an MS in Psychology from Walden University. Her writing has been featured in the Twisted Vine Literary Journal, Coffin Bell, TWJ Magazine, The Write Launch, GNU Journal, The Gyara Journal, Genre: Urban Arts, Obra/Artifact, and on NPR’s “This I Believe” series. You can learn more at www.maryleoson.com.
