Auburn

 

Image credit: Eric C Carter @dizzypixel. Photograph + illustration by hand; no filters.
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The first time Liza saw the woman was on the day her mother died. Liza had been playing under the willow tree in the front field when a lady with auburn hair that flowed down her back and danced in the wind wandered up the driveway from the dirt road that ran in front of the farm.

Liza sprung to her feet and ran to her house, making sure to stay in the shadows of the orange groves so the woman wouldn’t see her. She burst through the front door and raced up the stairs yelling “Mom!”, but when she entered the cool dark cave of her mother’s bedroom the look in her mother’s eyes caused Liza’s voice to catch in her throat.

“What is it honey?” her mother’s voice barely broke the silence of the room.

“What’s wrong mom?” Liza whispered.

“Nothing, it’s just a headache, don’t worry. Now, what did you need to tell me?”

“There’s a strange lady coming up the drive,” Liza replied as she walked to the curtain to peek outside, but then she thought better of letting any light in the room.

“Okay honey, please have the lady wait on the porch, let her know I will be down in a little while.”

Liza kissed her mother on her very warm cheek, and then went to sit at the kitchen table and wait for the woman. 

And she waited. 

And she waited. 

But the woman never came to the door, and her mother never came downstairs.

The next time Liza saw the woman was at her mother’s funeral. Liza stood at the side of the grave in an itchy black dress. The grass was damp after a week of rain, but the sun had just come out, its rays casting brilliant white spotlights through the trees. One of the rays shone on a figure hovering at the edge of the graveyard, her auburn hair dancing like fire in the sunbeam. But just as quickly she appeared, she was gone, vanished in the teardrops that blurred Liza’s vision. 

The third time she was the woman, Liza was a woman herself, all grown up with a child of her own. Her husband had just gotten a job on the other side of the state, and it just so happened the drive to the new house would take them past the little farm she had lived on as a young girl. Liza was excited about showing her daughter where she had run wild through the fields and orange groves of her childhood.

Liza almost didn’t recognize the place at first. The front field was overgrown with weeds so high she almost couldn’t see the house from the road. She didn’t know what had happened to it after her mother died, but it was obviously long abandoned. They parked the car at the edge of the old dirt road, and as Liza’s daughter ran across the overgrown field toward the weeping willow, Liza strolled up the driveway, watching the shadow of her hair on the driveway, dancing in the breeze.

She turned and waited for her husband to catch up, and when he did she grabbed his hand and said "honey, I'd like to visit my mother's grave."